Bit of background. I've had MS for nine years but walked fine until a bad relapse in February, and since then I've been in a manual chair most of the time. Still getting used to it if I'm honest. Some days are OK, some days the fatigue flattens me by lunchtime.
My partner wants to book a week in Tenerife in the new year because we both need sun and something to look forward to. Part of me wants that too. The other part of me can't imagine getting through an airport, a flight, a transfer and a strange bathroom when I still can't get in and out of my own car without thinking about it.
Did anyone else do a small trip first? Or is that just me being a coward about it.
Not a coward. My first trip after my injury was two nights at a Travelodge forty minutes from home and I have never been so pleased to get back to my own bathroom. Learned more in those two nights than in a year of reading about it.
Could you do both? Small trip in November, Tenerife in spring. Gives your partner the sunshine to look forward to and gives you a test run first.
#4October 17, 2026, 10:15 am Robbie K said:
Did anyone else do a small trip first?
Robbie, I did exactly that, and I recommend it to almost everyone who writes to me at this stage. My first trip after my spinal injury was two nights at a seaside hotel 90 minutes' drive from home, and nearly everything I do now grew out of what went right and wrong on those two nights. A short drive keeps every problem small. If the bathroom is wrong or the fatigue hits, home is a drive away rather than a flight.
Fran's plan is a good one. A night or two somewhere close this autumn tells you what you can do without your own bed and bathroom, how you cope with a day of new surfaces, and what you forgot to pack. Then Tenerife becomes a trip you are planning with real information, not a leap. When you do fly, book assistance at least 48 hours ahead, ask for your own chair back at the aircraft door, and carry the cushion on with you.
With MS specifically, fatigue and heat sensitivity are worth raising with your MS nurse or neurologist before you book somewhere hot, because they will know how heat tends to affect you and what to plan around. I have written up the step by step version of all this in the accessible travel guide, and the flying side is in flying with a wheelchair.
From the partner side, tell your partner the small trip is for the Tenerife trip, not instead of it. I'd have agreed to anything framed that way. What I couldn't stand was the idea of never going.
Showed my partner this thread. We've booked two nights in Whitby in a fortnight, in a hotel that sent me the bathroom door width in centimetres within an hour of me asking, which felt like a good sign. Tenerife pencilled in for March if Whitby goes OK. Will ask my MS nurse about the heat at my review next week.
Back from Whitby. Bed was too high, which I should have asked about, and I was wiped out by 3pm both days. But I did it, the shower was fine, and I came home with a list of six things for next time. Feels like the first time since February I've thought about the future without dread.
