I Didn't Enjoy Our First Ever Holiday Abroad as a ND Family.

+ July 2025 Chat Thread 💬

Hi friend, I’m Sophie, an introverted, coffee-loving creative and your guide here at Finding Simple & Calm, a forest retreat for burnt-out business owners, creative parents, and quietly ambitious souls whose body, brain or life doesn’t allow them to work a typical 9-5.

This is where I share stories of motherhood, neurodivergence, and building a slow, sustainable business in a world that wants me to have a ‘proper job’. If you’re craving a gentler way to work, a business that’s baggy enough to live in, and a life with space to breathe, you’re in the right place. You're so welcome here. Take a seat by the campfire.

Hi friends. How are you?

So we did it, we booked the holiday and we jetted off to Spain a week later.

When William gets unwell and needs to be in hospital, he tends to have a week or two of good health, so whilst he’d just been in hospital, it was actually the perfect time for us to go on holiday.

I’d romanticised our first family holiday abroad for the whole week until we flew. I’d planned to spend every moment enjoying myself, making memories with the children, being laid back and able to relax, so that we’d come home and all feel refreshed and content with each other and with life.

LOL. I was so naive.

Perhaps the reason that my husband and I have been together so long is that we’ve never been abroad together before. I also enjoyed my children a lot more back in England, where we could have our own space and not be on top of each other 24 hours a day for 7 days.

And the biggest challenge that I faced on my holiday was my neurodivergence.

Because I’ve only been abroad once in my life, when I was 4, I had no idea what to do in an airport. We dropped the car off in a strange lane, unloaded our suitcases and had to hand our car key in so that someone could come to collect it and park it for us. This baffled me, so of course I forgot William’s bottle of milk, which then stayed in the car for a week during a heatwave. It wasn’t pleasant to come home to. I swear I can still smell it in the car!

I needed to hand our car key in, but for some reason, I’d completely forgotten my car registration plate, so I got even more stressed. Once I’d finally sorted that out, I was given a piece of paper that I was told I must keep safe so that I could get the key back when we returned to England. Of course, I worried about that the entire time we were on holiday, and also lost it.

Then, what do we do? We had to check our suitcases in, but where do we go and how do we do it?! We found a machine that we could weigh our bags on ourselves. Of course, we did it wrong, and a member of staff had to help us when we got to the front of the queue. Also, we bought a really compact, foldable pushchair for William so that it could go in the overhead compartment of the plane. Except, we weren’t allowed to do that as it was too big.

Eventually, we’d checked our bags in, but then what? Where did we need to go next? We asked a member of staff, and looked like complete idiots when they said we needed to go through security and have our hand luggage checked. This was a whole new experience that I was not prepared for.

We went through, emptied our bags into trays and walked through the scanner. Everything was so serious. They checked William over and over, including inside his nappy. I genuinely thought they’d find drugs on us that we definitely did not have.

The older children looked terrified. We’d bought drinks for them but didn’t realise we couldn’t take them through with us, so they had to be binned. William’s milk was tested, we had to bin his non-prescription medications that we’d just bought as he’d come out in a rash, and overall, I just felt like a drug mule and an idiot.

All of this is expected to be common knowledge, but we’d never done this before, and we had no idea. The airport itself is huge and so busy, even at 3 am. But the worst thing was how bright it was! I’m very sensitive to light, and I really struggled walking through the airport because everything was so shiny and reflective and bright in my eyes.

Then it was time to board our flight, which we had to take a bus to get to the plane. Of course, it felt like the driver drove like Lewis Hamilton (I’m sure he didn’t), and I was holding on for dear life whilst protecting 2 children and holding a baby. It was chaos.

The takeoff was amazing to experience through the children’s faces. They absolutely loved it, and the excitement they had in their eyes just melted me. All for about 2 minutes because I immediately started feeling very faint and very sick. The entire 2-hour flight was spent trying to entertain William and not vomit.

By the time we got to Spain and through the other airport, which was another experience due to the language barrier, we eventually boarded our coach to the hotel. We queued for ages trying to check in to the hotel, and then we were told our room wasn’t ready for another 4-5 hours. We’d gone all-inclusive, so we were welcome to drop our bags in a secure room and help ourselves to something to eat from the snack bar.

