It's not travel anxiety

It's 'Things I Hate About Travelling'

I've been flying alone since I was 19, so that's 6 years of solo travel now. On average it has been about a trip or two a year. Most of those trips have not been direct flights so you could even see that as 4 planes a year for added cred. A normal complete trip is about 13 hours (DEL-MEL or vice versa) not counting stopovers, the most recent of which was 11 hours long. I'm not counting domestic flights, and the 5 hour flight to HK is more than adequately offset by a) the 1.5 hours of panic on the ground prior to takeoff owing to New Passport Dramaz (my first solo flight too - talk about omens) and b) the 24 hours it took to get to Rome (don't ask).

Despite my years of flying experience I cannot get over the overwhelming anxiety that grips me in the days leading up to a trip and that sends my BP through the roof in the hours immediately before leaving for the airport. It's not crippling, but it's pretty bothersome and it doesn't appear to affect anyone else (does it? please say it does!). It is overwhelming enough for me to opt to seek professional help i.e. the internet.

I begin with a search for travel anxiety and am besieged with links offering to help me get over my fear of flying. But therein lies the rub - I'm absolutely fine with the flying. Chiz, that's EASY... I mean getting ON the plane is only the second biggest achievement when travelling internationally. The biggest is, of course, managing to get past immigration and into a first world country on an Indian passport.

But WHERE is the counsel to get you through the REAL tough stuff. Things like working out what to pack, sorting out the stuff you're leaving behind, weighing your luggage (twice I've snuck through with a couple of extra kgs), dealing with suspicious immigration peeps at both ends, and that trick you have to do at security where you pull all your gadgets out of your bag(s) and stuff them back in within 60 seconds - to name a few. Then it's a matter of fine-tuning your arrival time at the airport - you want to have time to spare in case there's any drama with your documents, but if you're early, the wait is excruciating. Arrival time is also dependent on whether you've checked in online and if you have, you are allowed to show up a bit later, but then you're caught in the queue with all the retards (I'm speaking French) and there are plenty of those in this country.Bear in mind, I am talking about solo travel. There's such an exhaustive checklist of things you have to remember to do and bring and fill and have ready and you have to keep track of everything, all the documents, the forms, the bags, the gadgets, the announcements... it's difficult NOT to be anxious when you don't have a backup brain with you.

OH! and add to that, the even more insidious trauma that comes with leaving a place you've lived in for 22 or 4 years (depending on which direction you're flying) and the life you've set up for yourself in both. It isn't a simple geographical swap but an adjustment of lifestyles - one place offers you more freedom and convenience, the other greater comfort and luxury. And you know what, I bet the next thing Dr. Internet offers us the most advice about after 'travel anxiety' aka 'how to sit on a plane for a fixed amount of time and be waited on hand and foot even when travelling economy without stressing' is 'jet lag' aka 'how natural it is to be tired for a couple of days after a long journey by air before your body clock resets itself'.

So my question to the internet is this: what kind of doctor are you when, in all my quests for comfort and solace in a time of much angst, stress and uncertainty, you give me advice for how to handle the easiest part of the trip? And my request to whoever chances upon my woes is this: I'm probably using the wrong search term when seeking online solace so, er, what do you suggest?