Cheryl Bischoff: Making Travel Journeys Autism Friendly

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one story at a time. Hi, I'm Tony Mantur. Welcome
to Why Not Me? Embracing Autism and Mental Health Worldwide.
If these conversations resonate with you, I invite you to
tap follow. It helps us reach more people who may
need to hear them. Thank you for being here. Joining
us today is Cheryl Bischoff. She's the owner of Here
I Go Travel, a company with a powerful mission making
travel accessible, thoughtful, and empowering for autistic individuals and their families.
Instead of travel barriers, she saw an opportunity to create
structure and personalized support so every traveler can explore the
world with confidence. She has a great story. So before
we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an
uninterrupted show read after a word from our sponsors. Thanks
for joining us today.
Great glad to be here for our.
Listeners who may be discovering you for the first time.
Could you share a little more about what you do
and what drives your work.
So I am Cheryl Bischoff and I own here I
Go Travel Company or full service custom travel agency, and
we assist many people across the country and their travels,
whether domestic or international, and all sorts of travel styles
from cruises to all inclusive resorts to backpacking. Whatever their
desires are is what we assist with.
I understand your travel agency also specializes in supporting autistic
individuals when it comes to planning their travels. Correct.
Yes, So a couple of years ago I was approached
by one of the travel vendors Sandal's Beaches Resorts, and
they asked if I would be interested in getting a
certified Autism travel professional designation, and I jumped at the chance.
So I pursued that certification, went through the training, and
then I began to wonder, what can I do with
this training right, How can I apply it? How can
I really assist people with unique needs in our own travels?
And so I began to pursue really an airport practice
event where we can invite people out of the community
into the airport, into an actual airport for actual experience.
So we come into the terminal, we get a boarding pass,
We proceed to tsa checkpoint. We go through the security checkpoint,
and we go to the gate. We experience listening to
the announcements being called up.
For our turn.
We scan our boarding passes, we go down the jet bridge,
we get onto the plane, We find our seats and
we buckle up. We get to tour the plane, We
get to look at restrooms, We get to really talk
about the experience and see what it's like to sit
in those otherwise very claustrophobic environments right with a lot
of other people. So this really gives us a chance
to get in there and give it a try and
see if it might be an option for the participants.
Dubai is often mentioned as having a great travel system
for autistic individuals. What's your understanding of that and how
does the work you do compare to what's available there.
So let me just say that when I started my certification,
it was only offered to people, and it was only
offered to two segments of people. It was offered to
medical professionals and it was offered to travel professionals. Okay,
since I got certified, that program has completely blown up
and grown and now they certified places, and now they're
certifying entities and they're certifying entire cities.
Okay, all right.
And so Dubai was the first airport to get certified wow,
meaning that their staff sufficient number of staff had gone
through this training process and could assist travelers at various
points within the airport. And now we have an airline
that has gotten certified. Now we have destination that are certified.
So now we know when we travel, if we can
hit those airports, if we can hit those airlines, if
we can hit those destinations, that we're going to have
people that have been trained and are prepared to assist.
Can you tell me some of the steps that you
had to go through in order to get certified for
autistic travel?
So it's a series of trainings that we have to
go through and testing. So we do receive certificates upon
completion that shows we've been through this process.
And so it's really.
Learning from others and what they know and how we
can assist in our roles.
In your experience. What are some of the factors that
make travel autistic inclusive beyond meeting just accessibility standards.
So what we really want to try to do is
take so everyone's unique and they what they will present with.
But we want to hit the big ones, right, So
we want to hit sound, noise, pollution, we want to
hit light, We want to hit places to reset and
a little bit of desensitization to that process. And so
when I do the Airport practice event, I do a
full terminal tour and we look for those areas where
we can get away and get away from those announcements.
And more and more airports are offering sensory friendly rooms
where they can expect low lighting, less people and not
hear all those announcements and so on. We really work
on smells airports and getting on an airplane and the
jet fuel and all of that can be a big
sensory overload. So we really work with our participants on
how to mitigate those issues and what tools in the
toolbox can they use to combat those while they're traveling.
Now that the number of certified organizations has grown, has
that made the process smoother for you? Or are there
still gaps you're navigating?
I don't know that it's made it necessarily easier. It
depends on how open the traveler is to their destination
and if they would like to pursue maybe a city
and entire city that.
Is on board, right and just knowing.
That the community is aware of that. And so one
of the things we look at is what community do
we want to take this event to next? So when
we started, we started in Wichita, Kansas, and now we're
looking at where to go next, and so we look
at Kansas City, who is bringing in FIFA for twenty
twenty six. You're going to be hosting over six hundred
thousand visitors over a little over thirty day period, and
so we talked about how can we bring in community
members to practice in their airport and also give their
airport staff an opportunity to prepare for the influx of
visitors into their own community.
