ADHD Mom Travel Hacks for Less Stress Summer Travel | ADHD Travel Tips | ADHD Travel Checklist
Have you ever missed a flight?
Booked a non-refundable hotel for the wrong days?
Forgotten to renew your passport and needed to expedite it?
Forgot important medication and had to have your doctor call it into a pharmacy where you’ve traveled?
Forgotten your wallet while on a road trip, meaning you’re going to have to get gas at some point?
These are all travel oopsies I have made…and some within the last year.
But despite all the hiccups, I love, love, love to travel.
In fact, I often attribute my desire to become an entrepreneur to the fact that I wanted to have the flexibility to travel as often as possible.
But even for a travel enthusiast like me, travel planning and packing with ADHD can be quite stressful—it’s like an adventure before the actual adventure begins.
So if you've ever packed five chargers but forgot your underwear (which I have also done), you’ll understand why I wanted to unpack (pun intended) how to plan and pack for your travel this summer or any time of year without losing your mind.
ADHD Travel Planning Tips
Travel planning, as with all other types are planning, requires quite a bit of executive function.
There’s decision making about where to go, how to get there, and what to do.
You’ll need to organize transportation and where to stay.
You need to follow through with making the plans you’ve planned or payments due.
And us ADHDers tend to gravitate towards the “fun” or “exciting” parts of travel planning like where we’ll eat or what activities we’ll do while we’re there often before nailing down the important nuts and bolts like when we’re going or how we’re getting there or do we need to renew our passports?
And don’t get me wrong, I have totally planned my share of trips last minute. And those trips were great.
But I have also had my fair share of disappointments when the Air BnB I had my eye on is no longer available because I waited too long to book.
Or when plane flights sell out for the time I wanted.
Or when I have to pay to expedite my passport renewal because I waited too long to renew, like I did last summer.
But, when you take the time to break down the planning steps and create a timeline of what needs to be done when, you will often enjoy your trips more because you’ll feel less stressed during both the planning and vacationing stages.
To start, break your trip planning actions down into different categories. By doing so, you’re breaking a task or project that feels big and overwhelming like “Planning your summer vacation” into more manageable tasks that may be easier for you to make progress on.
In general, you’ll likely need have planning categories like…
Where you're going
When you’re going
What will you need to bring/have/buy
How you're getting there
Where you're staying
What you’ll do while you’re there
What/How Much to pack
Once you know the steps involved in what you’re planning, you can start to create a timeline of what you need to do when.
For instance, you’ll clearly want to pick where you’re going and when first because all the other tasks are based on this information.
And while I do love randomly looking around at what cool hotels or vacation rentals are available in my favorite spots, it doesn’t do me much good to spend my planning energy picking out places to stay that may not be available when we plan to go.
Then after you’ve chosen where and when, consider the actions that require action to avoid missing out…how you’ll get there or where you’ll stay.
You should also check if you need to apply for or renew your passport or apply for a visa, which can take some time.
The planning needs and timeline will vary from family to family and trip to trip. This is why I suggest starting with figuring out what you need to figure out. Then decide the best order to cross those planning steps off based on due dates or immediate needs.
And a last planning tip as you get to the fun part…what you’ll do while you’re there…Be sure to plan for some downtime.
When we’re excited about our trip and all the adventures we want to have, it can be hard to remember that our ADHD brains actually run better when we have a regular routine and structure.
And I know far too well that the ADHD way is to pack as much as you can do from sun up to sun down every day. Because how do you know if you’re ever going to get a chance to come back and bungee jump into a shark pit at the bottom of a waterfall ever again?
But as much as our ADHD brains love new and novel and exciting and different, we can also start to burnout and shut down if we’re overstimulated for too long. Even on vacation.
Not to mention, travel means we’re making additional decisions and experiencing extra transitions which take a lot of executive function energy.
Add to it an element of the unknown and maybe even a time change impacting our sleep or eating habits and we could have a full blown executive function meltdown on our hands.
So as you plan your daily activities, be sure to build in some buffer time to recharge…for both you and your kids.
Maybe you spend mornings doing excursions and afternoons lounging by the pool.
Maybe you ask each person in your family to choose a primary activity for a day on the trip and keep the other days open for less energetic activities.
Whatever works best for your family or travel companions. The big takeaway is to have some unscheduled, unplanned time in your schedule each day to give everyone, neurodiverse or not, a chance to rest and recharge.
And once we’ve dotted all the I’s and crossed all the t’s planning our trip, all we have left to do is pack.
Or overpack. Which is why I wanted to spend a little time talking about travel packing before we wrap up today.
ADHD Travel Packing Checklist
It will come as a complete shock to pretty much no one that’s been watching or listening to me for a while that my first packing suggestion is to “create a checklist.”
