The Amazing Race 34, Episode 3

Innsbruck (Austria) - Bologna (Italy) - Florence (Italy)

Travel, the autism spectrum, and the pandemic

Have you ever been in the middle of a big trip and thought, “I just want to go home”?

That’s what happened to Sharik near the end of an especially long day of navigation, driving, and (sometimes physical) challenges in this double-length leg of The Amazing Race 34.

After Sharik’s meltdown was broadcast, she posted, “If you have something unkind to say about tonight’s episode, remember that neurodivergent people exist and can be triggered by anything!”

Sharik’s father and partner in the race, Linton, posted, “We have all felt like giving up at some point no matter the reason. Editing left out a lot about Sharik’s mental health and anxiety.”

As I’ve often pointed out, self-awareness of your skills, weaknesses, habits, and tastes is important to making real-world travel choices as well as to success in The Amazing Race. An autism spectrum self-diagnosis has helped me understand who I am and make choices accordingly, including travel choices. Kudos to Sharik for knowing herself and being able to recognize what was happening. Kudos to Linton for working through the crisis with her and keeping them both going until they got a chance to rest and reconsider.

Don’t be too sure that this wouldn’t happen to you, or that you wouldn’t let it happen on camera. From my own (much less stressful) experience of on-camera travel with a BBC television crew, I know how quickly and inevitably one loses track of the cameras and microphones, at least if you aren’t a professional actor.

If you don’t want whatever you do to be seen and subject to criticism, including how you behave under stresses deliberately imposed by the TV producers, you don’t have to take part in “reality” TV. The producers don’t want anyone to get hurt. A mid-race breakdown could be costly in lost production expenses and/or in liability for any lasting damage. Cast members I have interviewed have told me that they were each interviewed by a psychiatrist to weed out anyone who seems likely to pose a danger to themself or others. But the producers want emotional drama to attract viewers and sell ads. I imagine that it’s sometimes difficult to tell what will set up tears (good) and what will trigger trauma (bad).

Living in physical isolation from other people (to a greater or lesser extent depending on our living situations, jobs, wealth, and other sources of privilege) for several years during the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t helped any of us maintain or improve our social skills. Sharik may have been the first member of the cast of of The Amazing Race to melt down on camera this season, but it could have been me, or you, if we had been in her place.

Re-emerging from our COVID-19 cocoons is disorienting and stressful. This psychological phenomenon was anticipated starting more than 60 years ago by Isaac Asimov (often assessed, in retrospect, as having been on the autism spectrum) in his prescient pandemic must-read novels of physical distancing, virtual meetings, fear of contagion, and cross-cultural travel, The Naked Sun (1956) and The Robots of Dawn (1983). This aspect of the return to a post-pandemic “new normal” is true for everyone, but perhaps especially true for people on the autism spectrum.

For more than a year after the outbreak of COVID-19, I was never further from my home in San Francisco than I could get, and return, in a day, by bicycle. I resumed travelling only after I was vaccinated, at first only to see elderly and ailing relatives.

The first time I travelled to a gathering of strangers in a distant city was to take part in a panel and receive an award at the annual meeting of the Peace and Justice Studies Association in October 2021. After a year and a half in the familiar environs of my home, previously routine travel experiences such as walking down a street in Milwaukee and eating with a group of strangers at a campus conference-center buffet seemed exotically unfamiliar and induced an almost overwhelming sensory overload, as though I were on some psychedelic drug.

Taking it to the next level, I’m now planning my first trip outside the USA since the pandemic, to a conference in Brussels later this month. (Some of my columns on The Amazing Race 34 may be posted late, depending on whether I can access the CBS-TV video stream abroad.) I’ve visited Brussels many times before, but I expect a degree of pandemic-recovery culture shock when I get there.

As with the “reverse culture shock” experienced by travellers returning home after a long stay abroad, what once seemed a “normal” aspect of travel can be overwhelming to anyone, autistic or not, who hasn’t been in a crowd or in an unfamiliar place for months or years.

I’ve written before about what to do when you a trip isn’t working out for you or a travelling companion. Changing your plans doesn’t have to mean that the trip is a failure, or that you are.

In his memoir, Turkey: Bright Sun, Strong Tea, my friend Tom Brosnahan tells the story of his first big trip with his wife. As a guidebook author, he wanted to show her as many of the highlights of their destination as possible in the available time, and he knew how to organize the trip to do so. That’s what a guidebook writer has to do to minimize their research time and expenses. But his wife soon rebelled, and demanded that he revise their itinerary to go fewer places, more slowly. He made that change in mid-trip, and they’ve been travelling together happily ever after.

When I read a suggested itinerary in a guidebook or a travel article (“What To Do With a Week in X” or “48 Hours in Y”), I generally figure that I will want to do no more than half of the things on that list, or take at least twice that much time. Your mileage may vary, but my suggestion is that as you begin to get your travel “sea legs” back, you plan to travel at a slower pace than your previous norm.

As you begin travelling again, or begin travelling further afield, plan to travel more slowly, with rest days and breaks. Leave your plans more flexible. Avoid package tours or cruises that lock in your pace and itinerary. Give your brain a chance to gradually get back into its travel groove. Celebrate the chance to experience the world anew and to see the world with a fresh eye!

Are you travelling again? What seems different than before? Is that because the world has changed during the pandemic, or because your perspective has?