Tour Leading With MS

I took on the challenge of tour leading with MS in 2017 when I returned to the job after a 4 year break. Travel is my passion and sharing my love of different destinations has played a big part in my professional life.  I spent my first summer at university living in Valencia in Spain and working as a tour guide and pub crawl leader. By day, I would share the culture and beauty of historic Valencia with tourists through walking tours and tapas tours. By night, I helped them get very drunk in the best bars and nightclubs that the city has to offer– shoutout to Radio City in El Carmen!

My first job after university was working as a tour leader in South America for the UK based travel agency Journey Latin America. It was such a fantastic experience to get paid to show people around my favourite places in the world.  Not only did I get to revisit lots of incredible sites that most people only see once in a lifetime, such as Machu Picchu and Iguazu Falls, I would also get weeks of “downtime” between tours. Used this downtime to explore new places by myself. Some of the highlights of my downtime were spending 3 weeks living on the Galapagos Islands, relaxing in the paradise that is Ilha Grande in Brazil and exploring the ancient cultures of Northern Peru. It was an incredible year and I loved it!

So, unsurprisingly  the place that I most wanted to go back to after my MS diagnosis was South America. Having decided that I was quitting teaching early on in 2017, I began to plan a 3 month backpacking trip. It was only when I talked to an old colleague at Journey Latin America who mentioned that they might be looking for an ad hoc tour leader to lead a couple of tours that I considered combining work with travel again. Of course, I had a few concerns about tour leading with MS: would my symptoms be ok? Would I get enough sleep? Would I be able to manage my stress levels? But I really had nothing to worry about.  What I realised, as I had done during my summer of travelling in Malaysia after my first year of teaching, doing what I love and being happy helps to minimise my MS symptoms. I love tour leading and I relish the challenges that it brings: thinking on my feet when the bus breaks down or there’s a strike or road blockade (welcome to Bolivia!); helping my passengers learn about each country and making special efforts to share hidden gems and experiences with them. To many people, this would be their worst nightmare, but for me, it is what feeds my soul.  As such, I barely experienced any of my MS symptoms during the entire 3 months that I was away, but that’s not to say that I wasn’t ill for the whole 3 months...it is South America after all!

I ran two tours of 3 weeks each with 3 weeks downtime in between. My first tour was the Andean Flamingo which started in Lima before jumping in altitude to Cusco and Machu Picchu and then travelling overland to La Paz via Lake Titicaca. We then journeyed even higher across the Uyuni salt flats and slept at 4000m above sea level one night.  Now, it was this that made me pretty sick which came as a complete surprise as I had lived and travelled at altitude many times before. For the first time ever I experienced not being able to sleep because, as my breathing slowed down, there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air. Every time I would start to nod off my body would wake me up! I also spent the whole of the next day vomiting my way across the altiplano which was not so fun! None of this was related to my MS though and it was all bearable and easily treated with coca tea, plenty of water and some electrolyte drinks. The Andean Flamingo finished in the Chilean capital, Santiago. I love Santiago as it is extremely cosmopolitan and I even managed to find Korean food which made me very happy! 

During my first 3 weeks of independent travelling I revisited one of my favourite places in South America, which is Pucón in the Chilean Lake District. I wanted to go back to Pucón as I had never been there without a tour group and I wanted to have time to explore at my leisure.  I also wanted to climb the Villarica volcano which is 2,847m high. This was a challenge that I had set for myself to see if I could still push myself physically, even with MS. I’m not going to lie, it was absolutely one of the most terrifying things I have ever done in my life! Not because of my MS, but because I am petrified of heights and we climbed up most of the volcano in the snow with wind howling around us!  Reaching the top felt absolutely incredible though and the views were breathtaking. We even got to slide back down the volcano on little trays, controlling our speed with an ice pick (!). I felt so proud to have climbed to the top as not everyone in our group made it. In fact, it was an all female group that reached the top which felt pretty special. 

After Pucón I crossed the border into Argentina and spent a few days hiking around the lakes of Bariloche before heading to Puerto Madryn for a spot of whale watching and penguin colony visiting.  Finally, I arrived in Buenos Aires with a few days to enjoy the city and catch up with old friends before beginning the next tour.

The Pato Andino tour is such a fantastic tour that winds through the Andes and takes in some of South America’s wildest landscapes.  We started in the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires, and indulged in lots of steaks, before flying to Salta in the extreme North-West of Argentina. Here we had the pleasure of indulging in Argentinian wine during a day trip to the vineyards of Cafayate after winding through the Quebrada de las Conchas.  Our journey continued across the Andes and across the border into Chile and the town of San Pedro de Atacama before we traversed the stunning landscape of the Bolivian altiplano and the Salar de Uyuni. Thankfully this time I wasn’t ill!  The rest of the tour was pretty much the reverse of the Andean Flamingo and took in La Paz, Lake Titicaca, Cusco, Machu Picchu and finished in Lima. 

Both tours that I led were gorgeous and with fantastic passengers. It was quite poignant for me as I had finished my first year of tour leading after university quite abruptly due to family issues. So having the chance to return to South America to not only tour lead again, but also tour lead successfully with MS, meant the world to me.  It was even more empowering and reassured me that I had made the right decision to quit teaching. Tour leading with MS made no difference to my ability to lead successfully. In fact, because I was doing something that I loved and that brought me joy, my symptoms were almost non-existent. I was running around cities, walking lots every day and spending quite a lot of time at altitude and my body was strong. My experience of tour leading with MS has inspired me to continue to create a life and job that I love, because being happy and minimising stress levels helps me to manage my MS.

What brings you joy? Do you find that travelling or being on holiday affects your MS symptoms? Let me know in the comments below.