An autistic person travels in 2024

Recently, my wife and I travelled. Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Zagreb, Split and Hvar. Three weeks around Europe via train. We skipped Tahiti, as it’s not in Europe. It was a wonderful trip but complex. While I tried to prepare for the onslaught of change and triggering situations beforehand, I’m only a plastic human and prone to breaking. Spoiler: I broke a few times and treated those times as learning exercises rather than abject failures to punish myself over. Learning and growing. I’m a grower and a bit of a shower, so let’s get on with the show.

This was the plan for the trip.

• Train from Liverpool to London - 1 night in London
• Train from London to Paris - 1 night in Paris
• Train from Paris to Stuttgart - 3 hours in Stuttgart
• Overnight train from Stuttgart to Zagreb - 1.5 hours in Zagreb
• 6-hour bus trip from Zagreb to Split - 1 night in Split
• 1-hour ferry from Split to Hvar - 12 nights in Hvar
• 1-hour ferry from Hvar to Split
• 6-hour bus trip from Split to Zagreb - 40 mins in Zagreb
• Overnight train from Zagreb to Ausberg - 1 hour in Ausberg
• Train from Ausberg to Berlin - 3 nights in Berlin
• Train from Berlin to Brussels - 1 night in Brussels
• Train from Brussels to London to Liverpool
• Home

As you can see, that’s a lot of trains and complexity. Before we left I put everything into my travel app, Tripsy and also an Apple Note for backup. Either my wife or myself could email bookings to Tripsy and the app would build the trip for us. Adding places of interest was useful and easy. The idea being that I could research now and when we needed to find food I could handle there was a map waiting for us.

It’s the best app I’ve found, but the 3.0 UI is frustrating. There was a big update during our trip, which threw me off. For some reason, filters had to be set every time you opened the app. It would never open and show you what was around you by default. So every time, I had to reset the filter to where I was and tell it to show me cafes/restaurants. The app became more annoying than useful, and when you’re autistically overloaded, it was not fun to use. Maybe it was me, and I need to learn how to use the app. It’s one of those situations where you only need the app when you’re in the middle of a stressful situation, and that isn’t the time to learn how to use it. Previously, I would use Tripit, but the UI is for LinkedIn fanboys. There are alternatives, but Tripsy is my go-to for now.

Tripsy has an Apple Watch complication and app. I wish it could show the seat/carriage information on the complication. There are a couple of taps to get to that data, and when you’re dragging a suitcase, you want to glance at something, not tap, scroll, tap, scroll. On previous trips, I’ve always used Tripsy, but for whatever reason, I fought with it a lot on this trip.

Whatever app you use, use something to build an itinerary so you can easily glance at it. When you’re overloaded and against the clock you need to have a go to source of information that doesn’t require thinking. Open app, there’s the info and off you go. I can say from experience that this is incredibly important. Even if you think you have a plan for something, double check it and make sure you completely understand before you arrive. This is exactly what happened on our trip.

Our arrival in Berlin, after 12 days of sitting on a quiet beach and not having to make decisions, broke me. The information I had from the Airbnb host suddenly made no sense, and I became completely overwhelmed. Too many people, sirens, traffic, shops, lights, noise, strangers approaching me, strange people talking to nothing, and bad directions caused me to shut down. Everything we tried made the situation worse. We went out the wrong way, couldn’t find the bus, found an alternative bus that we just missed, and it rained. I booked an Uber and got us out of there. This could have been avoided if I had taken more time to read through the instructions and discuss the information with the host. Next time, do not assume the instructions can be trusted and have a backup plan.

This sort of situation occurred a couple of times on the trip. The pressure to decide against the clock with little information caused me to completely shut down, leaving me unable to think and make decisions. I would try and plan for it, but sometimes something happens out of your control. I need to learn to be calm in overwhelming situations... easy. Just imagine floating in a pool of jellyfish...

Being autistic often makes life more stressful than it should be. There are times when I can’t get out of a train station, choose what to wear, know what camera to take on a trip, or pick a milkshake flavour as there are too many permutations to run through while queuing. What it would be like to just travel without overthinking and being overwhelmed. To grab some clothes and a camera and wander. It would be nice, but I overthink whether I’m safe, where I can eat, and all the other worrying what ifs. Does any of it matter? My anxious autistic side believes it does. It keeps me safe but also holds me back. In contrast, my ADHD side says no, as it’s empowered by new and interesting experiences like getting naked and looking at the stars.

Tips for next time.

• Pack less.
• Don’t take clothes for dopamine dressing.
• Take clothes to reduce the stress of travel.
• Make as many decisions as possible before you go.
• Have options so that if something falls through, there’s a safe backup.
• Check directions to everything.
• Know how to navigate transport hubs before entering.
• Try to live in the now. A bad situation at a train station isn’t a memory to live in. It happened. When you can, move on.
• Recognize stress and anxiety, knowing that they’re the real problem in a situation.