When someone you Love receives a diagnosis of early-onset dementia or Alzheimer’s, the instinct might be to stay put, to retreat into the familiar and safe. Yet there’s another path: one where you refuse to let the disease dictate the rhythm of your life together. Traveling with a partner who has dementia is undoubtedly harder than traveling before the diagnosis, but it’s far from impossible. It requires rethinking what adventure means, shifting expectations, and building flexibility into every plan.
Running With Cat documents exactly this kind of journey. Anthony and Catherine faced the choice after Catherine’s Early-Onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis: retreat or reimagine. They chose the latter, spending eight years traveling the world together, running marathons and half-marathons across destinations like Madagascar, Bhutan, and Antarctica. Their experience offers genuine insight into what works, what doesn’t, and how love and commitment can make the seemingly impossible feel inevitable.
One of the biggest shifts Anthony and Catherine made was understanding that energy, both cognitive and physical, became a finite resource. Early in their journey, they moved fast, chasing exotic locations and crossing marathons off a Bucket List. As Catherine’s condition progressed, they slowed down deliberately.
This doesn’t mean stopping Travel altogether. It means being honest about what your partner can handle on any given day. Some days might allow for a full adventure. Other days might call for a quiet walk through a familiar neighborhood or simply resting at your accommodation.
Consider these practical adjustments:
Travel is inherently logistically complex. Adding dementia care into that equation means stripping away anything nonessential. The goal isn’t to eliminate adventure but to make space for it by removing friction elsewhere.
Anthony and Catherine became nomads with only what fit in their suitcases. This radical simplification removed one source of Stress: maintaining a home, managing possessions, handling utilities. It also meant fewer distractions and a clearer focus on each other and the present moment.
You don’t need to sell your home to travel, but you can borrow the principle. Simplify your itinerary. Reduce decision fatigue by booking guided experiences rather than figuring out logistics on the fly. Use the same airline, hotel chains, or travel companies repeatedly so your partner develops familiarity with systems and staff.
When logistics are simple, energy is freed up for the moments that actually matter.
Travel doesn’t have to mean crossing continents or summiting mountains. It means leaving the everyday environment and experiencing something different. That could be a marathon in Australia, or it could be a day trip to a nearby town you’ve never visited.
As dementia progresses, the definition of a successful travel day changes. Early on, Anthony and Catherine pushed themselves to run races and cover ground. Later, their measure of success became smaller, more intimate: a moment of connection, a shared meal, a view that made Catherine smile.
This shift isn’t failure. It’s adaptation. The journey itself, the fact that you’re together and moving forward, becomes the point rather than the destination.
Caregiving is exhausting, and caregiving while traveling can feel impossibly isolating. Build your support network before you go, and build it again in each place you land.
This might include:
Anthony and Catherine traveled for eight years, which meant they were constantly entering new environments. Each transition brought opportunity to seek out local support and to remind themselves they weren’t truly alone in their journey.
Before dementia, travel is often about checking boxes: seeing landmarks, completing challenges, collecting experiences. Dementia forces a different metric. What matters becomes whether your partner felt safe, connected, and present.
Anthony describes finishing every race hand in hand with Catherine, a simple act that carried profound meaning. It wasn’t about the time or the place. It was about crossing the finish line together.
When you’re traveling with someone whose memory may not retain every detail of the trip, the moments of connection and presence become the only lasting imprint. A quiet breakfast together overlooking a vista. A successful walk without confusion or fear. An afternoon where your partner simply felt like themselves.
These moments are the real victories.
Dementia is unpredictable. A good day can become a difficult day in hours. Plans that seemed solid can need complete revision.
This requires a particular mindset: attachment to the experience rather than the itinerary. Anthony and Catherine planned marathons across the world, but they were also willing to shift plans if Catherine wasn’t ready or if circumstances changed. Some races were completed as planned. Others became walks instead of runs. Some were skipped entirely.
The willingness to adapt without resentment is crucial. Your partner isn’t choosing the disease or the limitations. They’re doing the best they can, and so are you.
Traveling with a partner who has dementia is not the adventure you planned. But it can be an adventure nonetheless. It demands patience, creativity, and a willingness to find meaning in smaller moments and slower paces.
It also offers something profound: the chance to show up fully for someone you love during their most vulnerable season. Anthony and Catherine’s eight years of travel, across eight years of disease progression, stand as testament to what’s possible when you refuse to surrender to diagnosis and instead lean into connection, resilience, and the belief that life is worth living fully, no matter the obstacles.
Your journey may look different from theirs. Your pace may be slower. Your destinations may be closer to home. But the core remains the same: you and your partner, together, making meaning in the time you have. That’s what travel becomes when dementia enters the picture. And that’s enough.
The post How to Keep Traveling When a Partner Has Dementia first appeared on Running With Cat.
