great takes on family travel in the U.S.

From guest blogger, Craig Grimes, of AccessibleBarcelona.

At the Destination

The last part of planning the trip is transport at the chosen destination. Firstly there is the issue of getting from the airport to the hotel. Depending on your destination choice and your disability this can be either very hard or very easy!

Airport Transfers

Many European airports have accessible shuttle buses and trains from the airport to the city centre or to the main tourist resorts. The local tourist information board’s and airport web sites normally contain this type of information and they should also give information about access at the terminals. A good resource for finding official airport websites is the A – Z of World Airports. Remember that if public transport is used to travel there is also the issue of luggage and how it will be carried.

Accessible taxi information may be available from either the tourist information board or even your chosen hotel. Some of the companies that have been set up by disabled people may also be able to arrange accessible transfers.

Getting Around

If you have an idea of what you would like to see and do during your trip you can use the local transport and tourist information web sites to plan routes before you leave. In this way you don’t have to waste time trying to figure it out whilst you are on vacation and it also allows you to check which methods of transport are accessible.

Other Considerations

Whilst you now have the bulk of your trip planned, there are still some final considerations to take into account. If you use specialized mobility equipment at home, you may also require it for the duration of your trip, this may include an electric hoist, a wheelchair or a shower chair. You may decide to take your own with you or in some locations you may be able to hire suitable equipment.

If you decide to take your own mobility equipment you may also want to contact you local dealer to see if they can supply you with the contact details of a dealer at your destination should you have any problems.

In many major tourist locations companies now offer accessible tours for disabled travelers. These tours and excursions should be pre-booked in order to avoid disappointment as they can get full quickly or they may take several days to arrange.

Post Trip

As you may have noticed from this article one of the main resources available to disabled travelers is other disabled traveler’s experiences and opinions. We tend to complain about the negatives of traveling and although this is normal, it is also great to share our positive experiences and encourage other disabled people to travel. There are a whole host of information web sites and travel blogs including Kango that would be more than happy to post your travel experiences. So don’t just travel, share it with the rest of us too.

Additional Resources:

Part I: Plan Accessible Trips
Part II: Getting to the Destination
Rolling Rains Report on Inclusive Tourism: A New Strategic Alliance for the Disability Rights Movement
Rolling Rains Report on The Global Reach of Accessible Tourism: IATC 2005 Keynote Address
Access Travel

From guest blogger, Craig Grimes, of AccessibleBarcelona.

Getting To the Destination

The biggest fear that most disabled people have is not actually being in a strange new place, but getting to it. Although flying is slowly becoming more accessible, many disabled people are still dubious about the quality of service they will receive, especially in a foreign country.

In general, airlines have very similar policies with regards to disabled clients, but it is always a good idea to check individual company’s policies. Check with disability forums about other people’s experiences and see if they recommend any particular airlines. Unfortunately, it is not a case of the biggest companies have the best service for disabled travelers, I have had both good and bad experiences with various major airlines. One way of checking reviews of airlines is through web sites such as Skytrax. Although it doesn’t give specific information for disabled travelers you can get an idea about different airlines.

Online Booking Engines

Probably the cheapest way to fly internationally is through reserving tickets with a large online booking engine such as LastMinute or Kayak. LastMinute now allow disabled travelers to request online airport assistance, in order to get a list of the departure airports from your country you have to scroll to the bottom of the home page screen and click on your national flag. Kayak is slightly different in that when you want to make the booking you are transferred to the airline’s web site. Therefore, it depends on the individual airline’s terms and conditions to how you proceed with letting them know that you are a disabled traveler.

Accommodation

There are many types of accommodation available from private apartments and villas to hostels and hotels. There are also different ways of making reservations; through a travel agent, directly with the establishment or through online booking engines. All of the above want to sell you their services whether or not it is suitable for your needs, it is very important that you state exactly what you require even quoting measurements of your wheelchair if necessary.

Finding Suitable Accommodation

Mainstream Online Booking Engines

One method is through the use of online booking engines, however, caution should be taken when using them as they do not provide specific information about the access of the hotel. Other problems with online booking engines are that they do not provide the contact details of the establishment until after the reservation has been made and it is rarely possible to request and adapted room. This means that it is impossible to confirm its suitability and what facilities are available until after the reservation has been made. Even when a suitable hotel can be found, it is then not possible to reserve a specific adapted room, therefore, the hotel has to be contacted after the reservation has been made to check availability of and allocate the adapted room.

