Travelling overseas when you're not as steady on your feet

By Stephen Jennings, Owner — YOU Travel Napier (30+ years). Last updated July 2026.

The best way to travel overseas with limited mobility is to choose your transport mode around your body, not the brochure, and to plan it with someone who has done the trip. Picture the same holiday taken two ways. One traveller books it themselves, boards the wrong train in Europe and pays a £190 penalty before lunch, then spends the afternoon hauling a 23kg bag up a platform staircase. The other steps off a water taxi to find a porter already waiting. Same destination. The difference was decided before either of them left home.

This guide walks through how to make that decision well.

"I'm not disabled, does this even apply to me?"

Yes, and you are exactly who we plan this way for. Most of the people we help with this aren't disabled at all. As we often say, "it's people who just don't have a huge level of fitness, the most exercise they do is Tuesday when they go around the supermarket." The real load of overseas travel is the standing, the queues and the walking the brochure never mentions.

Think about where the energy actually goes on a trip. The queue at the Eiffel Tower. The slow shuffle through the Sistine Chapel. The thirty-minute walk from the security gate to your boarding gate. None of that needs a wheelchair to wear you out. It just needs an ordinary body that would rather not spend its holiday exhausted. Planning around that is the difference between coming home rested and coming home wrecked.

Choosing how to get around: car, train, flight, tour or cruise

Before you pick a country, pick how you'll move once you're there. The way you get around does more to shape a trip than the destination does. A rental car, a train, a flight, an escorted coach tour and a cruise each ask something different of your legs, your balance and your stamina. When we sit down with a client, the first thing we do is go through the different modes of transport and the pros and cons of each, matched to the person in front of us.

The sections below take each mode in turn, honestly, including the parts the glossy photos leave out.

Rental car: freedom, with a catch

A rental car gives you the most control over your own pace, which makes it the gentlest option for many lower-mobility travellers, but it carries two real catches: driving on the opposite side of the road, and parking. You stop when you want, rest when you want and keep your bag in the boot instead of on your shoulder. For someone who tires easily, that freedom is worth a lot.

The opposite side of the road is the part people underestimate. We had a client, a jeweller, pick up a rental car in the United States and hand it back on day two with a simple "I can't drive here." The controls on a European car are often mirror-reversed from the Japanese-layout car you drive at home, so your muscle memory fails you at the worst moment. The classic example, as Stephen describes it: you come into a roundabout, go to flick the indicator, and the windscreen wipers come on instead, because the stalks are swapped from the side you're used to. Where we can, we book the same make and model as the car you drive in New Zealand, so the controls sit where your hands already expect them and nothing is reversed under pressure.

Parking is the other quiet cost. A cheaper three-star hotel without on-site parking can mean circling unfamiliar streets at the end of a long drive. On a road trip through Croatia, Stephen booked four-star rooms the whole way for one practical reason: every one had parking on site. That logic is worth reading in full in our piece on why a four-star room often beats five, where the parking, the lift and the walk-in shower all matter more than a fifth star.

Trains in Europe: romantic in the brochure, hard work on the platform

European trains look effortless in the photos and are harder work on the ground, so they suit travellers who are steady on stairs and travelling light, and trip up those who aren't. Start with the luggage. Many platforms are reached by a flight of stairs, up or down, and there is usually no one to help you carry a 23kg bag, often against the clock as the train loads and pulls out within minutes.

Then there's where the bag goes once you're aboard. The luggage racks by the door are small and fill fast, with several people ahead of you already using them, and on a busy main trunk route like Paris to Marseille the seats are allocated, so you can't count on a spare one beside you to rest it on. That leaves the overhead rack, which means lifting a 23kg case above your head. A lot of people simply can't do that, and it's the single most overlooked barrier to train travel for anyone who isn't strongly mobile. Leaving the bag in the doorway isn't a real option either, out of sight and easy to walk off with.

The stations add to it. Step off at a busy hub like Florence and you can land in a crush of people all staring at the boards for their platform, everyone moving at once and you carried along with them. Do three trains in a day and you arrive worn out before the holiday has even started. On top of that, tickets are often app-only now and need validating before you board, and a single country can run several train companies each with its own system. Get one detail wrong and it's expensive. Sarah Peck, our senior consultant of more than twenty years, watched a couple who had boarded the wrong train get a £190 penalty for new tickets from the onboard conductor when he was checking tickets. This is the kind of trip where it pays to sit down with someone who has run the trains through Europe before you book a single ticket.

Flying: the airport is bigger than you think

The walk inside the terminal is usually the hardest part of flying, and it's the part nobody plans for. Modern airports are vast. At Milan, Sarah found the check-in desk was number 19, right down the far end of the terminal, and between reaching it, doubling back through customs and getting to the gate she was on her feet for a solid thirty to forty minutes, all while travelling with an 83-year-old.

The fix is simple if you arrange it early. Wheelchair and mobility assistance can be pre-arranged through both the airline and the airport for anyone who can't manage long airport walks, and it costs you nothing to ask. The same thinking applies to connections: if you move slowly, a 50-minute layover that looks fine on paper can mean a stressful sprint between gates. We build in connection times that match how you move, not how the timetable assumes you do.

