Travelling With Chronic Pain & My Travel Plans For This Year *

-This post is in collaboration with Millercare-

Travelling never used to be a problem before my chronic pain started back in 2018 but now I find it hard to travel in a car if I'm travelling any distance over around 30 miles which is crazy, considering I was always up for spontaneous or planned days out when you're stuck in the car for hours on end before I became unwell. Now I find it quite draining and uncomfortable to be stuck in a car for even an hour and obviously that affects how I feel once I get out of the car too. So it's really knocked me back and makes me question what I feel I can push myself to do in general. However this year I've set myself a couple of goals and I've also thought about some things which could help me if I'm travelling further than around the 30-mile radius I can just about put up with. I'm not saying I'm going to jump on a plane and travel to a warmer climate any time soon but there are definitely a few places that I want to try and visit this year within the UK. Most of them are places which I used to love visiting before I got ill. So here are my "goals" and a couple of the places I'm hoping to visit this year.

My first goal is that I need to be realistic with myself and know that I'm not going to be able to walk around or do as much as I used to before I got unwell. But even if I get to the town/city I want to visit and walk around even half the amount as I used to, it's still better than nothing! It's places like Matlock, Bakewell and Manchester which I used to love visiting a couple of years ago, where I know I may now struggle to walk around now either because of my pain or the fear of flaring but the plus side is that there are loads of little coffee shops and things where I can go if I need to rest for a short spell. But when I know I've done enough for one day then I need to stop and go home and not overdo it. 

I also really need to make sure I give myself time to recover days after I've done a "big day out" as I like to call them haha. I'm a bit silly sometimes because I don't let my body properly recover if I've done something which is quite draining or could/has made my pain flare and then I just make myself more unwell for a longer amount of time. It's almost as if I'm punishing my body for not letting me do things I used to be able to do. It's kind of strange to be honest.

I'm also looking into mobility aids such as Lightweight Wheelchairs for travelling which could really help me when I'm in a big town or city. It also means I'd be able to push myself a little more and try and travel further distances because I know if I do travel for a longer amount of time then I know I don't have to worry about trying to walk around if my pain is flaring, as long as whoever I'm with is happy to push me around in the wheelchair. Obviously, with it being a lightweight wheelchair, it means it'd be easy to carry around in the car as well as being easy to take out and put back in the car after using it too.

I think the biggest "travel" goal for me this year is to visit Chester Zoo, which I know might sound really trivial to you if you are an abled person. But it's a big place and I haven't been in years. I just think it's a good goal to aim for because I really want to go anyway, I was hoping to go last year but I couldn't but that was mainly because of other things that were going on in my life as well as my fear of flaring taking over. I also love The Secret Life of the Zoo and every time I watch it, it just makes me want to visit ASAP. I'd definitely need some sort of mobility aid like a wheelchair to get around though so I think it depends on my confidence using a wheelchair too. But I really hope I can manage it this Summer!

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