Travel writer Alicia Valenski: ‘Travel isn’t just about seeing the world – it’s about changing it’ (EXCLUSIVE)

For travel writer Alicia Valenski — who has autism and ADHD — the hurdles she faces when venturing abroad involve more than delayed flights and missing luggage. But while it can certainly be challenging, the rewards for neurodivergent and queer travellers are plentiful.

Here, the lead of the Travel category of Attitude 101, empowered by Bentley shares her story (see here for all 10 influential figures who made our 2025 Attitude 101 Travel list).

Even through my earplugs and noise-cancelling headphones, I can still hear the screaming.

This isn’t your usual ‘confused baby on an aeroplane whose ears just popped on a flight for the first time’ screaming — that I can sympathise with, as an autistic ADHDer with sensory sensitivities of my own.

No, this is the din made by a hen party of a dozen straight women in their twenties drinking overpriced airport mimosas as they wait for their flight, each “woo!” growing in volume and pitch with every sparkling sip. This is on top of the usual airport terminal noise, from overhead announcements to people playing videos on their phones or making phone calls on speakerphone — or whatever other auditory onslaught they obtusely determine to be appropriate behaviour in a public space.

I tug my beanie down over my eyes to avoid the sunrise glare bouncing off the plastic penis necklaces around the giddy hen partygoers’ necks at the ripe old time of — I open one eye a minuscule amount to glance at my Apple Watch — 7:30 in the morning.

My rapidly rising heart rate pulses from the corner of the watch’s face like a warning. I make my way to the flight desk agent and brace myself for noise as I slip off my headphones and pop out my earplugs. “Hi, do you know if there’s a quiet space nearby?” I ask. “Maybe a yoga or meditation room?”

The agent looks up at me in my rainbow beanie and my sunflower lanyard — which I wear when travelling alone to indicate that I have an invisible disability — and she barely manages to avoid rolling her eyes. “Sorry,” she shrugs, before looking back down at her phone.

Shit.

I’ve learnt over the course of my life as an autistic ADHDer and travel writer how to make travel as comfortable and stress-free for myself as possible. My bags are packed with my medications, fidget toys, earplugs, noise-cancelling headphones, and a slew of other self-soothing tools on the detailed ‘make travel less of a sensory nightmare’ packing list my therapist and I created together years ago.

Yet here I am, approaching a meltdown. While travelling. In public. Again.

I feel the tell-tale tears hot and prickly against the backs of my eyes, threatening to spill over. I try to steady my breathing, but it speeds up, jagged and hitched. I clench and unclench my fists, trying to swallow back the mounting sensations.

Then I feel a hesitant tap on my arm. “Excuse me, I think I saw a nursing room a short walk away. Would that work?” says a woman I’d seen sitting at my gate two rows across from me. If memory serves, she’d been holding hands with another woman. We queer folk tend to clock each other in public spaces like that — I assume she had spotted my rainbow beanie and had therefore tuned into my conversation with the gate agent, recognising my distress.

She gestures for me to step onto a moving walkway. “Take this and then walk about two minutes, and it should be on your left,” she says. She has kind eyes that look concerned. “Take care of yourself, OK?”

I nod gratefully, walking quickly in the direction she has indicated, grateful for the drop in decibels as I put distance between myself and the shrieking hen party. I spot the room and, mercifully, it is vacant. I arrive just as my tears start to fall, shutting the door behind me as they turn into sobs. I let it all out, then drink from my water bottle as I re-regulate my breathing and work to, as my therapist says, “feel my feelings”.

I am thankful for that fellow traveller’s assistance, and I know I am lucky she’d been there, so that I didn’t melt down in front of an audience, but I am angry that I needed her help in the first place. Not because I should have been able to handle it on my own (as much as I like to pretend otherwise, autism and ADHD are disabilities, so they do occasionally disable me), but because airports and airlines specifically have programmes in place — like the sunflower lanyard programme, I think as I fidget with my own — that purport to support neurodivergent travellers.

But most of the time, that’s not the case. Most of the time when we’re travelling, we don’t have people who understand autism and ADHD around to offer help when things get tough. We don’t have the luxury of reasonable allowances being made for neurodivergent brains out in the world, whether we’re travelling for business or pleasure.

Instead, we prepare ourselves to the best of our abilities. We try not to be burdens to our travel partners, trip organisers, hotel staff, or anyone else we interact with throughout our journey. We put on our most convincing masks and contort ourselves into knots as we try to fit into a world designed with only neurotypicals in mind. It’s confusing. It’s exhausting. It’s unsustainable. And we deserve better.

When we travel as queer, neurodivergent, or marginalised individuals, we’re not just escaping our daily routines, we’re carving out space in a world that often forgets we exist. Every trip we take is a quiet protest against the norms that attempt to exclude us — a chance to demand more from the places we visit.

Your travel choices are more powerful than you might think. Such is my philosophy as a professional travel writer, and such is the central message of my debut book for Lonely Planet, The LGBTQ+ Travel Guide: Interviews, Itineraries, & Inspiration from Insiders in 50 Proud Places Around the Globe. By consciously choosing where to go, how to get there and who to travel with, you’re pushing for a more inclusive and equitable world. You’re not just exploring; you’re advocating for a future where the world is built for everyone. Every step you take is a statement, showing the travel industry that inclusivity isn’t a special feature; it’s a necessity.

Let’s be clear: the travel industry has the power to shape experiences, and that power comes with the responsibility to make them equitable for all. True inclusivity is more than a sunflower lanyard or a rainbow flag; it’s about designing spaces where everyone feels comfortable and celebrated. From sensory-friendly rooms to LGBTQ+ training for staff, the steps are simple. All it takes is a shift from token gestures to real change.

For travel companies, accessibility and inclusivity should be the foundation — not an afterthought. It’s time to stop waiting for marginalised voices to point out the problems. Travel operators should seek feedback. Consult with travellers from all sorts of marginalised groups, from the LGBTQ+ community to neurodivergent travellers and well beyond. Engage with those who have been ignored for far too long and put their needs at the forefront of your offerings.

As for us — the neurodivergent and queer travellers — we have every right to explore the world on our terms. Travel isn’t a privilege reserved for those who fit society’s mould. It’s a right, and one we deserve to take without compromise. Whether we’re navigating sensory needs or advocating for our LGBTQ+ identities, the world is ours to explore comfortably, freely, and without hesitation.

Every trip we take is a statement: our identities matter. Travel isn’t just about seeing new places; it’s about shaping a world that welcomes us. And the more we travel, the more we assert our place in it. Let’s embrace the freedom to travel unapologetically and demand that the industry rise to meet us.

Your next trip? It’s an opportunity to push boundaries. You’re not just exploring a new city; you’re contributing to a future where everyone can travel safely, confidently and inclusively. If we work together, we can ensure that travel isn’t just about seeing the world — it’s about changing it.

This feature is taken from issue 363 of Attitude magazine, available to order here or alongside 15 years of back issues on the Attitude app.

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