What the Travel Industry Can Learn From My Autistic Sister Adia

My 36-year-old younger sister Adia loves going on vacation during the summer with my mother, Nedina Jorden. There’s seemingly nothing out of the ordinary about that, but they’re part of an underrepresented and often unrecognized group: families traveling with autistic children. Although travelers with special needs took on average 32 million trips annually prior to the pandemic, the vast majority of parents with an autistic child don't take vacations — 87 percent, according to a survey conducted by the website Autism Travel. While numerous destinations are working to make themselves more welcoming to families with an autistic child, I've never looked at Adia's autism as a barrier to going on a family vacation in the first place. Getting to know Adia can be challenging because she has always been introverted and really doesn't say much in conversations. However, she is independent in many ways, having held down the same job for 15 years at Wegman's and frequently going on wa