Planning a holiday is meant to be exciting. Choosing where to go, finding fun things to do, and looking forward to escaping reality for a few days. But there’s one thing we find hard about travelling as neurodivergents: decision paralysis. Or if you want to sound like a psychologist, analysis paralysis. We’re bottom-up thinkers, so we see details first. All the details.
What is Decision Paralysis?
Two areas of your brain are involved in decision-making – the prefrontal cortex and amygdala. The prefrontal cortex uses memories, long-term goals and compares options. The amygdala uses emotional response based on past experiences. Otherwise known as gut instinct. Normally, these work together, but when faced with an overwhelming choice, the two systems fight against each other and create a neural traffic jam. Add decision fatigue to this and your brain is basically stuck in the middle of a crossroads with endless options beeping at it to get out of the damn way.
In our daily lives, we counteract decision paralysis by doing things like eating the same foods at the same time every day. If we had to decide what to eat for every meal, we would just sit there, hungry and annoyed. So with regards to travel, normally we only travel once a year, for our birthday, because it’s easier. There’s only one week in February to choose and we stay in one city. If we hadn’t made the decision to travel for our birthday, we probably wouldn’t travel at all.
Decisions, Decisions, Decisions
However, we want to travel more, experience more, explore more. So that means things are going to be harder. That means picking another month when we have 11 to choose from. Summer is a really slow time for our work as pole and aerial instructors, so August, our quietest month of the year (except December) would be ideal. Except that’s peak travel season for people with kids, which contributes to overtourism, and it’s the most expensive time, because it’s popular. Dynamic pricing, hello! September is a good month. Kids are back at school, temperatures and prices are lower, and places are less crowded. We love the shoulder seasons.
In 2025, we’d decided we would travel twice. Then our van broke down, we were made redundant from one of our jobs, and our beloved Lurcher, Bandit, died. All in a space of 4 months. Travel was the last thing on our minds. This year, we vowed we would travel twice. In May, we made an impromptu trip to Belfast to compete in Hellfast, an alternative pole, burlesque and drag competition, but that doesn’t count as it’s still in the UK.
Destination: Austria
Our destination of choice for trip 2: Austria. Maybe three days in Vienna. Simple. Except…we also wanted to visit Salzburg. And Hallstatt, as we’re close. And Werfen ice caves. It would be rude not to. Flights were cheaper for a week than three days. And how soon would we return to Austria when we have so many places we want to visit? Plus it’s probably better for the environment to fly out once to visit those four places. So…not three days. A week would be better. How should we split it? Evenly between Vienna and Salzburg? But then there’s Hallstatt and Werfen. Ok. Three days in Vienna, one day in Hallstatt, and we can reach Werfen as a day trip from Salzburg. Ooh, Bratislava isn’t too far from Vienna…no. Focus.
Now, which week in September? None that clash with one of our part time jobs. We started looking at flights in June. Is it cheaper to fly in to Salzburg and out of Vienna? In to Vienna and out of Salzburg? Return from one city then take a train to another, risking another train-related meltdown like the one in Prague? Are one way flights or multi city flights cheaper?
Make A Note
We wrote pages of days, flight times, parking charges if flying from Stansted, coach charges if travelling to London, train fares from one city to the other, both one-way and return. Which London airport? Gatwick, Heathrow or Stansted? Which airline? Ryanair and Austrian Airlines have baggage charges. British Airways doesn’t. Decision paralysis pounced. But…Skyscanner said that 6 weeks before is the best time to book. June is too early. We put the sheets away, overwhelmed. The sheets had to be hidden because Rio, the Mastiff cross American Bulldog puppy we’d adopted last September eats anything that isn’t nailed down. Including the walls.
July came. We did nothing. End of July. We picked up our sheets. Re-checked with Skyscanner. Prices had increased. We put the sheets away, deflated. Ok, it’s August now. Prices were still going up. Had we left it too late? Should we book now or wait and hope the prices will drop? We couldn’t decide. September was edging closer. Decision paralysis tackled us like a determined prop forward. We couldn’t let overwhelm stop us travelling.
Flights of Fancy
Prices came down, but not as low as they had been in June. In future, ignore the 6 week rule. Book early. We picked which week we would go. We finally booked our flights and travel insurance. Return flights in and out of Vienna. Train to Salzburg. Instant relief. We are going to Austria! Accommodation can wait. One decision at a time. We’ve left the price alert on our chosen flight so we can see if we made the right decision for future trips.
