# Support group for people with hodophobia while being abroad?



## SickSocks (Nov 9, 2019)

Hi, 

I don't know if this is the right place for this post but I was wondering if some kind of initiative like a website that may be trusted and may offer some kind of help to anxious travelers while in different cities of the world exists.

I live in Spain and I just came back from a trip to Denmark where I had to attend to a conference while struggling with my fear and anxiety of being far from home.

Despite have been told by my boss of the importance of my attendance to this event, if it have not been in Copenhagen, around 1,000 miles from home, but somewhere farthest away from home like Asia or even America, possibly I wouldn't have been brave enough to attend and maybe I would had to resign after twenty years working in the same company.

From my understanding, fear of travelling encompasses different anxiety situations, for some of us it may be mainly the fear of flying, for some others may be mainly the fear of being far away from home or the fear of get lost or not be able to get help or being understood if being in another country with a foreign language.

There is, however, something that we all share. We all feel relatively well and comfortable at home and is particularly when we have to leave this "safe" environment that we feel overwhelmed by anxiety.

This means that in some way, someone suffering from hodophobia living in London could be some source of help for a distressed traveler from New York while in London, probably most of times just for the fact of knowing that there is someone who he can write or phone and talk about his present anxiety or ask something like how to get quick help from London health services in case of suffering a panic attack, while at the same time, this same person in New York could be the same sort of help for a distressed traveler from London while being there.

Another situation, for example, would be two persons afraid of flying alone who don't know each other and want to go to London. They could just meet and make some arrangements in their travel plans in a way that even if they don't see each other while in London, they can go there and return to New York with someone else during the flight.

I just wonder if some type of initiative like this may exist, something like a support group to contact while abroad. The problem here may be that while you have the necessary confidence in your local group or your doctor to support you in these difficult times, they are thousands of miles away, while at the same time, this person or group is just a few miles from you but they are just foreigners and may be difficult to have confidence in them when feeling so exposed unless they have already the confidence of someone that has yours.


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