5 Travel Anxiety Tips for Neurodivergent, Autistic, and LGBTQIA+ Travelers

This is a transcript for a travel anxiety tips video posted to Kayley Whalen’s YouTube channel, and is drawn from her experiences traveling for this blog

Do you get travel anxiety? Maybe it’s related to being neurodivergent, autistic, and/or LGBTQIA+ ? I created these 5 travel anxiety tips to help you avoid anxiety, sensory overload, and autistic meltdowns/shutdowns during travel.

This travel advice is based on my experiences as an autistic Latinx trans & queer person with ADHD, Bipolar and Anxiety. I’ve now spent several years as a full-time traveler interviewing trans/nonbinary and neurodivergent activists around the world. These five travel tips are based on my experiences managing my mental health during travel. Yes, at times I’ve experienced anxiety attacks, sensory overload, and autistic meltdowns. These travel tips will help you avoid these experiences so you can have fun and stay healthy!

Full Transcript for 5 Travel Anxiety Tips for Neurodivergent, Autistic, and LGBTQIA+ Travelers

Hi, Kayley here with my travel hedgehog Bia, and I wanted to share with you five tips on how to avoid anxiety and overload while traveling.

Personally, I am a transgender and queer woman, I’m autistic, and I have ADHD, anxiety and bipolar. So some of these tips will be specific to the autistic experience, because that’s part of my experience. But I think most of these tips will help you out if you get anxiety in any shape or form, especially related to being disabled, neurodivergent and or LGBTQIA. Here we go with the five tips to avoid anxiety and overload while traveling.

Tip 1: Researching Lodging, Transportation, and Culture

I’m going to start with tip one, which is researching ahead of time, where you’re going to stay, transportation, the culture of where you’re going, that includes food and LGBTQIA+ acceptance, and what activities you might do. Food is often a big trigger of anxiety for me.

So when I book accommodations, I often make sure they have a kitchen. And I also research ahead of time the culture that I’m going to. What are the main dishes that I can expect? So one tip I have is research and actually maybe go to a restaurant or try out a recipe of some local foods before you travel. So you can know which foods might fit your dietary and sensory needs, and which are just not going to work out for you.

So knowing some basic language and social norms, like how people greet each other, is really going to help you ease some anxiety. Knowing that in Thailand, people might greet each other with a wai, that helps to know what to expect when people greet me and I want to show respect to others.

Knowing that in Latin America, people might give me two kisses on the cheek prepares me for something that might actually be a little anxiety-inducing. I’m not great with strangers kissing me on the cheek. But maybe if I know beforehand that’s a cultural norm, I can learn to communicate that maybe I’m uncomfortable with it without sounding rude.

So another thing to research is how LGBTQIA accepting that country is. Now before I travel to a new city or country, I will actually look up what the local LGBTQIA+ organizations are. I will contact local LGBT leaders and activists. And doing that, it often gives me people to connect with while I’m there, I might get invited to an event or arrange a dinner with the local activists.
And that way I’ll have a resource while there, if people are discriminatory, or I’m having a hard time being a transgender person or a queer person in that country.

So also booking transportation. I know from traveling that certain transportation works for me and certain transportation doesn’t. That’s okay, not everyone can travel on buses, it’s not always safe to travel on buses, like the chicken buses in Guatemala might not be safe for a solo traveler. And I learned that I can’t sleep on a sleeper bus in Vietnam, but I can sleep on a sleeper train in Thailand. So knowing those things, and learning those things, will help you ease anxiety while traveling.

Tip 2: Setting Reasonable Expectations

So tip number two is going to be setting reasonable expectations for yourself. Now, I know there’s tons of travel bloggers and YouTubers that love saying 10 things to do in a weekend, 20 things to do in a week, 10 things to explore in old San Juan in a day. You know, these things are known as listicles. They’re not reasonable for a lot of people to try to do these 10 or 20 things, especially if you’re neurodivergent or disabled in any way. And so setting a reasonable expectation is that you don’t compare yourself to other travelers, especially professional travel writers.

Do what you expect you’re able to do and have backup plans that, instead of 10 things or 20 things, try three things or five things. And if you end up doing just one thing while in that city, and that one thing is awesome, be okay with that. Setting reasonable expectations also means having backup plans.