When letting someone else handle it is the smart choice: coach tours and cruises

For travellers who want the holiday without the logistics, an escorted tour or a cruise is often the easiest mode of all, because the hardest parts are handled for you. Your luggage is moved, the pace has rest built into it, and on a cruise you unpack once while the scenery changes outside the window.

An escorted small-group tour takes the daily puzzle of "how do we get from here to there with the bags" off your plate entirely: your cases are moved for you, and the pace has rest built into it. A river or ocean cruise goes a step further. Our river-cruise specialist Zara, who has sailed the Rhine, puts it simply: your hotel moves with you while you sleep, so there's no repacking, no dragging bags up station stairs and no hunting for the next platform. You wake up somewhere new with nothing to organise. For anyone who finds the getting-from-place-to-place harder than the places themselves, these modes quietly remove most of it.

Small things that save your energy: hotel location, porters, skip-the-line

Small frictions add up faster than any single big problem, so the details are where a planned trip pulls ahead of a self-booked one. Hotel location is the clearest example. We measure it in time, not just price. A room that's 20 minutes from town is fine; one that's 90 minutes each way can steal hours of your actual holiday in transit you never planned for.

A few more that matter when your energy is limited:

• Get the bags carried. On a trip through Venice, Sarah stepped off the water taxi at St Mark's and a porter with a trolley took the bags straight to the hotel through the alley maze. Twenty euros, and as she tells it, the best twenty you'll ever spend.
• Pay for skip-the-line and VIP entrances. They cost more, but for limited energy they are, in Stephen's words, "well worth it, you see more in a day."
• Build in rest days. Pacing is part of the plan, not a luxury bolted on at the end.

It comes back to one line we use a lot: "if you're time poor, you need to be cash rich; if you're time rich, you can afford to be cash poor." Spending a little more to remove friction buys back the very thing a holiday is for.

Why it pays to plan this with an agent

The single most useful thing you can do is sit down with someone who has travelled the way you're about to, and let them check the things you wouldn't think to ask. This is where talking to an individual really matters. We go through your fitness honestly, match the transport mode to it, and then make the calls you'd never know to make yourself: the airline's assistance desk, the hotel about its lift and its shower, the rental company about a same-layout car.

Left unplanned, none of these is a disaster on its own. The trouble is they compound. The long gate walk, the wrong train, the hotel with no parking and the staircase with a heavy bag stack up into a holiday that wears you out instead of restoring you. When someone has planned it properly, those small problems never get the chance to meet each other. If that's the trip you want, sit down with us and plan it properly — we're a family-owned agency here in Napier, and building trips around how people actually travel, not just where they're going, is exactly what we do. And if you're still weighing up whether an agent is worth it at all, here's why booking through an agent is the smart choice.

Common questions

Can you arrange wheelchair or mobility assistance at the airport?

Yes. We pre-arrange wheelchair and mobility assistance through both the airline and the airport for clients who can't manage the long walks between check-in, security and the gate. Airports are far bigger than most people expect, and a gate can be a thirty to forty-minute walk from check-in. Request it well ahead of departure and it's there waiting for you, at no extra cost to arrange.

I get tired easily but I'm not disabled, can you still help?

You don't have to be. Most of the people we plan this way for aren't disabled at all. They simply don't have a high level of fitness, and it's the standing, queuing and walking that tires them out rather than any medical condition. We plan the whole trip around that: gentler transport, central hotels, skip-the-line entries and proper rest days, so you come home rested.

Rental car or train if I don't want too much walking?

For less walking, a rental car usually wins, because your bag stays in the boot and you control your own pace. Trains in Europe involve stairs up to the platform and, once aboard, often lifting a 23kg bag into the overhead rack above your head when the racks are full and the seats are allocated, which not everyone can manage. The trade-off with a car is driving on the opposite side of the road and finding parking, both of which we plan around by matching your car layout and booking hotels with on-site parking.

Can you book a car like the one I drive at home?

Yes. We ask what you drive in New Zealand and, where it's available, book the same layout and often the same make and model overseas. It means the indicators, wipers and controls sit where your hands already expect them, so you're not relearning a car on the wrong side of the road at a roundabout. It's a small detail that prevents a stressful first day.

What happens if something goes wrong while I'm away?

We back you up. Every booking we make comes with 24/7 emergency support, so if a flight changes, a connection falls through or something goes wrong on the ground, there's a real person to call who can rebook and reroute on your behalf. We also lodge your New Zealand phone number with airlines and suppliers so they can reach you through a disruption.

How far ahead do I need to book if I'll need assistance?

As early as you can. Airport mobility assistance, allocated seating, same-layout rental cars and central hotels with lifts and parking all need to be requested in advance, and the best options go first. For a trip with any mobility considerations, give us several months where you can. The earlier we start, the more of these details we can lock in for you.

Do I have to be on a tour, or can you plan something just for us?

Either. An escorted tour or a cruise suits travellers who want the logistics handled and the pace set for them. If you'd rather travel independently, we build a custom itinerary around your fitness, with the transport mode, hotels and rest days chosen to match how you move. Both are planned the same careful way.

By Stephen Jennings, Owner — YOU Travel Napier (30+ years). Last updated July 2026.