But lucky for you, I’ve already done some of this work for you.
I’ve based the checklist on the essentials for you and your family and you can totally just download and print when you’re ready to plan what to pack.
But I know that every family’s needs are a little different. That’s why I’ve included a Canva link and QR code so you can adjust to create a list that works best for you.
So be sure to stop by and pick up your free travel packing checklist at bit.ly/ADHDtravelchecklist.
And if you’d rather just make something for yourself, here are the basic categories you will likely need for any trip, long or short.
Clothes & Shoes…including ss shirts, ls shirts, jackets/sweaters, underwear, bras, socks and any activity or seasonal/weather based items like hats, gloves, swimsuits, hiking boots, etc.
Documentation…including your passport or enhanced license, birth certificates, document copies, and medication letters.
Toiletries & Medications…be sure to consider the length of your trip and make sure you have enough prescribed medications to cover the length of your trip.
Electronics…including tablets, laptops, chromebooks, chargers, charging blocks, charging cords, video game systems, headphones, and converters if you’re traveling to a country with different plugs.
Work Stuff…including papers, notebooks, planners, and laptops.
Double Check Must Haves…including anything you want to make double sure you have before walking out the door like your wallet, travel documents, cell phone, and medications.
I keep a copy of my basic travel checklist saved on my computer and print it out before each trip, even the short weekend trips up to my parents 2 hours away.
Because truth be told, it’s those trips when I think “It’s just a couple days. I won’t forget anything important” and I’ve forgotten my meds and my wallet (and I was very thankful for Google Wallet that trip!)
Another bonus to having a printed list of what needs to be packed, my kids pack for themselves. Sure I usually give their piles or suitcase a once over to make sure it isn’t all sweatpants. But for the most part, at 13 and 11, they typically pack everything themselves, which makes 2 fewer tasks for my overworked ADHD brain.
Once you have a basic list of what you’ll need to pack, you can start to plot how much you’ll need for this particular trip.
And I highly recommend choosing the bag or suitcase you’ll take prior to pulling items out of your closet or dresser so you’ll see how much space you’re working with. Especially if you’re dealing with limited trunk space on a road trip or plan to do carry on only luggage for a flight.
Tips to Avoid Overpacking
If you’re worried you won’t have enough room, here are some tips that can help you prevent overpacking and make the most of the space you have.
1. Choose Shoes First – Shoes are arguably the bulkiest item you’ll pack to wear. So if you can limit the number of pairs you’re packing, you’ll free up some space for other important items.
For instance, if you’re going on a cruise but you don’t have room for 5 pairs of heels, choose 2 pairs and then coordinate your dinner dresses with those 2 pairs of shoes.
Also, if possible, wear your bulkiest pair of shoes on your travel days so they don’t take up a ton of space you’re your bag or suitcase.
2. Pack Outfits, Not Options – You may be able to streamline what you bring if you think in terms of complete outfits as opposed “I’ll be gone for 7 days so I’ll need 7 pairs of shorts and 7 tops.”
Not only will this make getting dressed each day easier because you’ll know that parts and pieces you’ve brought for each outfit, it also prevents you from dedicating your previous packing space to something that doesn’t coordinate with anything else you’ve brought.
You can also look for pieces you can re-wear with others. Think bringing one pair of dark jeans and one pair of light jeans and coordinating all your tops to go with either pair. Or making sure that each outfit you’ve packed will go with your favorite black cardigan sweater so you don’t have to bring additional bulky sweaters or jackets.
3. Plan to Do Laundry, If Available – Take it from a recovering over-packer, the memories and pictures from my trips were just as amazing when I spent 2 months wearing what I could fit into my backpack as they were when I brought an entire suitcase for just for shoes to my sister’s wedding weekend.
And how was I able to survive for 2 months wearing only the clothes I could fit in my backpack? Because I did laundry.
It would be rare to travel where you wouldn’t be able to do laundry yourself, find a laundry mat, or have your hotel do a load for you.
Bonus mom travel trip I’ve adopted from a former organizing client…if you can, do laundry the night before you come home. That way you just unpack most of your suitcase rather than doing laundry first. Genius!
4. Pre-Pack Purge – Finally, if you’ve chosen your shoes first, coordinated your outfits, and decided which items you may need to launder so you can wear more than once, you’re probably ready to start loading up your bag or suitcase.
And as you load everything in, there will no doubt be a few items that found their way into your piles in you may not actually need.
So if you find your suitcase or bag is filling up faster than you expected, choose 1 or 2 items that you may not actually need before you zip it up. Having a little room in your suitcase for souvenirs or so that it doesn’t cost you extra money to check is never a bad thing.
