This was published 7 years ago
Travelling with a disability: Paralympics shows the possibilities
By Lee Tulloch
Disabled access can be a problem for travellers.Credit: Getty Images
In the lead-up to the Paralympics, Britain's Channel Four released what is probably the best promo advertisement I've ever seen – We're the Superhumans: "Yes, I Can."
In it, a cast of 140 disabled people jump, run, swim, play musical instruments, dance, and drive fast cars, in a glorious celebration of what they can rather than can't do.
It's all about ability rather than disability and it's made even more entertaining by the jazzy soundtrack, sung by Brisbane crooner Tony Dee, born with spina bifida, who has spent his 47 years in a wheelchair.
Whenever I'm grumpy about a narrow seat on a plane, I do my best to think about how much worse it might be travelling with a physical disability. The many obstacles include finding assistance with luggage, getting on and off a plane (and into your seat), accessing toilets, checking in wheelchairs and their batteries, and taking hardware such as wheelchairs, walking sticks or hearing aides through security.
And that's only the airport. Taxis, accommodation, travel insurance, tour buses, and subways can all present challenges. Many feel excluded from touring with people who are more able physically. There may be quarantine issues with assistance dogs. Squishier seating in economy on many flights makes it harder to find comfortable space with canine companions.
People with developmental disorders such as autism, and neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's and Tourette's, also struggle outside the home environment.
And yet, despite obstacles that might daunt most of us, according to Choice, 88 per cent of Australians with disabilities, with or without carers, travel for holidays each year. "Yes, I can!" has long been the mantra of those many disabled people who are determined to live life to the fullest.
Paralympians don't want to be seen as "brave" or "courageous". They're just getting on with life, they argue. That's the spirit that drives disabled people to travel, to live lives beyond their comfort zone, a term that has real meaning when the world at large has additional obstacles.
Of the physical disabilities, blindness always seems to me to provide the biggest challenge. What is it like to "see the world" without sight? According to a reader who wrote to explain her disability, sight is only one of the faculties that make holidays truly memorable. There are the other senses – sounds, tastes, scents, touch – as well as human interaction through speech, that can make travel as thrilling an experience for the disabled as it is for those who have fewer physical impediments.
Blind from birth (she can see light and dark and some colours) she has an active travelling life that would be the envy of many sighted people.
"Many of us are highly functioning individuals, interested and intelligent, wanting to live life and experience the world like anyone else," she writes. Besides holidays, she travels frequently for work, as many disabled people do.
Visiting New York for a birthday, she walked the High Line, went to concerts and theatre, and to listen to the gospel in Harlem. Her guide dog adjusted well to the fact that Americans drive on the other side of the road.
She finds certain things frustrating, though. She uses an iPhone and iPad with a "voiceover" reader. She turns this on in settings and then navigates with hand gestures. But too often, travel apps don't feature this function.
Airports are getting more difficult, louder and busier than they used to be. Long waits for ground staff to meet her at the plane and take her through the airport to a taxi is also frustrating, as often staff don't prioritise disabled people. Discrimination may not be overt or even intended, but it's persistent.
By law guide dogs are welcome in all public places but she says she knows of others whose bookings have mysteriously "disappeared" when they arrive with a dog.
There are a growing number of websites that cater for people travelling with disabilities, including TripAble.org, which rates a hotel's accessibility and consideration for guests with disabilities. It was created by reader Daniel Humphrey, whose father's spinal cord injury raised his awareness of the struggles people in wheelchairs face in most hotel rooms. It's frustrating, he says, to check into a room that's "wheelchair ready" only to find the shower is a head over a standard bath.
One thing we can all do that makes life easier for our disabled friends – however tempting, don't use those disabled toilets at airports.
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