First: necessary, optional, or flexible
Before any preparation, the useful question is what kind of trip this actually is. Some outings are necessary — the appointment that cannot be done another way. Some are optional — wanted, but genuinely at choice. Many are flexible in shape: the pharmacy trip that a supporter could collect, the form that could be returned by post, the appointment that might offer a phone or video version. Asking “does this part need my body in the room?” sometimes removes half the trip.
None of this is a case for staying in. It is a case for spending outings on the things that actually need one — and recognising when a demanding version of an easy errand has simply been inherited.
Seven questions before leaving
- Where am I going? — and is it necessary, optional, or flexible?
- How am I getting there? — driven, driven by someone else, public transport, walked
- Is there seating? — at the destination, and at each stop along the way
- Will I need to wait? — queues, waiting rooms, delayed transport
- What do I need to take? — documents, medication, communication items, sensory support
- Can any part be done online, by phone, or by someone else? — the part that does not need to be done in person at all
- What would make this easier? — the one adjustment with the biggest effect
Asked once, on a calm day, for a recurring trip, these questions tend to answer themselves permanently: the appointment route that involves no stairs becomes the default, and the trip stops needing a decision at all.
What can be adjusted in advance
- Travel — the least demanding option that is practical, including asking someone else to drive
- Parking — closer, pre-paid, or a drop-off point at the door
- Public transport — off-peak timing, seats near the door, the quieter route over the faster one
- Standing and waiting — where the queues are, whether an appointment can be booked first thing, whether a seat can be requested
- Sensory input — earplugs, sunglasses, a cap; quieter hours for shops and venues
- Weather — heat, cold and wind each add their own demand, and can decide the timing
- Accessibility — checking access information beforehand rather than discovering it on arrival
- Toilets — knowing where they are, at the destination and en route
- Food and drink — what is needed for the hours the trip covers, brought rather than hunted for
- Mobility and support needs — aids already used, a companion for demanding trips, no managing without what helps
- Carrying — a bag that spreads weight, or a companion who carries
- Recovery afterwards — the day shaped so the trip is not immediately followed by demands
The trip is preparation + travel + waiting + activity + travel home. Counting all of it gives an honest picture of what the day will hold — and often reveals that the parts around the errand were the expensive ones all along.
Some trips, worked through
A medical appointment
Where seating is, whether a companion can wait with you, written questions brought once
The pharmacy
Whether a repeat can be collected by someone else, or delivered
A school event
Length, standing, noise — and whether a shorter presence on a different day would serve the same purpose
A short shop
A list of only the essentials, a quieter hour, one aisle rather than the whole store
A family visit
Travel time, hosting expectations, and what can be brought rather than made
An essential errand
Whether it can share a journey with something already happening, or move entirely
A simple leaving-the-house bag
One bag, always ready, means an outing never begins with a gathering session — which on a low-capacity morning is often the part that decides whether the trip happens at all. What people commonly keep in it:
- Water and a small snack
- Medication for the hours the trip covers
- Earplugs and sunglasses
- A folding stick or stool, where used
- The day's documents and lists, so the trip's purpose is never left behind
- A charged phone, with a power bank for longer trips
Keys and essentials live in one fixed place, so leaving is one motion rather than a search. Restocking the bag on arrival home — five minutes, while the day's verdict on what was needed is still fresh — keeps it permanently ready.
Ending a trip early
Some trips run out part-way: the supermarket with half a list, the event left before the end, the second errand abandoned entirely. Going home at that point is not an aborted trip — it is a trip that got its essentials done. The cost of dropping the last part is almost always smaller than the cost of completing it, and the ability to end an outing early is worth treating as a skill in its own right.
Recovery needs afterwards are part of the trip too — an outing followed immediately by cooking, hosting or errands is a different outing from one followed by the sofa.
At the severe end
For people with severe and very severe ME/CFS, leaving home may be rare, possible only for essential medical care, or not currently possible at all — arranged around a stretcher journey, a familiar driver, one destination and nothing else. That is not a failure, and it is not the point of this page; the same preparation simply moves further upstream: a supporter who checks the route and the waiting areas, a hospital appointment structured around lying down, the go-bag packed by someone else. Where the outside world cannot be made manageable, this page's ideas still apply to the doorstep, the garden chair, the window — the outings that exist at whatever scale the illness currently permits.