1) Always give at least 14 days notice to the airline you are travelling with regarding your "special needs". This will give them time to train staff on disability awareness, which will mainly consist of the ground staff calling you "love" and "sweetheart" a lot, grabbing hold of your arm with no given warning, dragging you along like a rag doll and finally informing you that their mother is losing her sight and how the heck do you cross roads?

Advanced warning also allows airlines the opportunity to buff up, polish and wax their wheelchairs, which will be on standby on your arrival. The procedure usually begins once your bags are checked in, at which point, some guy will wheel the chair up to you and quickly push you in to it, thus avoiding guiding you and allowing minimal physical contact between you and the sighted member of staff, who is obviously concerned that getting close to a blindy may result in them contracting your visual impairment.

2) Make sure at all costs that the air stewardess announces to the whole cabin that their is a VI person on board. This is usually done within the first 5 minutes of you boarding the plane. This mainly involves airhostesses walking down the gang ways in a stressed out fashion muttering loudly to all the other passengers not yet seated, "Excuse me, excuse me, I have to get to E23 we have a blind traveller on board". When the member of staff finally reaches you they will usually kneel down and converse with you in a childlike manner. Informing you that if you need ANYTHING, (including your toileting needs), they are always ready to help. At this point you will be asked if you require an on board braille magazine. If braille is not your chosen format, tough, it is either raised dots or 2-point print. Do not worry though, because as much as you may inform the member of staff that you do not read braille you will be thrown a copy anyway, Just in case you feel you may be able to learn it fluently on a 7 hour flight.

3) On longer flights remember to take with you activities to pass the time. This may include a few wooden games, a pack of Lexicon and a couple of audio cassettes, (Catherine Cookson or Agatha Christie are always my favourites). At this point it is important to remember that all the sighted passengers will be enjoying the movie on a small screen at the very front of the plane, whilst reading the delights on offer in the duty free magazine and gazing out of the window.

4) If entering a non-EU country remember to ask the cabin crew at the beginning of the flight to help you fill out the relevant visa documentation, (sighties get these forms 10 minutes before landing). This is mainly due to the fact you have to allow the crew at least 6 hours to deal with everyone else on the plane, including the drunken loud posh person, and screaming kid, before you. Bearing in mind that if you wanted to go for a pee at any given time the stewardesses would be there like a shot, only too happy to wipe your ass. However, form filling is a little less dignified and time consuming for them.

5) On arrival be prepared to wait at least 3 hours to claim your luggage. This is mainly down to your designated "wheelchair pusher and carer" provided free of charge by the airline. On most occasions said person will stand at a distance from you muttering an awful lot under his breath whilst chewing gum and conversing on a walkie talkie. Being so wrapped up in these activities he will not bother looking for your luggage to come round and will wait until every other piece of baggage has been collected, leaving only one suitcase to go round and round - YOURS.

6) After your taxi ride to your final destination it is always important to pay at least 5 times more then is required to the driver, mainly because you can not be assed to explain to some foreign stranger that you can't read the meter and don't understand the money system as you are visually impaired.

7) If this all sounds a little much for your little blind self to take. There are always, I am told various RNLI "holiday centres" dotted around the country. These places are packed to the brim with everything you may require as a blindy holiday maker: Padded rooms so as not to hurt yourself, no stairs on which to fall down, as many wooden games as you can stomach, and things that talk to you at every given opportunity. Most importantly and seriously though, every room has a choice of Braille, large print or audio cassette bible provided by the Giddiens for you to browse through at your leisure free of charge.

If you do choose the RNLI "holiday centres" as your destination, book early. This is for your own convenience. It will give the local Lions Club a chance to put an ad in the local paper and help you fundraise and organize charity events to pay for your holiday.