I’m pleased to announce that accessible.travel has a new partner, Uptake, that provide information, reviews and a blog about holidays for families. As with travel for people with disabilities there is a lack of information for families with children that would like to travel and this is where UpTake come in.

Although UpTake are not specifically aimed at people with disabilities or mature travellers they have in the past supported our cause through posting blog articles. Now, UpTake are collaborating with to us to redefine the way that we travel  through sponsoring the accessible.travel Community and providing information regarding facilities for people with disabilities with links back to our accommodation pages here at accessible.travel. It’s great to be associated with UpTake and the work that we do together should help both companies.

This is an example of how an Accessible.travel city map may look. This map is of accommodation providers in San Francisco that have facilities for people with disabilities. Have a play around with it, move around it, zoom in and out, there are almost 40 properties on the map.
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The above map is a very simplistic idea of what can be achieved. The wheelchair symbols indicate that the accommodation has at least one room with facilities for people with disabilities that has a roll-in-shower, while the standing figure indicates that the hotel only has a bath. This allows the user to only look at the hotels that maybe suitable for their needs. Most people with disabilities tend to prefer or require roll-in-showers as baths are not suitable for their needs. Therefore, rather than having to look through all of the hotel descriptions, this use of symbols can be very helpful.

Within the bubble as you click on the symbol, there is some basic information about the property, such as the address, how many rooms for people with disabilities there are and how many of these have roll-in-showers. I have placed the link of Accessible.travel at the end, but on the actual web site it will say something like “more information” or “hotel assessment” and take the user through to a complete description of the property with photos.

As the web site grow, these maps can also be used more interactively through people with disabilities emailing in reviews of museums, restaurants, attractions and general photos of their trip to the city which can be added to it. This will help create a ownership and also give other people with disabilities confidence in the information given.

Assessment information provided by: Access Nothern California

Since AccessibleBarcelona started growing I have often received emails from people with disabilities asking if we only operate in Barcelona. People that have stayed in Barcelona through using the services of AccessibleBarcelona also frequently get back in touch for advice regarding other cities and asking if we can help them arrange trips to other destinations.

I’ve often thought about trying to expand my work through replicating the ideals and standards of AccessibleBarcelona in other European cities. I love city breaks, just 3 months after becoming paraplegic I discharged myself from Pinderfields Spinal Injuries Unit and went travelling to the Netherlands with a friend. Whilst there we covered a lot of the country, but I especially loved Rotterdam and Amsterdam, 2 great cities.

Whilst working for the Spinal Injuries Association (SIA) in the UK I had to visit London, Cardiff and Belfast for work, but I also visited various cities in Germany and Prague the Czech Capital just for fun. After saying farewell to the SIA and moving to Barcelona I fell in love with the place, it’s just an amazing Mediterranean city, the hustle and bustle, culture, history, beach and the Pyrenees are very close too for a quick skiing trip in the winter. While living in Barcelona I didn’t travel all that much, but when I did I hit more European cities including Madrid, Edinburgh, Paris, Munich, Nuremberg and of course one of my all time favourites; Berlin.

The biggest problem with staying in a city a person with a disability seems to finding decent accessible accommodation, I’ve just been to London in Oct 2008 and trying to find a hotel was a real hassle. When I went to Paris I also had problems as well as when I was in Berlin. Just trying to find reliable information about accommodation facilities for people with disabilities is hard, although a hotel reservation engine may state that a hotel is “wheelchair friendly” or has “facilities for disabled” they don’t give us any details of what that actually means. Frequently, the people that have said that somewhere is suitable for people with disabilities don’t actually have a clue about what we need. Neither do they give us enough information or photos about the facilities so that we can make a decision for ourselves, they just assume that they know best and they are usually wrong.

Accessible.travel is an attempt to even the playing field a little and give other people with disabilities information regarding accessible city breaks. The site will post hotel information and your comments about hotels and accommodation. This isn’t going to happen overnight, but with time, Accessible.travel aims to be a useful resource to people with disabilities that, like me, love travelling to different cities around the world.