Travelling with physical and mental conditions and impairments
Because we all deserve to experience the world outside of our own city
Greetings!
Thanks, as always, for being here. I am starting this issue later than intended due to life, but I have been very excited to dive into the featured journal article about travelling while visually impaired.
It is probably not something you would think of because maybe you don’t see that many visually impaired people in your day-to-day life. Or perhaps it doesn’t cross your mind often that visually impaired, deaf, wheelchair-bound people, and those with memory disorders travel and their experiences are varied and much different than those of us without any conditions. Or maybe someone close to you is living with one of those conditions and you’ve talked at length with them about it or you’ve been their travel companion. Whatever the case, this edition highlights some travel tips and stories about various travel experiences.
I do want to mention a little note here first. I hope that I do not label anyone improperly, misspeak, or offend. I’ve bookmarked this page as a guide and tried to follow the guidelines. I also realize that some of these conditions might be a little too close to home for you and you just want to skip out on this edition. Please let me know if have any feedback.
Links on travelling with permanent conditions.
A deaf traveller recounts her travel tales and urges the tourism industry to design experiences that the deaf can enjoy. She has a website where you can sign up for her newsletter.
This website lists a variety of accessible holidays including a lot to accommodate wheelchairs and the visually impaired. I appreciate that these are becoming more common and include a variety of budgets.
Travelling as an autistic woman. This article has some good tips to bookmark if you or a family member has autism, even if you have a travel routine, you might learn something or pick up a new tip to help someone out some day.
What it’s like to travel when you’re in a wheelchair. This is quite old, from 2015, but worth a read. The interviewee, Cory Lee, has a website, Curb Free with Cory Lee, and he leads an annual Curb Free trip, provides travel tips, and documents his own travels. If you know anyone looking for wheelchair group travel his 2024 trip is to Greece! I love this so much. EVERYONE deserves to experience the world.
Tips for travelling with children who have Down Syndrome.
Lessons learned from travelling with dementia.
Another wheelchair-bound traveller account. You might get blocked by the WaPo paywall but maybe someone has an account to share? I included the quote below from this story, written in 2020 when the author was 23. Post-pandemic, I’d like to know what the global stats are on disabilities and mobility. 13.7% seems like a pretty big chunk of the US population.
Travelling with a disability is not easy, but it should be enjoyed by everyone. This includes Americans who have trouble walking or are unable to walk, who make up 13.7 percent of the population, according to a 2019 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A firsthand account of travelling with Multiple Sclerosis.
Let’s jump into the article, shall we?
Positive experiences of visually impaired tourists.
First and foremost, this article made me aware of the Accessible Tourism movement. Thank goodness that exists, it “seeks to enable people with a range of access requirements to participate more fully in tourism through the adoption of universal design for tourism environments and products” (Darcy & Buhalis, 2011a). The researchers focused on visual impairment for their study and noted that globally 2.2 billion people have a visual impairment, according to WHO stats from 2022.
Early in their literature review, the three researchers noted that there are several barriers to travel for the visually impaired and this makes them less likely to travel. One of the main goals of accessible travel is to allow groups like this to have just as many opportunities as those without impairments.
The main barriers they noted are: unsympathetic design of the physical environment; poorly-trained service staff with limited understanding of the specific needs of TwVI; and a need for resilience and persistence among TwVI themselves. TwVI - travelling while visually impaired. The researchers in this study chose to focus on the positive experiences of the TwVI.
The researchers included the visual below to label and explain the positive experiences.
This study was conducted over Zoom interviews with TwVI and many of the travellers mentioned encounters with incredibly kind hospitality and tourism employees as well as strangers:
Most spoke of unexpected and spontaneous acts of kindness from complete strangers and such encounters are additional interpersonal factors which can facilitate positive experiences. Marina gave one example: ‘people were just so helpful.’
The researchers mention that trusting in others is part of every day life for people with visual impairments. It is mentioned that they might have developed a higher level of trust than people without visual impairment. They have to rely on this trust even more while travelling because they’re in an unfamiliar place.
Needing to trust strangers in this way implies vulnerability, uncertainty and risk, but can also lead to spontaneous and rewarding encounters.
The researchers asked interviewees about visiting attractions and noted that great strides have been made over the years to make attractions inclusive. Excellently narrated audio guides with sound affects that visually impaired can imagine on their own make certain experiences just as rich in their own way, for them. Other TwVI interview subjects mentioned how some visitor attractions feature tactile experiences to enrich the experiences for visually impaired visitors that are not offered to the rest of the tourists.
For navigation, technology has progressed to assist visually impaired travellers. Simple navigation tools on smartphones like Google maps makes it easier since users can download maps and routes to save when they’re offline. And there are navigation apps specifically for the visually impaired while travelling.
We ended up using Aira. And with Aira we found - like if we're walking from one place to another, Aira would tell us ‘now we're passing this shop. Now that shop’. And that was really great. Because as a blind person, you just never can do that. Like, you could just look out the car window, or just walk down the street and be like, ‘I'm passing this shop, and I'm passing that shop’. So that was amazing, we went into so many shops because of that.
There are also tour operators that specialize in travel for the visually impaired. Several interviews mentioned how empowering this was for them because they could pick a trip that was tailored to their tastes and not have to rely on family or friends. They also enjoyed that they could make friends and memories with other visually impaired travellers. The overall concluding remarks of the researchers was that the experiences of visually impaired travellers was pretty positive thanks to advancements in technology, the kindness of strangers, and the hospitality, training, understanding, and high level of customer service that tourism professionals provide.
The researchers wrote that further study would include older visually impaired travellers to see if their experiences mirrored their younger counterparts, noting that this study mostly interviewed millennials. Another topic for further research mentioned is simply asking people with visual impairments what constitutes a high quality holiday experience for them and tourism businesses, operators, and professionals creating experiences based on that feedback. The final component of further research can can focus on tourism employees and how they can cater to visually impaired tourists.
For this particular journal article, I was not exactly sure what to expect when I found it. I am happy that overall, these travellers encountered kindness, generosity, and helpful attitudes. I would like to read more on how to make tourism experiences more inclusive for various conditions since I think it is an important topic. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my quick and casual recap of it and what the researchers found in their study.
Consuming
Short and sweet this time.
I am still reading the trash book that I mentioned last time called My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Still working my way through a Frasier re-watch and have Ahsoka on deck for my next show. I am also watching Magical Andes and enjoying it. It is a short docuseries about the Andes in South America. The scenery and videography are great and the stories are fantastic. A lot of it is in Spanish, so you’ll have to watch it with subtitles or dub it if you don’t understand Spanish. Some of the episodes are narrated in English.
Housekeeping note
In crossover news, I am hosting/planning/leading a running trip next April 19-28 in Portugal. It is a 10 day trip that begins and ends in Lisbon, it starts off with a trail race in wine country, choose your distance of 10k or 25k and visit several regions and towns surrounding Portugal. It will be active, fun, and educational and allow some free time. If it sounds fun and you’re not a runner, let’s chat. You can find the itinerary, what’s included, and cost at that link.
That is all! Thanks for reading, clicking, subscribing, all of it! I appreciate each and every one of you. If you know someone who might like reading, I’d love it if you shared.
See you in your inboxes at the end of the month!
Sonya