Recently on my flight back to Shanghai from the Kango headquarters in Palo Alto, California, I began chatting with a nice lady sitting next to me. She soon warmed up to me and informed me she was the mother of two sons, a college accounting student and an autistic teen. One thing led to another and she began telling me how much the elder boy enjoys putting effort into planning family vacations (i.e. selecting destinations, scheduling itinerary, routing on maps.)

This was my first experience talking to the mother of a child with special needs. I was surprised that she didn’t rant about the inconveniences that accompany traveling with her younger son. I have the feeling that if we can do some research and put up a summary of travel tips for parents of disabled children, we can help make trips better for all involved.
Here are stories and photographs for and about traveling with disabled children— from fathers, mothers, researchers and the kids themselves.

Get Around Guide — a blog by Darren Hillock. Darren is the father to a child who needs a wheelchair to get around. His blog is updated very frequently and he keeps close track of the latest news and regulations about disability travel. He also blogs about destination travel access for parents like him.

Dream Mom, formerly a Senior Account Manager in the healthcare industry, blogging motivation is her son, Dear Son, “who has lost his ability to walk on his knees, sit up and hold his head up (in 2005)“.

Growing up with a disability : David is going to Dominican University this week. Congratulations to him! He has been recording his interviews for people living with disabilities: “Personal, real stories - be they humorous, sad, angry, fun, or … whatever!” He is an active participant of blog carnival for disabilities and has many quality posts (like Top 10 Disability Themes) on his blog.

Ryn Tale’s Book of Days: ROOOOAAAR!: Kathryn is the mother to a beautiful girl Ellie, who is a “27-weeker preemie warrior princess“. I like Kathryn’s Observations from the blogosphere which provides great reviews on the blogs of this interest.

Rolling Rains Report: by Scott Rains: Keywords to describe this blog are: Travel, Disability, and Universal Design. The most exciting part of this blog is the photo sharing about ‘Travel with a Disability’. It is a 286-member group on Flickr. Is there a better way to share a trip than through sharing photographs?

Here are some tips about disability travel from my research:

Jill Browne from Suite 101 writes great articles about air travel guide for disabled travelers. Besides A Guide for Persons with Disabilities: Taking Charge of the Air Travel Experience by Canadian Transportation Agency, UK Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee also provides printable guidelines on its website, Access to air travel: guidance for disabled and less mobile passengers.

Jill Browne also analyzed the Airline Disability Complaints 2006, helping everyone make sense of the numbers in the U.S. Department of Transportation reports. The relative number of disability complaints per 1 million passengers is the best metric by which an airline should be judged.

Jim Lubin started this ultimated resources for disABILITY in 1994. Disability Travel and Recreation Resources provides a list of websites in the following categories:

Updates:

- Scott from Rolling Rains Report suggested Candy Harrington’s travel tips for us. Candy is an editor of Emerging Horizons a magazine about accessible travel and author of 3 books (1 is upcoming). There are some great links on her blog roll. Thank you Scott!

* Please feel free to suggest good resources about accessible travel to us. Email me: min.guo#kango.com.

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