If you or a travel companion has anxiety, it’s vital to the success of your trip to think ahead about how you can get the most out of your travels whilst prioritising your mental and physical health. Here’s everything I’ve learnt from a decade on the road as an anxious traveller with a significant other in tow.
By Jessica Holmes
Travelling with someone who has anxiety, whether it’s a friend or a partner, can be full of ups and downs as you endeavour to support them, look after yourself and enjoy the trip. As someone with anxiety which is exacerbated by travel and having the best ‘travel buddy’ I could ask for in my husband, I’ve learnt a great deal about how to support someone with anxiety whilst on the road.
How have I learn this?
Well . . . from panic attacks in Paris, tears in Tunis and breathlessness in Beijing: I’ve had anxiety since I was a teenager, and on more extensive trips around the world, it seemed that travel was fueling the fire, as it began to worsen in my early twenties.
Combining the anxiety I carried along with mishaps in Mongolia and niggles in the Netherlands, issues in our travel plans sometimes led to full-scale arguments with my travel buddy, and our early days of travel had moments of misunderstanding and a lack of communication.
Regardless of the anxiety I harbour, travel is my passion. I have had moments of clarity, bliss and joy whilst travelling that I believe are strong enough to conquer any fear.
At some point I realised just how hard my partner was working to support me through those moments of anxiety whilst on the road. He’d speak reassuring words, hold my hand, or leave a place if I said I needed to. He’d ask me how he could help, and I’d reply with small surface-level things he could do like making me a cup of tea.
After some time, I realised that I couldn’t answer his question of how he could help. I didn’t understand the anxiety I had myself, so how could I communicate it to him? I studied myself and anxiety. I made notes, I became curious, I researched. Most of all, I began to communicate better. My travel buddy and I talked and talked and talked some more. We came up with plans: actionable things we could put in place whilst travelling. We now understand each other’s needs completely.
Almost a decade on from the initial problems my travel buddy and I faced whilst travelling, we’ve both listened, learnt, and found the rhythm that works best for us. I want to provide you with some advice and guidance which may spare you those early difficulties that we faced way back when!
Pre-departure:
- Research. One of the best ways to prepare yourself for a trip with an anxious travel buddy is to read up about anxiety. The more you know about it, the more understanding and supportive you can be.
- Communicate. Sit down with your travel buddy and discuss their anxiety with them. Explain that you need to talk about it so that you can understand it and help them when they are anxious.
- Signals. Suggest to your travel buddy that you could come up with a hand signal or non-speaking way for them to let you know they are struggling, need space or need to get out of a situation. If you do this, practice using them prior to being in the moment.
- Planning and research before travelling. There are many ways that you can do this which you may find reduces the pressure on you, the supportive person, whilst on the road. Some quick and easy things to do are to research travel routes prior to leaving for the trip, previewing train or bus stations using street view on Google Maps, pinning places on Google Maps so that in the moment it will be easier and quicker to route to a location, reading information online on the activities you want to do and attractions you want to see whilst in a certain place. Make sure you discuss any things you want to do with your travel buddy, too, and let them know they can sit certain things out if they need or want to. Being prepared will make you a more relaxed and confident travel buddy. Don’t forget to pack all the gear you will need for your trip. Be sure to do an inventory with your travel partner. Having all the right equipment is likely to put them at ease as well and prevent situations where things become uncertain as this can lead to anxiety.
- Techniques. Ask your travel buddy what techniques work best for them when they feel anxious – do they find distraction helps? Or would quiet be best? Do they have certain breathing or grounding practices they can use? If not, could you research some online together?
- Rest and recuperation. A key thing to do when planning your trip! It can be very tiring experiencing the emotions of anxiety, and supporting someone through that can be just as, if not more so, tiring. Make room for down time and relaxation in your travel itinerary so both you and your travel buddy can rest and recuperate.
In the moment:
- Reassure and encourage. Reminding your travel buddy why they are on this journey when they are going through an anxious moment can help them gain some strength. Telling them that the feeling is temporary may also help. Hold their hand, rub their back, allow them to have some space if that feels right. Encouragement is a powerful thing and can really make a difference to your travel buddy.