My husband went out to the shop to buy some milk for William, seeing as we left his spare bottle in the car back in England. In the meantime, I helped the children get something to eat and drink, and we sat at a table. William then pulled a full drink cup over me, and I was soaked. At this point, I just burst into tears. I was so tired, overwhelmed, overstimulated, hungry, feeling nauseous, and on my own in a restaurant in another country where I didn’t have access to my clothes or a space where I could change.

The other holiday makers must’ve thought I was crazy. My husband returned to pure chaos and tears and asked the hotel staff if we could possibly have our room any earlier. We eventually got to our room, and it was lovely. I got my things ready to take a shower, and my husband put the kettle on because I was desperate for a coffee. And then the lights kept going out, and the electricity kept tripping. So no shower, no coffee, no air con! After multiple trips to reception to let them know the electricity was faulty, a member of staff came to our room and explained that we needed to keep our key cards in a holder by the door to keep the electricity on.

I was so embarrassed.

It was pretty much a huge learning curve for us. We knew nothing, but at least we know now if we ever go abroad again. Yes, we spent far too much time together as a ND family, we didn’t like the food or being surrounded by people in the hotel pool, we were all far too hot and we burnt despite soaking ourselves in suncream (which, as a ND family, we absolutely HATE). Yes, it was awful sometimes, but it was also magical.

The children really enjoyed it when they weren’t arguing. My eldest loved the evening entertainment, and seeing her dance and join in just melted my heart. My middle child lived in the sea and the pool, and especially loved all of the football kits that were laid out on the pavement for people to buy (what’s the deal with that? Why do people hound you to buy football kits, handbags and perfumes?). William enjoyed being in the water or on the beach (eating sand thanks to his Pica). He has no social awareness and would just wander up to people and sit with them. Lots of them found it cute, and there was a lady in the pool that he walked over to, sat on her knee, snuggled in and went to sleep on. It was the cutest thing ever.

Will we go on holiday again? Yes. Will it be abroad? Yes, but somewhere cold. My middle son asked if we could go to a log cabin covered in snow and walk in the forests and mountains. He’s 100% my child. I couldn’t think of a better holiday than that. That’s one of the biggest things I found strange and that I couldn’t adapt to whilst on holiday. There was no greenery. We live in the countryside, so we’re surrounded by fields, woods and forests, and there’s a nature reserve at the end of our street, so to not have that felt so weird. I couldn’t wait to see the trees again when we got home. I definitely belong in a forest.

So yeah. Lots of new experiences and memories were made, and I feel so grateful that we were able to give our children a holiday abroad, finally. But, I think it’s ok to be grateful for an experience, but not love it. So many people have said, “You could go abroad for the price you pay to holiday in the UK”, and they’re not wrong. But I was made to feel like we were missing out and neglecting to give our children the annual family holiday abroad experience. When actually, there’s nothing we love more than getting in the car and heading to The Lakes, in a cosy cabin, with our 2 sausage dogs, in the winter and walking through nature in peace on our own.

It’s ok to want something different to what everyone else wants. We’re different, we know what we like, and it may not be what others would do, but it’s what we do, and now we know this truly.

Welcome to this month’s Campfire Chat Thread, free to all of my subscribers! I’m so excited to create this space for conversations with all of you.

Recap on how it works:

Imagine we’re all sitting around the campfire, it’s cosy and relaxed. We have our drinks of choice, and we chat and natter about whatever is on our minds, and the main topics of this community.

• Motherhood

• Creative business

• Neurodiversity

• Mental health

• Slow living

I’d love to hear your thoughts, questions, and experiences. What’s going on for you in these areas right now? Is there something you’re navigating or figuring out? Maybe you have a question, a win to share, or just need a sounding board – this space is here for all of that. This community is here for you.

I’ll be hanging out in the comments, and I can’t wait to see what conversations spark from this! Feel free to reply to each other’s comments too – the more conversation, the better!

Speak soon,