5 Strategies That Get Us Through Travel with Children on the Spectrum

5 Strategies That Get Us Through Travel with Children on the Spectrum

We are a family that travels each summer — extended family, multiple generations, big groups, the whole chaotic, wonderful mess of it. Two of my children are on the spectrum, and people usually assume that we don’t travel much. That the planes, the lines, the waiting, the noise — it would all be too much.

Here’s the truth: the destination was never the hard part. The hard part is everything before it. The drive to the airport. The security line. The gate that changes three times. Nobody explains the boarding call. That’s where real work happens, and over the years we’ve built a handful of strategies that genuinely work — not magic, not a miracle product, just things we do every single time.

1. Everyone packs their own comfort container

Before any trip, each child fills a small bag or plastic container with the toys they cannot live without. It travels with them, not in checked luggage, and they can look at it or hold it whenever they need to. It’s not really about the toys. It’s about knowing something familiar is always within reach, no matter how unfamiliar everything else is.

2. Waiting is play time, not sit-still time

We don’t ask our kids to sit quietly and wait. Whenever we’re stuck somewhere — security, the gate, baggage claim — they’re allowed to play. Freely. This one small shift changes what “waiting” even means to them. It stops being a test of patience and becomes… time that’s theirs.

3. The blankets always come too

Same blankets, every trip, no matter the destination. They don’t change. They smell the same, feel the same, look the same. In a day full of unfamiliar everything, that consistency is an anchor.

4. The cooler is non-negotiable

Drinks and snacks, always available, always with us. Hunger and thirst are two more unpredictable variables we can remove from the equation before they become a problem.

5. We narrate everything, out loud, as it happens

This is the one people are usually most surprised by. We explain what’s happening, step by step. And when we see someone in uniform — a TSA agent, a pilot, a gate worker — we talk about their job, and what they do. Why are they there? It turns a stranger from an unfamiliar uniform into something to be curious about.

None of these is complicated. None of them cost much. But together, they’ve taken us through airports across the country with kids who, on paper, aren’t supposed to handle it well.

We make it work — every time.

I write about traveling with a large, multigenerational family that includes children on the spectrum — real strategies, no magic fixes, just what works.