Neuro Voyages

About Me

I am an independent autistic person. I thought I'd put this blog together to share my experiences. It might help inspire some people, either neurotypical or neuro-divergent to do something similar.

One of my interests is travel and I have been doing this for about years.

I was extremely poor up until my mid thirties and still am quite poor as a consequence so I normally travel on a budget. When I first started, I would stay in hostels, but as I started to get pay rises, I could afford to travel to more exotic destinations on a higher budget.

I was diagnosed with atypical autism in 2017. I am able to function, just about, in the sense that I have so far been able to hold down a job for the last 18 years and I am able to live independently. This is mainly because I was forced to live independently from a fairly young age. My parents wouldn’t support me at home so I had to make my own way.

Solo Travel

I often travel alone. This is mainly because I have been unable to form many relationships with people. Occasionally, I travel with others, if I can find people to go with who have the same interest.

Joining a group to travel with is difficult for me as I have unusual tastes, I don’t have the same level of wealth of the average person in these groups and I get frustrated with being organised and often want to do my own things. This is why I’m best suited to travelling solo. I’m not saying it would be impossible to travel with a group, I just think that sort of thing is better for shorter domestic trips.

Sometimes, I have been able to travel with friends and that is a rewarding experience. It needs to be with people though who can respect my independence and allow me some freedom.

Non-Driver

Although I managed to pass a driving test years ago, I do not take to driving very well at all. It is something I’ve never been able to get the hang of. I tried paying an instructor to help get me into it, but it was going nowhere and I reached an age where I had to make the decision whether or not to just accept that I can only use public transport.

The reason I mention this here is that it has an impact on autistic solo travel.

Travel Limitations

The first limitation I face being a solo traveller is when wanting to do activities which are priced based on groups. The choice I have is either to pay more or choose to do something else.

Being a non-driver makes this worse as I can’t get my own transport and choose to just go somewhere.

Some places that I’ve been to, you need to hire a driver and this can cost a fortune if you are alone.

A lot of tours require a group to join, making it impractical for a person on their own.

Autism can get in the way, making it hard to understand what is going on, so understanding things such as how the public transport works, for example, can be extremely difficult in a foreign country.

Communication can be difficult and I can often cause misunderstandings which can get me into trouble.

Suitable Types of Travel

This is not universally true or the same for everyone, but this is what I’ve found are good travel ideas for a solo autistic person.

• Places that have good public transport links.
• Beach destinations because you don’t need to have a group with you unless you want to do activities like snorkelling. You can just relax on the beach and go for walks which are free.
• Places with plenty of activities and sightseeing can be great as it feeds my interests and keeps me busy.

Places that are Hard

Places with too much sensory overload can be difficult. On the plus side this is manageable for me if I plan things and take breaks.

Restrictive places. Places where you don’t have much freedom in the sense that you can’t just get up and go somewhere frustrate me.

Projects

Here are some projects I am working on which relate to travel and or autism.

If you are interested in my projects in any way or would like to collaborate on things then please contact me using the social media links at the bottom of the page.

This is a web app I have made which lets users build an itinerary. The backend uses AI to obtain information for any location in the world.

The plan is to expand this and make it a hub for solo travel. Some ideas that I have are generating postcards, offering help and advice and possibly having a platform where locals can advertise services.

This app is published on Google Play.

I created the app for people to plan their travel itineraries. It uses Open AI APIs to generate details on tourist destinations.

This is a brand I imagined. It's a website which has t-shirts with designs that I have made using AI generated art work.

I'm not sure how to shape this, but it'd be cool to create a movement for neuro diverse people using the brand name.