“I felt so liberated and free” – Holly’s story

I guess you could say, I had a rough start to life. Like lots of people with CF, I had meconium ileus and got rushed straight into surgery just after birth. Doctors said I died on the table, and then afterwards, I contracted Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

But since then, I’ve had a more steady experience of CF, I’ve been very lucky and my health has been relatively stable. 

During lockdown, my physical health wasn’t suffering, but I was very low mentally, and just couldn’t wait to get as far away as possible. That’s when I started researching travelling and realised it was something I wanted to do.

I was finishing my A Levels and everyone was going to university, but I just wanted to get away. So I planned a long trip in South East Asia. It was around November 2023 that I firmly decided I was going, and then went out in January 2024 for six months of travelling. 

It was the best thing I’ve ever done. I felt so liberated and free. I think before, I was confined to thinking I couldn’t do it, but it was great and turned out far better than I planned.

How did you prepare to travel, as a person with CF?

I did a lot of planning with my CF team. We had plan A, B and C ready for if anything went wrong, but thankfully, it didn’t. I was able to plan everything out in advance and had all my medicines and nebulisers with me throughout my travels. 

I had an 80 litre rucksack (much larger than anyone else in the hostels we were staying in!) that was three quarters full of medicine and nebulisers. The tiny amount of room on top was where I squeezed my clothes and toiletries. To begin with it was 20 kilos, but as time went on it got lighter and lighter as I got through all my medication.

I felt like an over-packer and was very conscious of that. But I needed to be prepared. It was so hot out there (40 degrees!), so I also needed to bring special insulated medicine bags for my medication, most importantly my Creon. I kept icepacks in with them, then every time we were at a hotel or hostel I’d have to ask if I could use their freezer. 

One of my initial plans was to try and get more medicine while I was out there, so I enquired how much they would be in Bangkok, and it was so expensive, I knew just how careful I had to be with my own supply. 

You can read our blog about travelling with CF, with top tips from experts here

Tell us about the trip!

I spent three weeks in the north of Thailand, surrounded by elephants and temples. From there I went into Laos, going from North to South, and then on to Vietnam. 

There, we started in the North, up in the mountains doing a four day motorcycle loop. I remember I ended up doing nebs in a hostel room with 30 other people using the only outlet. 

We then went down to South Vietnam, which is where I ended up with a strain of the flu, which was the scariest moment of the whole trip. There was a big outbreak in Vietnam at the time and I knew I needed to be careful so we just had to slow right down. I was with my partner and we stayed in this small, random place for a few days so we didn’t have to do any travelling while I recovered. 

I took time, did my treatments and had back-up antibiotics, so everything was fine in the end, though for a while, I worried I was going to have to come home. We ended up staying in a really beautiful place and doing activities we never planned on. 

After that we travelled to Cambodia and on my partner’s birthday we went to islands there which were completely stunning. It was like nothing I’d seen before.

We then did Thailand and Malaysia and the it was made even more special as my best friend met us in Bali for two weeks. We then ended the trip in the Philippines. 

It was so amazing seeing everything come to life after wanting to do it for so long. 

I couldn’t have been a more positive experience. I felt so lucky, and also surprisingly, the trip helped me feel more body positive. I’ve got a scar going across my stomach and out there I was just in a bikini every day, I didn’t care. It was there, and it was a part of me. I felt more confident than I’ve ever felt, and so myself. 

What do you do now?

I’m a travel agent now! I’ve got so many trips on the bucket list, but I’ve managed to do some shorter trips to Germany, France and Iceland. 

I have a TikTok account where I share tips and videos from my travels, and my favourite thing is getting messages from people with CF. I love hearing from them, being able to answer questions, and showing people it’s possible. 

If you are thinking of going travelling, please speak to your CF team for advice.

You can find more information on travelling with CF here.