However, online booking engines are a good source of information to discover the names of potentially suitable hotels. Once the names of a few hotels have been ascertained a search engine may be used to find the direct contact details of the hotel.

High Street Travel Agents Vs Specialized Travel Agents

General high street travel agents are renowned for getting the access requirements of disabled travelers totally wrong. I have been contacted through my company AccessibleBarcelona on several occasions by disabled people that have arrived in Barcelona to find that the hotel that they booked through their travel agent is not accessible. Although they are slowly getting better it may well be worth going to a specialized travel agent that has a lot of experience of organizing trips for disabled people. The drawback of specialized travel agents? The cost, as with any travel agent their commissions can be extremely high at 20 or 30% of the total package.

Other Methods of Booking Hotels and Services

Some disabled people have become so fed up with the lack of understanding of their needs within the travel industry, that they themselves have begun writing their own online travel guides or setting up services where they live. The companies they establish are not travel agents as such, but more independent businesses that arrange services such as accessible hotel reservations, airport transfers, equipment hire and tours for disabled travelers.

Using search engines, disability forums and blogs is a good way to find these web sites. In order to get the best results from search engines the correct keywords need to be used such as disabled, access, accessible, hotels, accommodation along with the name of your destination.

Next up, Part III: At the Destination

Share your destination experiences with us, good or bad, we are interested in hearing about your trips!

From guest blogger, Craig Grimes, of AccessibleBarcelona.

Planning an Accessible Trip

The first part of any vacation or trip for anyone, regardless of if they have a disability or not, is planning and it is the initial step to accomplishing your goal. The planning stage of the trip is especially important for disabled people as through good planning many problems and issues can be avoided right from the start, leaving the individual to relax and enjoy their time away from home.

Destination Choice

With so many fantastic and interesting places to visit in the world, how do you chose your destination? Accessibility of places may play a large role in the decision you make about where you would like to go and it varies in different ways from continent to continent, country to country and even city to city. The only definite fact is that adjustments are going to have to be made and you will not be as comfortable as you would be in your home environment. Everyone makes this sacrifice when traveling; it’s all part of the experience.

On a global scale areas can be put into three very general categories:

1. A variety of establishments with facilities for the disabled: USA, Canada, Northern Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
2. Some establishments with facilities for the disabled: Southern and Eastern Europe.
3. Very few establishments with facilities for the disabled: Latin America, Asia and Africa.

When referring to “establishments” this is not only accommodation but also tourist attractions such as national monuments, museums, other sights of interest and also accessible transport.

For the gung-ho disabled traveler, access may not be an issue at all and you may be willing to put up with any conditions and take all the help you can get in order to visit exactly what you want to see regardless of the difficulties.

A great way of getting ideas for your next vacation is by browsing through other disabled travelers blogs, web sites of specialist travel agents and other organizations that provide information relating to inclusive travel for all. Here are a few to get you started:

Travel Blogs by Disabled People and their Families

NZ on Wheelsis a blog about access and travel in New Zealand and Australia.
Both Barrier Free TravelsGet Around Guideby Darren Hillcock give useful ideas for vacations in various locations.
Accessible Everything by Craig Grimes gives an insight into traveling Europe and Latin America.
Gimp on the Go by Andrew Lloyd has reviews of traveling all over the world, a great resource.
Rolling Rains Report by Scott Rains is about Universal Design and Inclusive Travel providing many useful links and information.
Disabled Travelers A travel blog and website all rolled into one by Jeremy Rynders.

Specialist Travel Agents

Holidays For All is a group of travel agents and charities the specialize in vacations mainly in Europe for disabled people.
Can be Done has a great search engine for looking up accessible hotels mainly in Europe and the USA as does AccessAtLast.

Other Organizations

Global Access News has disabled contributors from around the world that share their experiences of traveling.
Accessible Adventures is a web page about safaris for disabled people by Gordon Rattray and it also includes a world map with links to other web sites. A great site for unconventional vacations for the disabled.
E-bility gives lots of ideas fro traveling in Australia.
MAKOA – “disability information and resources” gives hundreds of links to different travel web sites across the world.
Access Able provides world wide travel resources

Next up, Part II: Getting to the Destination

Do you have any tips to share about planning disabled travel? Please share!