Parents are protected by nature and that often intensifies when
raising a neurodiverse child. How do you build trust with
those families and reassure them that with your certification and experience,
their trip will be handled with care and understanding. Completely
different from someone that has no knowledge of autism.
I think that just comes with time and experience and
through testimonials of past travelers, and so being certified and
really having an ear for what the needs are means
that I'm on the lookout for how I can assist
them with their travels. So I have tools in my
toolbox that some people may not even know exist. And
I'll give you an example. TSA has a program called
TSA Cares. I go in, I take my client's flight information,
and I go in and I register them so that
the TSA knows exactly what day and time they're coming
to the airport, and I can list any special needs
or requirements that they have. The TSA will meet them
on one side of security and take them all the
way to the other side of security like a personal guide,
and the TSA will assist with whether they need alternative
screening methods, you know many of them. Many people cannot
allerate being touched.
If they should happen to be picked.
To be padded down, this might be an issue, So
we need to make everybody aware and with the TSA
guide it can really slow down the process and really
open it up for more Q and a time and
what can we expect and how can we handle this?
In general, we cannot impede the TSA and they still
must do their job and make sure that everyone passes
through security and that they feel you are safe to fly.
There are lots and lots of ways to help you
through that.
I'll tell you one example of many I have many, Tony.
We could sit here all day the TSA when they
take a wand to you and they're looking for metallic
objects and it beeps if it has a hit. That
wand can be set to vibrate only so that it
doesn't have the sound effect and it still notifies the officer.
If they need to look at something.
More So, these are things that people just maybe are
not aware of. I'm trying to get awareness out there
that there are helps and assistants out for them all
along their trip, all along their trip. And honestly, when
I started the Airport practice event, it was with a
autism focus, but it really blossomed into blind, low vision
community mobility issues.
Anyone in wheelchair.
We've worked with cystic vibrosis, We've worked with cerebral palsy,
anyone who has something that they're just unsure of. How
am I going to travel with this compression vest? Is
it okay if I bring it or not? So when
we have our events, we invite that community in and
we ask them to bring those things that they question
so that they actually practice with them and see what's
going to be needed to get that through.
Yeah, it makes total sense. As you know, autism is
not a one sized, fisole experience. Each person has unique
sensitivity strengths and challenges.
Yep.
Like you mentioned earlier, sometimes there are visible signs that
someone may need additional support. Yes, With autistic individuals, unless
their support needs are more significant, it's often not immediately apparent.
Yes.
How does that dynamic change when you're supporting an adult,
for example, someone in their mid thirties, yes, who may
function more like an early teenager in certain areas. How
you navigate that, especially when others may see an adult
and not immediately understand the level of support that person needs.
Yes, so very good question.
I'm glad that you brought up age because, as we know,
children with autism become adults with autism. We don't have
an event that's geared just towards children.
I will say we've had.
Events where only children have come, We've had events where
only adults have come.
We just do an invitation. We see who is interested in.
Joining us and would like to learn and practice, we
bring them in. So we do serve all ages. And
one of the programs that's in place is the Hidden
Disabilities program, and I don't know if you're familiar with that.
It's called the Sunflower program. Some of the airports participate,
some do not. Hopefully, over time and with more awareness,
this will come to every airport. But our airport here
in Wichita has the Sunflower program. You walk in, you
can go to the information desk and you can get
a Sunflower laniard. You can get a bracelet, you can
get a pin or a sticker, something that just identifies
you as you go through the airport experience. And those
staff have been trained for what that means. It means
I have something hidden that you cannot see openly or outwardly,
that I may need extra assistance.
And so we talk.
With our participant hence before we go through about identifying
or not identifying. As we all know, identifying is not required.
You do not have to identify. But I recommend identifying
on a travel day, either through a lanyard or something
that just sends a message. Now to our participants, I
prepare lanyards they can choose to identify or not. I
have little cards made up that say something as basic
as please be patient, or I'm sensitive to touch, or
I'm sensitive to noise, or I need extra time processing.
So if you're providing direction to me, I may need
a moment, or I may be non verbal. If it's
at all possible, I do recommend identifying for a travel day.
As soon as you get on the plane you want
to take that off, fine, But when you're in the
airport working with staff trying to get through, I do
recommend it.
That makes total sense. Have you seen where it's been
used and work, Because let's face it, traveling can be
very stressful.
