Many travelers experience stress at airports, but for those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the experience can feel like navigating a complex video game. Hidden time traps, countless small decisions, and a high risk of losing essential items all amplify the challenge.
I speak from experience. I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until age 30, though my family had long noticed my restless energy and rapid speech. My journeys have frequently been marred by lost belongings, from wallets left in airplane pockets to passports forgotten—once even requiring me to purchase in‑flight Wi‑Fi so I could FedEx the needed travel papers to myself.
These mishaps led me to develop practical methods for reducing the unique challenges faced by people with ADHD. I recently discussed these approaches with Dr. Andrew Kahn, a psychologist at Understood.org who also lives with ADHD. His expert insights, combined with my personal experiments, form the six strategies outlined below.
Here’s what we both found to be most effective.
Trick 1: Early Arrival Strategies
Time‑blindness, a common executive‑function challenge in ADHD, makes it difficult to gauge how long tasks will take. For travelers this often results in missed flights. To counteract this, I create a concrete incentive to arrive at the airport well ahead of the required time. I carry a credit card that grants lounge access, so I aim to be there three hours before departure to maximize my lounge time. If a lounge isn’t available, Dr. Kahn suggests using other motivators. “So something like, ‘I’m going to get there on time, and I’m going to go pick out that really trashy magazine I want to read on the plane,’” he says. “Or, ‘I’m going to go get that really special coffee so I can sit there and just feel really warm and chilled and relaxed.’”
Trick 2: Set Alarms or Timers on Your Phone
Even with early arrival, it is easy to lose track of time—especially when enjoying a lounge facial or coffee. Setting phone alerts helps keep the day on schedule. Dr. Kahn recommends an alarm to start packing, an alarm to leave the house, and, critically, an alarm to step away from the airport coffee shop or lounge when boarding actually begins. These timed prompts act as external anchors for internal time perception.
Trick 3: Establish a Security‑Line Routine
The TSA checkpoint can be a sensory overload for anyone, but for people with ADHD the barrage of instructions, movement, and close proximity often triggers a fight‑or‑flight response. To prevent goofy mistakes like leaving items behind, Kahn advises going into the line completely prepared. Remove keys, loose change, and your phone from pockets and place them into an accessible pouch in your bag before you even step into the queue. I also use TSA PreCheck whenever possible; it eliminates the need to remove light jackets or laptops and usually shortens the line, reducing chaos.
Trick 4: Ditch Paper Tickets and Documents
Digital storage is now the norm for essential travel documents. I keep boarding passes, hotel keys, theme‑park tickets, and even reservations on my phone. Apps and Apple/Google Wallet provide seamless access and eliminate the clutter of physical paperwork. “If it’s on your phone, you can’t lose it unless you lose your phone,” Dr. Kahn notes. For me, this phone‑first approach removes hidden stressors and streamlines the travel experience.
Trick 5: Simplify Your Luggage
Multi‑zip backpacks with dozens of pockets are not a friend to ADHD travelers. More compartments increase the risk of misplacing items. I switched to a simple pack with two or three sections—like the Cotopaxi backpack I like—and I enforce a strict ritual: my wallet and keys always go in the same pouch. “I always put my wallet and my keys in one [pocket]—always put my phone in the other,” Kahn says. Breaking this routine, he explains, can cause anxiety to surge.
Trick 6: Use Your Camera Roll as a Backup
Working‑memory weaknesses are common in ADHD. Details such as hotel room numbers or parking spots are easily forgotten. I photograph the room door or key sleeve and my parking location the moment I check in, creating a visual backup I can review later. This simple habit ensures I never need to hunt for critical information mid‑night.
Play to Your ADHD Strengths
Successful travel with ADHD is about recognizing personal friction points, building smart routines to bypass them, and embracing the creativity and spontaneity that many ADHD brains bring. “Forgetting is OK,” Kahn says. “Figuring out how to remember the things you commonly forget is what makes us successful with ADHD. We can do everything with ADHD, but we just need to create some strategies.”
About the author
Sally French is co-host of the Smart Travel podcast and a writer on NerdWallet’s travel team. Before joining NerdWallet as a travel rewards expert in 2020, she wrote about travel and credit cards for The New York Times and its sibling site, Wirecutter.
Outside of work, she loves fitness, and she competes in both powerlifting and weightlifting (she can deadlift more than triple bodyweight). Naturally, her travels always involve a fitness component, including a week of cycling up the coastline of Vietnam and a camping trip to the Arctic Circle, where she biked over the sea ice. Other adventures have included hiking 25 miles in one day through Italy’s Cinque Terre and climbing the 1,260 steps to Tiger Cave Temple in Krabi, Thailand.
She lives in San Francisco.
