If you must travel, then here are some things to think about: try to create an atmosphere of familiarity throughout the trip and be consistent, so they know what to expect when you take trips away from home.
1. Explain a little bit before hand what will occur -- we relieved a lot of anxiety from my oldest son by giving him "notice" before changes, even if temporary ones, that this is what is going to happen.... it made him feel better to "know" ahead of time. It really is just "controlling your environment" issues and it was really simple to explain .. and that is just a rule of thumb now for him.
2. Eat at familiar restaurants -- I remember taking a road trip with my son once ... one of our first family road trips, and he would not eat AT ALL unless, it was familiar setting. STRESSFUL.
He absolutely refused to eat food and fussed because he was hungry the whole time. So, we started thinking about what places we generally go to near home and decided to find them places on our pit stops. He would not eat once we got to our destination at their grandparents house either, so we had to eat at that familiar place ALL the time. That was costly! In the end, we learned that to keep peace and sanity and overall address a little boy's "eating" needs, we had to cut our visit at their grandparents short because he was not sleeping or eating well. We were worried about him at that point and decided we would not stay as long as intended and just head back home, but we were happy to see grandparents for a couple of days.
3. Take day trips near your home and stay over "one" night at same motel/ hotel BEFORE you take any big trips and use those same motels/hotels during the travels at a later point. It was like training them to sleep outside of our house and getting familiar with a motel/hotel so it would be familiar enough when we did travel and slept at that same motel/hotel....because they tend to look all alike anywhere you go! We just knew after that point, we would not stay at other's homes often and would have to spend the money on familiar hotels, if we planned to travel. Costly child! I know someone might argue that just going to grandma's house "often" enough would create that familiarity, but if you only are able to go once every five years or so, then that is not likely...and motels and hotels are a better guarantee.
4. Stick to their comforts! You know your child and traveling is not a time to experiment "new" things, so stick to those things that bring your child comfort. Bring their favorite toys, foods, etc.... for the road trip because they are usually more strongly attached to their "things" at home than they are at the people involved, sadly, enough, it is a lot like dealing with a child with attachment disorder issues. They will cling to their stuff. For my son, it might have been his favorite yellow shirt, even if it is out of season, but he finds comfort that it is where he can see it, just like at home.
5. I have had to learn the hard way, that there is no place like home....and you have to take the same security measures you do at home, anywhere else, so bring those things that help you keep your child safe....like a door chimer. One of our sons, when he is in unfamiliar territory likes to explore, but he won't tell you and just takes off to do it, so at home, we had to put chimer's on our doors to know if he was trying to leave......it is usually just a sticker, so you can use it on your hotel doors too and take it off when you are ready to leave. It will give you peace of mind, if you just make those adjustments. You might want to set it on a lower setting so you don't scare the whole "floor" tho.....lol
6. Plan out smaller trips until you figure out how to manage your kid on trips and build on that for future longer trips. I found that now my autie kids are older, that the trip in the car is nothing...it really is ONCE we actually get there and we are trying to live out of a suitcase for a short time. They have such low adaptation skills, that doing the smaller trips really help them adapt to the travel concept long before you attempt anything major.
We don't travel often because it is costly for us to stay in hotels and eat out all the time at familiar places, which we found was best for them, but also expensive. We take LOTS of day trips and someday we hope to take another "BIG" trip. I love to travel, so it has been a huge bummer to not be able to travel much....but in the end, we only travel if we have the money to so and feel we can keep our kids safe during the time away from home.
