Published on 12, July, 2020
Aged 7, I was on a coach on a school trip. Returning from a day out, there was no toilet on board, so went to the front of the coach and asked a teacher if they would stop because I needed to pee.
Instead of stopping, they forced me to pee into a bucket in front of the other kids.
This single event amplified into issues I already had travelling on public transport.
Today, after 10 years of London living and since moving to the coast, I still struggle to even step on to a bus. Trains offer a similarly difficult proposition.
I was wondering what issues you found with travel and if you had ways of overcoming them that I may learn from?
I don't enjoy travel because of the other people but also because of motion sickness.
I was constantly sick during and after journeys in the car as a child, but am also a poor traveller as an adult.
As a driver, I don't become unwell though, presumably because a lot of the sickness is caused by vision and one sees differently as a driver.
My favourite travel is by train but my ideal would be the train travel of the 20s and 30s, with plently of money, a dining car, and preferably on the Orient Express .
Before I learnt to drive in my 40s I had a moped and that was a good escape from public transport until I had quite a serious accident.
Before that it was a push bike.
I would always far rather travel independently than on public transport because of the noise, smells, overcrowding, heat etc.
Coaches with their lack of opening windows are the spawn of the devil.