Travel Planning for the Disabled

Just because someone has a disability does not stop them from wanting to travel for pleasure – they may even want to see the world and why not? However, arranging travel for someone in wheelchair can be a daunting process. This problem is halved when you realize how many travel companies are dedicated to helping disabled people travel with relative ease. Some great travel links can be found below.

Access Able Travel Source has information and resources about travelling with special needs, access guides for cities and resorts, accessible transportation and wheelchair rentals. It has a lot of links to various travel companies depending on the location and type of holiday. http://access-able.com/graphical_index.html

Accessible Journeys is a website dedicated to providing cultural and historical holidays around the world for wheelchair travelers and slow walkers. http://www.disabilitytravel.com/. Another company offering similar packages for wheelchair users and slow walkers is http://www.worldonwheelz.com/.

You can find a list of handicapped accessible tours, especially if you’d like to try kayaking or other outdoor activities, right here http://www.armchair.com/tour/hc/handcap.html

An exciting website to visit to explore escorted tours for adults with disabilities is Search Beyond Adventures. It covers destinations throughout the US and worldwide, and camping trips, or trips to Disneyland and loads in between. http://www.searchbeyond.com. Another similar travel company to this one is http://www.tripsinc.com/

A useful site to find whether B&Bs are wheelchair friendly is http://innseekers.com, it has a filter system in place to find wheelchair friendly inns worldwide.

The World on Wheels is a site that gives reports on different paves around the world, saying how accessible they are for wheelchair readers - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/6295/

One thing you could consider is swapping homes with another person who has a similar disability to you, anywhere in the world that you would like to visit for a while. As you have similar needs the vacation home should be set out in a way that benefits you. You can always find out in advance how accessible the vacation home is, by asking your potential swap partner as many questions as you like. http://www.independentliving.org/vacaswap.html

Also supervised daytrips and weekends away are available from companies like Trips R Us, who want “to offer safe, entertaining, challenging, and most of all FUN trips and programs at reasonable prices” to people with special needs. http://www.tripsrus.org

For more helpful travel links related to disabled travelling visit http://www.makoa.org/travel.htm

The world doesn’t have to be your home, your, street, your city, or even your state, but anywhere. Your disability should not stop you going to the places that you want to see and all these travel companies are just realizing that too, so take advantage of it!