Ok, two weeks passed. Time to look for accommodation. Our accommodation choice is based on a central location of what we want to do. We get a map of the city, mark off with a x what we want to see, then find a place roughly central to stay. Our Vienna map began in February, when planning for Rome became too overwhelming. We made a shortlist of stays.
Choice Cuts
Cut the places too far away. Cut the most expensive ones. Cut the ones without a fridge. Cut the ones with décor we dislike. Note to selves: this is somewhere to sleep for a few days, it’s not a permanent stay. Stop judging the interior design. Booking.com offered us 10% back in travel credits if we booked on a certain day. More panic. Time pressure makes decision paralysis worse. Don’t like that shade of green on the walls. Cut. Review said one place smelled of cigarettes. Cut.
Booked Salzburg! With three hours to spare before Booking.com’s deadline. We chose an eco-friendly hostel that reminded us of Art Harmony in Prague. We like hostels, but have to have a private room as after a day of exploring, we need to decompress alone. Sharing kitchens and bathrooms is ok, but sharing bedrooms with strangers too doesn’t allow our nervous systems to reset. We don’t want to sleep hugging our camera and our wallets in case someone tries to rob us in the night. Lynx was pickpocketed in Rome in broad daylight.
But it would be so much cheaper if we booked beds in female dorms. Maybe in a few years when travel gets easier for us. Vienna shortlist was 38 properties. We’d forgotten to eat. Hunger was making the decision harder. Cutting down the shortlist could wait until another day. Our brains were fried. One property was further out but the walls were painted black. It’s staying.
Cut It Out
After some food and a few hours’ break, we reviewed our Vienna list. Cut the ones over £200 for 3 nights. Cut the furthest away. Cut the boring décor. Cut the ones with bad reviews. We got the list down to 6. Screw you, decision paralysis.
The next day was a full day in work. We don’t want to be in work, we’re now in holiday mode! We had fifteen minutes before our class. Maybe the reason we couldn’t pick a place was because none of them were quite right. Or is that our amygdala talking? Back to Booking.com. Added some more properties. The list is now 12. Budapest, Prague and Rome all had mezzanines where the beds were. We love mezzanines. Austria is massively lacking in mezzanines.
Second Choice
After a couple of hours’ teaching, we had an hour between classes (slow summer season) so we looked at Hallstatt. Hallstatt is really expensive! £200 a night? We don’t want to pay that for 3 nights. But that place looks like a cave! It’s so cool! But no. We can’t afford it. Yes, you only live once, but if we want to travel more than once, we have to be sensible. Obertraun is cheaper. Our shortlist is only three because we’re not paying more than £100 for one night. Fewer options is much better for overcoming decision paralysis. We booked the cheapest one we could find. A ski lodge outside of skiing season. It’s only accessible via cable car. We hate heights. A freak storm could see us unable to leave the lodge or unable to return to it. But it was £88 a night. And think of the adventure!
Third Choice
Two down, Vienna to go. We left it a few days, because condensing all the fun of choosing places to stay into one day would be too much. We’d hate to overdose on joy. Instead, we booked our train tickets to Salzburg on Omio. Four days later, we narrowed our choice from 12 down to six. The original six. Two had mezzanines. As nice as the apartment with the black walls was, it was much further out, so we reluctantly cut it. Hotel Konig had sold the room with the bunk beds so off the list it went. Thursday evening, after we finished setting our pole up for class, we finally chose. Or at least our amygdala did. It’s a lovely one bedroom apartment with curved brick ceilings and comfy blue sofas. It’s £199 for three nights.
Go Fund Us
Do we feel an immense surge of relief now it’s all booked? Not really. Because now we’re broke. And desperately selling items on Ebay and Vinted to pay for it. Funds have been depleted because our beloved 20 year old SmartCar, General Smarticus Pinkington, has been in the garage a lot and is now deemed unfixable so we have to save for a new vehicle. Cat has to see an expensive rock climbing physiotherapist who specialises in finger injuries, due to ligament and tendon damage in her finger that happened back in February.
And it turns out, teaching pole and aerial pays as well as writing does, seeing as all the profits go straight back into the business. Yet, we’re planning Vietnam and Cambodia for February. So if anyone has any kidneys we can sell…but please, choose which kidney and which black market to sell them on. We’ve had enough decision-making for this month.
