One day I’ll fly away…

… but not this year. Once again I am grateful that someone else has managed the nightmare hokey-cokey that is booking and unbooking our trips abroad.

The Canadian Rockies will still be there next year, and I am determined to stay in good enough shape to visit them. We have twice postponed our trip there. I say ‘we’, but it is Travel Counsellor Claire Walker who does all the heavy lifting. She’s a local travel expert who puts everything in place so that all we have to do is turn up.

When we were planning our New Zealand trip in 2018, I asked my daughter Rosie for recommendations. From a random list of places Claire constructed a perfect itinerary. She hand delivered something that looked like a little cheque book. It had all the vouchers we needed – for travel, accommodation, and activities – in chronological order.

Had anything gone wrong (it didn’t) she would have been on the other end of the phone to sort things out. Or, if it happens to be the middle of the night, Claire has the support of a 24/7 duty office.

Eye on the ball

Safari Consultant Mary Grimwood is another wonderful person to have on your side on holiday. In 2017 a tree house in the wilds of Zambia, my husband Robin woke with no sight in his left eye. The camp medic wanted it checked out. So travelling precariously by canoe, jeep, 4-seater plane and taxi we made our way to the Lusaka Eye Hospital. Robin moved through a series of examination rooms with shiny state of the art equipment.

A man kept coming out to reception and telling me how much each test was costing – well into four figures of local currency. It was terrifying. I had no clue how many kwachas to the dollar, let alone the pound sterling.  As the kwachas piled up in their thousands, I kept Mary – in her Suffolk office – up to date. She in turn made calls to the insurance company who reassured her it was all covered as long as I kept the receipts.  And then, as Robin had recovered at least half the vision in his left eye and didn’t have a detached retina, she got us the last seats on the flight back to camp the same afternoon. I couldn’t have done all that ringing around by myself, and my call roaming bill would have gone through the roof.

Smooth running

These anxiety-inducing travel moments are scary for everyone. Brain fog descends and we start making poor decisions or shouting at the people whose fault it isn’t. Anxiety can make Parkinson’s symptoms worse, so I’ll do anything to reduce it. Other things that make me anxious about travel are:

• DIY arrangements – if I try to book hotel and flight at the same time I may forget the time difference and end up at a hotel I reserved for the previous night…
• …or in the wrong city
• missed connections and delays
• COVID rearrangement and cancellation

You can greatly reduce anxiety by having someone you trust to make your travel arrangements. Or un-make them, as Claire has been busy doing. And re-make them nearer home if you like.

Comfort

Here are some other things an independent travel expert can arrange to make your trip more comfortable:

• flight and ground staff who are aware of requirements
• leg room
• priority boarding
• wheelchair if needed
• flights that take off and land at sensible times of day

Claire says:

“All of these are easily arranged with the airline if you know what you are doing, 30 years’ experience and direct contacts at the airline make this easier for us to navigate. Also contacts at hotels overseas make it easy for us to request things such as low floor rooms or a room near the lift.”

Play > One day I’ll fly away > Randy Crawford

This lovely Randy Crawford number comes with a safety warning – don’t let go of the handlebars. I was cycling round the Isle of Wight one summer and in sheer joy I started singing this. I let go of the handlebars and lost contact with the pedals. I very soon hit the tarmac, and I was lucky nothing was driving past, or the only flying I’d have been doing that day would have been in the air ambulance.

main image by James Wheeler from Pexels