Maybe you can’t go on that four hour bus trip to the floating village outside Saigon. But you can spend a day in Saigon visiting a Buddhist temple and just having a quieter day to yourself where you’re not doing as much. And sometimes you’re not going to be able to take that two hour ferry ride to that beach island vacation, but you can do something in town instead. And that’s okay. Set reasonable expectations. be okay with backup plans.

Tip 3: Managing Your Physical Health

Tip number three is you’re going to want to manage your physical health. Now, of course, managing your physical health, at any point is important to manage your mental health, anxiety and overload. But it’s especially important while traveling. Just because you’re traveling doesn’t mean that your needs and physical health change. So what you’re going to need to make sure you do while traveling is manage your food, your sleep, exercise, also things like stimming.

I have my little stim toy here. Making sure you do those things that help you avoid sensory overload and anxiety while traveling are going to be really important. When you’re traveling, you’re not invincible, you still need to look after your physical health. I know we want to try all these new foods that these YouTubers and bloggers are talking about. We know we want to go out and party and have a good time.

But just realize that your dietary restrictions and your mental health don’t change just because you’re traveling. Yes, we all want to let go a little bit. But realize your physical health comes first. Managing that is going to help you avoid anxiety and overload on the road.

Tip 4: Having Routines

So having routines helps you have something familiar when everything else might seem unfamiliar. So having a routine when you start your day, maybe a midday or evening routine to decompress or do some exercise before dinner. And having a nighttime routine to kind of deal with any overload or, again, decompress after socializing quite a bit. I know I definitely often need to excuse myself from evening social activities so I can have some time to myself to journal, do some yoga, maybe meditate and calm all the kind of sensory input and socializing before I go into an overload state from doing too much and doing too much socializing. So having those routines really helped me out while traveling.

And that includes in the morning, knowing that I have my herbal tea to help me with my digestion and anxiety. Knowing that I have my yoga mat with me. I have a nice little foldable yoga mat that’s lightweight. And knowing that I have some rice porridge or a Khao Tom (ข้าวต้ม), which is boiled rice soup in Thai.

Having some of that that I can start my day healthy really helps me manage myself. One of the routines was making sure, having some time to stim. This is a cute little stim toy. And making sure you have time to do any other physical or mental activities which help you before you become overloaded from the stresses of travel really helps out.

Tip 5: Self-Advocating

Tip number five, and this one might be hard to hear. But that is to self advocate. I know as neurodivergent and or disabled people, we have to self advocate for our needs almost every day and that doesn’t change when you’re traveling. This means ensuring that the place you stay has what was described when you booked it. This means learning to say no to certain situations which might lead you to anxiety overload. There are scammers and sexual predators which look to tourists as an easy target.

And finally, when you’re self advocating, realize that you and not anyone else, not the locals, not a tour guide, not a travel vlogger, you are the expert on your own life. So always remember when self advocating that someone might say “this place will be really fun. This hostel will be really great, this food you should really try it.”

But if you know that a hostel is going to stress you out, then don’t do the hostel. If that hostel is known as a place for social activities, maybe book
another place and stop by that hostel and hang out in the common area to socialize. If you know that something is going to hurt you as far as food, and it’s impolite to not eat it. Sometimes as a disabled person, you have to do the impolite thing and not eat. And saying no is going to be a hard but important skill to learn on the road.

Have Fun!

So, that’s my five tips. Make sure you also have fun. You’re traveling, probably for fun. I’m a digital nomad. So I travel to also vlog and interview LGBTQ people overseas. But I do it because I love it. And remember that you’re traveling because you want to travel. And, again, kind of setting those positive affirmations.

And being positive that yes, travel anxiety might occur on this trip. That is okay. But if I do these things beforehand, it might help me avoid that anxiety. And if it does happen, have a backup plan, do something else fun instead, I swear you don’t need to do those 10 fun things to do in that city to have a good time.

So that’s my advice as a newer YouTuber, looking to get my channel going. So if you like this advice, please take a moment to subscribe and hit that bell for notifications. And leave a comment if there are tips that have helped you out while traveling. If any of this advice helped you, then leave a comment and let me know and let others know to help them while traveling how to avoid anxiety and overload and enjoy their trip.

Final Tip: Travel with a plush

And one final tip. Well, I like traveling with Bia, my travel hedgehog. Having a plush helps me reduce my anxiety. So maybe you could try that out too.