RV Travel for Kids with Disabilities

Traveling with a child with disabilities can be challenging. Not always, but sometimes, or even, most of the time. For us, traveling with a child who is sensitive to light and noise, and whose epilepsy is controlled primarily through diet, going on a long flight has always been exhausting. We've flown across the country a few times and I have a lot more gray hair as a result. Several friends of ours with disabled children mentioned that they only travel by RV, because of the comforts it provides. And so this spring, we are giving it a try. I am writing from the road, and am here to say that I am madly in love with RV travel. It has changed our lives as parents of a child with disabilities. We get around, we accomplish our travel dreams, without the added gray hair. And here is why. You have a refrigerator, so you can keep your necessary dietary needs at hand. You control the noise and light. The kids have their own space, their own bed, their own routine that is much like their routine at home. You can stop to use the bathroom (inside the RV), but you don't need to bring everyone inside a rest stop to do it. That is super convenient, especially when you have one child napping while another has to go, go, go! You cook your own meals, which means you avoid spending money on fast food, or restaurants, or wherever you happen to stop to satisfy everyone at the moment. In Alex's case, he gets very stiff muscles from sitting in a car or on an airplane, but in the RV he can stretch out (while still in his seatbelt) and we can stop often to get out to walk or run. And if anything does go wrong, if he gets sick or has a seizure, we have our privacy and a quiet place for him to recover, which is huge. The very nature of public travel, trapped on an airplane, has always caused me tremendous anxiety. In an RV, that goes away. Of course, we travel to see the world, to get out of our routines, to experience new cultures, people and places, and that is all still possible in an RV, while maintaining the important aspects of our daily life that help enable Alex to be healthy and successful. I believe it is good for Izzy too, because she never hears us fussing about this or that which might be unhealthy for Alex while we travel. We just go with the flow, and even Mommy is smiling.