[ TIPS · THE DISPATCH ]

How to Plan a Trip Around Someone Else's Mobility, Not Just Your Wishlist

How I learned to plan a trip around a slower companion instead of my own wishlist, with real pacing tricks, the rest-stop rhythm that saved us, and why I now pick flat cities over staircase museums.

The first trip I ruined, I ruined with love. Genuine, well-meaning, “I booked us SO much” love. My mum has a dodgy hip and a stubborn streak the size of Yorkshire, and I’d packed our four days in Lisbon with eleven things a day because I wanted her to see everything. By lunchtime on day one she was sat on a curb near the Alfama, pretending to admire the tiles, actually just trying not to cry. That’s when I learned the first and best of all traveling with limited mobility tips: the plan is not for you.

It’s for the person who’s slower than you. And honestly? Once you accept that, the whole trip gets better. For both of you.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you. Most “accessible” travel advice is just lists of ramps. Useful, sure. But the real currency is pace, and pace is weirdly specific to a person. My mum can do roughly two solid hours of pottering, then she needs to sit for twenty minutes or the rest of the day falls apart.

So now, before I book anything, I do a dumb little experiment at home. We go for a normal walk and I just… watch. When does she slow? When does she start looking for a bench? That number — hers is about two hours — becomes the unit I plan in. Not “what can we cram in,” but “how many two-hour blocks does today have.” Usually it’s two. Sometimes one, if there’s travel involved.

Two blocks. That’s the day. And the moment I stopped fighting that, the guilt went away, which I didn’t expect.

Long travel days are where it all goes sideways, so I plan rest the way other people plan sights. Roughly every ninety minutes, there’s a sit-down built in. Not “if we get tired.” Scheduled. A café, a shaded square, a museum bench, whatever — but it’s on the itinerary in ink.

And the rest stops aren’t dead time. That’s the reframe that took me embarrassingly long. The twenty minutes on a bench in a square, watching some old men argue over a card game, a kid chasing pigeons — that’s the trip too. Maybe more of it than the cathedral we were rushing toward. Some of my favourite memories with mum are just… sitting. Coffee. Watching a place be itself.

I’ll say the thing out loud: some famous places are a bad idea, and that’s allowed. The climb up to a fortress with “incredible views” is not worth it if your companion spends the next day wrecked. So I started picking destinations by terrain, not just by fame.

Flat cities are gold. Bruges, Bordeaux, big chunks of Amsterdam (mind the cobbles though — cobbles are the silent enemy, they rattle a cane and a wheelchair alike). Places where the centre is one elevation and you’re not constantly negotiating with gravity. Bologna’s porticoes give you shade AND flat ground AND a wall to lean on, which is basically the holy trinity.

Museums, I now phone ahead. Every time. Not the website — the website lies, or at least it’s optimistic. I ring up and ask three things: is there a lift, is there step-free entry, and are there benches inside the galleries. That last one matters more than people realise. A museum with no seating is a museum you’ll see one third of. The the Prado, bless it, has benches in nearly every room and I could’ve kissed whoever decided that.

Late check-in, first night. Always. A long travel day will run over — it just will — and there’s nothing worse than racing a reception desk while your companion is fading. I also book lodging dead central now, even if it costs more, because the math is simple: a slightly pricier flat hotel in the middle saves you the energy of the commute, and energy is the one thing in short supply.

Folding cane. Lightweight, goes in a bag, comes out when the day gets long even if she swears she won’t need it. (She always needs it. She’ll never admit it. We don’t discuss this.)

And snacks. Low blood sugar masquerades as “I’m done, take me home” so convincingly. A banana and ten minutes have rescued more days than I can count.

The deeper thing here, the bit I keep relearning: a slower trip is not a lesser trip. We saw less of Lisbon the second time around and I’d swear we experienced more of it. You’re forced to stop. You actually look at the thing instead of photographing it on the way to the next thing. You talk.

So plan for them. Build the rest in. Pick the flat city. You’ll thank me, and more to the point, they will.

Best trip I ever planned had four sights and a lot of benches. Plan fewer things. Sit down more. That’s the secret nobody sells you.

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