Disabled access vacation advice

Martin Heng, Accessible Travel Manager & Editorial Adviser, Lonely Planet (Australia): “Planning is so important when you have access needs. I never use to plan anything. I used to buy a ticket, pack my bag and go, and of course now that is impossible. And so you do need to plan. Think about the most important things that you need when you are away. They are to have a bed, and to have a bathroom. Those two things are absolutely essential. Everything else you can probably manage, one way or another. So, the most important thing is to make sure that the place you stay is going to accommodate your needs, and the only way to do that is to talk to them directly. If possible get them to send you photos of their so-called accessible room, because standards vary from country to country. “

Martyn Sibley, co-founder of leading disability lifestyles magazine disabilityhorizons.com is a font of knowledge when it comes to disabled access vacation advice: “My top tip is, no matter who you are, whatever your perceived limits are, just do it! It might take a lifetime of planning, but you can get there. And that is my next tip – decide where you want to go and what you want to do when you get there. Don’t let your disability plan that for you. “

Brian Seaman, accessible tourism expert, who worked at leading charity, Tourism for All UK for 19 years: “Be a bit braver - you can go bungee diving or a zipwire in a wheelchair if you want to. The opportunities are there, it is just making those contacts so that you know that the place you are visiting has those facilities.”

“We had to rebuild our property to make it into a hotel, in 2007, and we realised that the Spanish rules for door sizes didn’t even accommodate a wheelchair! Thankfully the law has changed now, but so many people built their places with these rules. So, you need to check in Spain that when a business says that it has access, this is in keeping with the contemporary laws.

Ask questions and say exactly what you need. So if you need a rail on the right hand side, or the left hand side, do say. Also, beware of sinks which are at a lower position to cater for people in wheelchairs – there is often a metal pipe which takes the water away, and if it is hot the tube becomes hot too. If you don’t have feeling in your legs and touch the hot pipe, you won’t feel that you have been burned. So you need to be careful of that. “

Chris Veitch, accessible and inclusive tourism consultant: “Guests have a responsibility to be upfront about what their requirements are. They can’t expect businesses to be mind readers either. Sometimes it is low cost things that make all the difference, but unless businesses know that, they won’t invest in them”.

Julià Montero Ortega, founder of our supplier, Barcelona Zero Limits: “Try and teach the industry what else they can do to help. This is important. Don’t let them continue to have this fear of the unknown. But help them learn how to do it better. And to show them that you are really a normal person. OK, you might have a wheelchair, but you are still a normal person. Sometimes people in the industry just don’t get that, so it is good to show them that”.