- Strategy. Implement the strategies that you discussed and pre-planned with your travel buddy. Did they want to be distracted? If so, maybe chat to them about something exciting you’ve got coming up! Breathing exercises more their style? Remind them to take deep breaths, or do an exercise with them. Quiet and space required? Back off for a bit, but check back in if you are worried about their headspace.
- Patience. You will need to have a lot of patience at times – practise your own mindfulness techniques and exude calm if you can.
- Panic attacks. If your travel buddy has a panic attack whilst travelling, attempt to follow these steps: keep calm, attempt to get them to a quiet place, speak in short simple sentences, ask what your travel buddy needs, help them focus and slow their breathing, and stay with them until the panic attack subsides.
- Feeling anxious. If you find yourself feeling anxious at the same time as your travel buddy, this is totally normal – anxiety sparks more anxiety, and emotions can often be transferred between people. Remind yourself that anxiety is just an emotion that will pass like any other.
After arrival:
- Debrief. A great way to support your travel buddy with their anxiety and keep your communication open is to ensure that you talk about events after they have happened. Ask your travel buddy if they are ready to talk about it – don’t force them – and explain that you need to discuss it to process the emotions that arose for you. This can help you to learn from mistakes, too, if you didn’t understand something your travel buddy did or you missed a non-speaking signal.
- Notice. Keep track of when anxiety strikes for your travel buddy – is it more frequent in certain situations? Has it happened before in this way? If so, can you put things in place so that it doesn’t happen again? You could use a journal to keep track of it, if that helps you.
- Recuperation. Make sure you actually do rest and relax – you planned for it in your schedule, so don’t get excited and book an excursion instead. Slow it down and soak it up. Give your brain and your body some time to catch up.
- Be kind. Give yourself and your travel buddy a pat on the back. You are the dream travel team, with every journey increasing your understanding of each other’s needs.
You will have noticed that a lot of the work comes in before the trip or before anxiety strikes. This preparation is pivotal to the success of your travels with your anxious travel buddy. It’s not easy travelling with someone who has anxiety, but once you find the techniques that work best for both of you, you’ll find that the pre-departure steps are reduced to simply planning and researching the trip you’re taking. The more you travel together, the more these steps will become second nature, and you may even see a glimmer of improvement in your travel buddy’s anxiety. If we frequently expose ourselves to our fears and stay in the feeling without running away, we create new neural pathways in the brain that tell us we don’t need those anxious thoughts!
Top tips from an anxious traveller:
- Get to know your travel buddy’s triggers:
As important as getting to know someone’s favourite food, music or colours, finding out what triggers your travel buddy’s anxiety is a huge step on your journey to being the best travel buddy you can be. I am triggered by turbulence on flights, metros and tubes (I once got stuck on one), and crowds, as well as many other niches. My travel buddy makes sure he remembers these things so that he is prepared and ready to support me if I become anxious. - Understanding your travel buddy’s reactions and emotions:
Anxiety or fear can cause changes in mood and strong emotional responses. If you’ve noticed these things in your travel buddy, don’t ignore it. Once you are out of a situation that they find anxious, gently point the behaviour out to them – it will help them to learn and grow, reducing the chance it will happen again in the future. At the same time, it will also help if you understand that the reactions and emotions they are portraying are not coming from them, but are their response to the fear they are feeling. - Prioritise your own mental health:
Make sure that you are putting your own mental health before that of your travel buddy’s. It can be easy to become overwhelmed when we take on the emotions and needs of other people, and for their anxieties to fill up our own stress buckets. It is vital that you practise your own mindfulness techniques, whether this is meditation, exercising, or something else entirely. Emptying out your stress bucket and maintaining good mental health will not only keep you healthy, but it will allow you to be a better travel buddy.
So there we have it. You’re now armed with all the tools you need to be the best travel buddy that you can be for someone with anxiety. Having travelled for over a decade with anxiety (and most of that time with the same steadfast, calm and supportive travel buddy), I can say that whilst it’s not easy to travel with anxiety as your carry-on baggage, it is 100% worth it.
Here’s to those of you that support friends, family or loved ones with anxiety on the road – you fill our lives with so much joy and love, and we will be forever grateful to you.
Life Lovers Magazine® 