I will say I do talk with the participants about
how travel days are a higher stress level for every
single person. It does not matter if you have autism
or you do not have autism. A lot of people
are late, hungry, tired, you name it. It's more stressful
than sitting on your sofa watching your favorite movie and
your sweats. Right, you got up at four am, you
didn't sleep well last night, You're exhausted, and you're trying
to move twelve people through the airport. It's just a
high stress level. Just sharing that with them and understanding
everybody's at a higher stress level helps them to relax
and calm down. I will tell you that through the
course of an event, I will watch the participants relax
more and more as we go through and really feel
empowered by the end that this could be something that
they could accomplish.
Do you stay with them through the entire airport process
or is your role more about preparation. How do you
assess when they're confident and support it enough to manage
that experience successfully on their own.
So, first of all, we will never know how their
actual flight day will go. I won't be there holding
their hand. But what I am doing is trying to
have it be familiar. I've done this before. Now we
are in an event airport, and I cannot guarantee how
you might react when you get to your destination airport
or when you get to a layover airport. I do
recommend for first time flyers, if at all possible, to
choose NonStop destinations for that first attempt.
So I can't.
Guarantee, can't guarantee, but I am trying to prepare, and
I do send home with each guest preparation materials, tangible
ways that they can prepare for their travel base, tangible
destinations they can choose that are NonStop from where we're
having that event, from where they live now, if they
are trying to get to say medical care, or if
they're trying to get to a family reunion, where they're
really not able to pick the destination, so they may
end up with a layover, or they may end up
with longer flights than.
Maybe is ideal.
But by having gone through it before, the hope is
you will desensitize a little.
Before they go to the airport and they're talking to
you about the travel, What is the process that you
go through preparing them and getting them ready to travel.
Are you talking about an actual flight date or.
A practice event?
Yes, an actual travel date. They come to you and
say I want to travel on this day in time,
they get the ticket. Once they have committed, what is
your next step?
So I do all of their travel arrangements for them
for as much door to door service as.
I can offer.
Now, some don't need every single thing that I offer,
and they can certainly refuse that service.
I don't need picked up.
I have a friend who can drop me off or
whatever that might be.
But in lieu of flying with them, which I will not.
Be able to fly with every participant, But having gone
through the practice with them and them knowing exactly what's
going to happen, really learning that TSA can meet them
at the curb outside of the airport and take them
all the way to the gate is really their liaison.
And as we know, there can be a lot of
really identifying with a person like as your anchor, like
having that person as your anchor. As you go through
this process, I can't guarantee that it's not without higher
stress because it still maybe you know, I can't guarantee
there won't be hiccups to the day, but we try
to coordinate timing, and I will say timing it's a
catch twenty two, right, So this is the group that
I would say, come early to the airport, give yourself
extra time so that if you need time to.
Reset, you can This is also the group that might.
Get really really bored if they have more in an
hour to sit in a gate. So we really have
to talk through that and what's available in that airport
for them. For children, it might be a playground area,
or if it's an airport that has when it might
be a sensory room. We're seeing those more and more.
In a field that's constantly evolving. Where do you see
the biggest opportunities for improvement to better serve families and individuals.
I do believe that more sensory rooms are needed, that
we don't need those in just the large airports, and
so having even a small area that's available is great.
Having more and more people trained and sensitive to the
travel needs. And I've heard the stories, Tony, you know
in this industry. I've heard what they've gone through, and
not just their own travel days, but also what's happening
in their homes when they're deciding to leave a loved
one behind with a caregiver while they go on some trip,
and then the family is separated. That family member did
not get to experience or have that memory or be
in the photos with them from their trip. And so
I really want to mitigate that as much as I can.
Can I reach every single person?
Maybe not? Can I reach some?
Yeah? I know that I can.
In travel, we often hear about what went wrong, delays,
mix ups, things that didn't work out. What is a
moment you've experienced that reminded you why this work matters
so much to you?
Yeah, really, just having those families that stay together, that
give it a try for the first time, and it
can be something small and unexpected. So at one of
the practice events we had in the airport, one of
the families went through and at the very end they
said that their child had never ridden an escalator and
he was about ten, can't write an escalator And they
stood at the escalator and tried and tried and tried
until he rode the us And that wasn't even the
goal of the day. But yet it's part of the
airport experience, right. We have moving walkways in the big airports,
we have escalators and elevator options too. But it was
just watching them bry or feeling empowered to try.
You brought up first time airport experiences. What would you
say to a family with an autistic child or an
autistic adult who feels like travels simply isn't possible for them.
How do you help them find the confidence to give
it a try.
So as for as many airports as I can bring
this to, and for as much community as I can reach,
I will do that. I'm always looking for people within
the community that have access to these families, whether it
be providers, community resources, that sort of thing, where we
can get the word out we have an event coming
up near you and we'd like you to come try Now.
There may be some that will look at that and
say Nope, can't do it.
There will always be.
