My travels with MS

I love travelling. When I was younger, I was used to hopping on and off planes, and visited many different countries over the years. Flying, and travelling in general, had been a breeze back then. 

Before mobility became an issue for me, my last trip on a plane had been in 2016 on a family holiday. In the intervening time, my mobility difficulties became more real and began affecting my daily life. Even getting on a train or a local bus started to feel challenging. So the thought of any kind of travel other than by car was anxiety-inducing.

Planning the trip abroad

Even so, last year, in 2024, I planned a trip to the South of France to visit my daughter who was studying there. After so many years of keeping my travels confined to the UK, it was a huge event in my life. Not just because it was my first-born’s twenty-first birthday, but because it was the first time in eight years that I had ventured further than Cornwall.

One of the main concerns I anticipated on the day was the walk through the airport. So, thinking ahead, I booked assistance. This was quite simple to do at the time of booking the plane tickets. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it seemed. 

I decided not to take my own wheelchair on this short trip. My husband and I didn’t know how everything would work at the airport if we had no ‘official’ assistance booked. Or whether my wheelchair would be able to deal with the cobbled streets of a pretty French town when we arrived at our destination. This was new territory for both of us, and we had more questions than answers.

Special assistance at the airport 

The first problem we encountered was locating the special assistance desk on arrival at the airport. Not the best start. I sat on a chair while my husband did some walking around, trying to find it. It turned out I was sitting right next to it! When we checked in, to my surprise, I was shown a photograph of a flight of steps. I was told that I’d need to be able to walk up the steps to get on to the aeroplane. Fortunately for me, this was something I could do, albeit slowly and with difficulty. But I don’t know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t been able to do this.

Nearer to the time of the flight, a lovely lady came along with a wheelchair and we travelled through security and towards the gate. It definitely made things easier to be with the employee, who knew where they were going and could also use some easier routes to bypass crowded areas. Getting through security was a little overwhelming for me. Because I was in a metal wheelchair that would clearly metal trigger the metal detector, both it and I were manually searched, which I wasn’t expecting.

Navigating accessibility issues

Apart from the steps, getting onto the plane and into our seats was manageable. It was at the other end, when we arrived at the airport in France, that we experienced our first real ‘hurdle’. The assistance we’d booked to provide help getting me from the plane and through the airport wasn’t there. The staff were very helpful, though. After explaining as best I could in my rusty French what the issue was, they gave us a ride in a van to the building, where we were met by a member of staff with a wheelchair.

To make life as easy as possible, we took a taxi from the airport directly to the hotel. What we didn’t realise was that the hotel was located in a pedestrianised area, inaccessible other than by foot, and so we had to walk for the last part. It would’ve probably taken my husband two minutes to walk that had he been alone, but with me it was more like ten. Still, despite the cobbles presenting an added challenge, we finally made it to the hotel, exhausted but in one piece. 

Our room was lovely. But despite requesting an accessible room and checking in advance that there was a lift, it turned out to be the only one accessed by a small set of steps. Again, not impossible for me to negotiate but something I could have done without. 

All in all, the experience was less stressful than I had anticipated. I was really happy I hadn’t let my trepidation (or my MS) stop me from taking what turned out to be a wonderful, memorable trip - seeing not only our daughter but also seeing a new and beautiful place with my own eyes. Priceless.