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The Little Green Lanyard, on the Road

The sunflower came into our family's life in a pile of Christmas gifts. When we told J&J about our April 2025 Disney trip, every gift that year was part of the surprise: autograph books, Disney t-shirts, and sunflower identification for the trip.

A green lanyard with yellow sunflowers on it does not look like much. But Disney taught us what it does. In an airport, in a security line, in a crowded park, it speaks before we have to. And when we came home and the travel days changed from airports to highways, the lanyard never left the travel kit. It goes on the road with us in the RV, every trip.

Wearing a green sunflower lanyard on Main Street at a Disney park

What the sunflower is

The Hidden Disabilities Sunflower is a green lanyard, pin, or card covered in yellow sunflowers. Wearing it is a quiet way of saying: I have a disability you may not be able to see, and I may need extra help, extra patience, or extra time. No explaining. No announcing a diagnosis to a stranger. No pulling someone aside for a conversation you have already had a hundred times.

The program started in 2016 at London Gatwick Airport, where staff needed a discreet way to know which travelers might need more support. It has spread around the world since then. Staff at many airports, train stations, venues, and businesses are trained to recognize it, and TSA supports the program at airport checkpoints here in the United States. The program's home is hdsunflower.com.

How it works on travel days

On travel days, the sunflower is part of getting dressed, same as the matching t-shirts. J&J wear their identification, and from that moment on, the people whose job is to help travelers know how to help us.

RV travel has its own pressure points. The campground check-in office with a line forming behind you. The rest stop on a long driving day. The crowded park or attraction at the far end of the drive. Most hard moments in public are not caused by anyone being unkind. They are caused by time pressure and confusion: a line moving too fast, an instruction that needs repeating, a moment where somebody needs a beat that the crowd behind them does not understand.

The sunflower buys that beat. It tells the person across the counter: slow down a little with this family. And in our experience, on Disney trips and RV trips alike, people do.

What it is not

The sunflower is not a fast pass. It does not skip a line, it does not skip security screening, and it does not come with special treatment. Nobody is asking for special treatment. It asks the people around you for understanding, and it works because it is voluntary, discreet, and honest.

Many participating airports and venues give the lanyards out free. They are also sold through the program's own store at hdsunflower.com, which is where families can get the official lanyards, pins, and cards.

Why we keep packing it

The sunflower serves anybody whose disability is not obvious at a glance: people with autism, intellectual disabilities, anxiety, dementia, chronic pain, hearing or vision loss, and hundreds of other conditions that do not show on the surface. That community travels, too. It fills campgrounds and rest stops and park lines, and a lot of those families are just like ours.

Here is what we have learned traveling with J&J: the world is full of people who are happy to help. What they usually need is a way to know help is wanted. The sunflower gives them that way, quietly and with dignity, without our loved ones having to be explained to anybody.

If your family travels, look into it before your next trip. One little green lanyard made our Disney trip easier, and it has been part of how we travel ever since.

The conversation matters more than anything we could post here, so come talk with us. Families traveling the way we do share what works on our Facebook page, Rving with J&J, and we would love to hear how your family handles travel days.

Albert and Michele

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