Some that say, yes, we can do that. I do
try to bring in volunteers from the provider community for
the event as support staff to assist if anyone should
have a meltdown, and so far has not happened.
We haven't had a.
Participant that didn't complete the day. But did someone look
at it and say no, I don't even.
Want to try? Possibly? Possibly, But I.
Want to be there for the ones that say no,
I think I think we're ready. Let's try this.
Yeah, So, how do people find you?
Good question?
So we just had a volunteer launch our website this year. Awesome,
very exciting years in the making, and so.
We do have our www.
Dot navigateevents dot org. We did claim Navigate Events on
Facebook and on Instagram. So we're starting to build that
social media presence, and we're starting to build the website
to give people a place where they can register to attend,
where they can find out what city we're going to
be at next and when it will be.
That's all in the process.
And I will say when I started this event, and
as I've gone through, we've done probably four now, and
I say every event we have, I always say, this
is my first time to the rodeo, cause you know
that phrases ain't my first time to the rodeo. Like, No,
we are still very much forging what this looks like,
how to get it accomplished, who to invite, you know,
how to get them registered, which up to this point
has been contacting me, reaching out to me and I
will get your name and number, I'll get your email,
I'll email you the information, what time to meet, all
of that. But we're trying to automate that a little
bit more as we move into other other communities.
Have you ever worked with someone on the spectrum who
initially said I can't do this, but with support and encouragement,
they were eventually able to say, hey, I did this.
Can you describe what shifted for them in that moment
and what did you see in them that showed you
they were capable even before they believed it themselves, And
what did this show you for the potential that you
have to keep doing this and helping more people in
the future.
So one of the things we talk about during our events. Now,
first of all, our guest we call a VIP, and
then someone who can come with the VIP to just
assist and be alongside them would be a chaperone. So
we asked the chaperone what motivators are for your VIP.
So we asked them to bring motivators favorite whatever, stuffed animal,
favorite book, favorite blanket, something that comforts and motivates, so
that we can use that, We can leverage that to maybe.
Get them through a rough situation.
So what are some of the rough situations?
Right?
Maybe walking through the metal detection at the TSA checkpoint.
So if we can get the chaperone on the other
side with a favorite stuffed animal, here they come. They
just walk right through. We just have to work strategically
each of those scenarios. I will tell you one of
the purdles that I was maybe not expecting was the
feel of the jet bridge under their feet. That when
you go from the terminal onto the jet bridge, now
you're not on terra Firma. Now jet bridge is a
little bit bouncy, and so we have to really work
through that and talk through that and get them all
the way down to the jet bridge and to the door.
We really just talk through that individually with our participants
and how we can do that.
Yeah, that's great. Now, what would you like to leave
our listeners with that? You think is very important that
they hear about what you were doing and how you're
trying to help those within the travel industry understand the
needs of the autistic community.
So I think the biggest thing that people need to
know is that travel is no longer a luxury. It
is vitally important in keeping people connected with family. It
connects them with job opportunities, it connects them with medical care,
and it connects them with world experiences. We want to
keep families together, We want to keep people gainfully employed.
You know, when it's time to go to a conference
or time to go to another city for training. We
want them to have that capability.
Yeah, that's great. Now, can you tell us what is
needed to help bring this to other communities around the country.
And if anyone listening is interested in bringing this to
their community, I'd love to hear from you. My contact
information is on the website, and we really need two
things to have a successful event. We need sponsorship. We
always keep this free to the participant, and then we
need participants. So I have the necessary connections with airports
and TSA staff. I can take this anywhere I want
with it in the US, and we're ready to take
it to new communities. But we need those two things.
That's what we're lacking. We need sponsorship and participants. By
keeping the participant number high, it really sends a message
to the airport that it's needed and wanted.
Oh, I believe you a one hundred percent correct. It
is something that is definitely needed and wanted for sure.
Yes, yes, And I will say I think people think
that maybe travel is the least of our worries when
it comes to autism, But in my world, I feel like.
This is an area of expertise where I can.
Touch a life. I can't fix autism. I can't help
them with behavioral issues. That's not where my expertise lies.
I can take one thing, one thing travel and I
can make it easier. And when you're passionate about it,
you'll be able to talk about it.
I can talk about it for two hours.
I'm going to convince it to a half hour.
But hopefully it sparks.
Enough int in someone that they'll out to me.
Yeah, and I certainly hope they do. I can see
where this is definitely needed. Well, this has been great,
great information, great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the
time to join me today.
Well, thank you for inviting me, Thanks for having me.
Oh, it's been my pleasure. Thanks again. Thanks for taking
time out of your busy schedule to listen to our
show today. We hope you enjoyed it as much as
we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know someone
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