The radio interview on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Here on Earth show with Scott Rains and myself is now available:

Interview and Links

Podcast

I’ve just finished an interview with regards to inclusive travel for people with disabilities and accessible.travel on Wisconsin Public Radio on their show “Here on Earth” with Scott Rains. A podcast of the interview will be available in the next couple of day and I’ll post it as soon as I can. In the meantime here’s some information about the interview from Here on Earth.

I am pleased to announce a new partnership between accessible.travel and tripwolf to support each other in our work.

Tripwolf is a social travel guide for the discerning traveler that combines professional editorial travel content with user generated content – a collection of experiences from thousands of travelers worldwide. With tripwolf, travelers can generate their own customized 10-20 page travel guide based on their individual preferences and recommendations from friends and “trip gurus.”

I have been involved with tripwolf since their launch and have always tried to provide information for travellers with disabilities on their site. I am thrilled that they are suppporting accessible.travel in order to be able to provide their own community users with useful information about travelling with a disability.

We hope to be able to cross reference the hotels that both sites use so that tripwolf users with disabilities can find reliable information about accommodation with facilities for people with disabilities and make reservations with us.

Thanks to tripwolf for their continued support and everyone involved in accessible.travel is very excited about this new partnership.

Welcome to the March 2009 issue of the Global Access News Travel E-Zine. Thanks to everyone for taking the time to write us and share your travel tips and experiences.

1. ACCESSIBLE TRAVEL

Craig Grimes, who operates the excellent www.accessiblebarcelona.com is now offering a new site, Accessible Travel, http://www.accessible.travel/ It features access information on hotels in San Francisco, as well as Paris, London, Prague and additional European cities. Grimes intends to eventually expand his site to include a host of other destinations, which will surely prove a boon to disabled travelers.

Also mentioned in Global Access News this month is our other web page AccessibleNicaragua:

4. ACCESSIBLE NICARAGUA

Craig Grimes, of Accessible Barcelona and Accessible Travel, takes on access in Nicaragua. It is always so encouraging to see new regions like Nicaragua open up to disabled travelers. At last, we can put Central America on our itineraries. Visit www.accessiblenicaragua.com

Source: GLOBAL ACCESS NEWS TRAVEL E-ZINE, VOLUME X, NUMBER 3, March 2009

An article about accessible.travel in the Travel Biz Monitor (India)

Accessible.travel, instant hotel booking engine for People with Disabilities likely to launch in India by year-end
By Khushboo Sahrawat | Mumbai

Accessible.travel, the world’s first instant hotel booking engine for People with Disabilities (PwDs) was launched last month by Craig Grimes, Director, Accessible.travel. Talking about the new initiative, Craig Grimes told TravelBiz Monitor, “The booking engine is different in terms of data provided regarding access and facilities for People with Disabilities at the hotels listed on the site. This has never been done before in a commercial way along with facility of instant booking.”

Read more.

Source: Travel Biz Monitor

Today Access Anything posted a blog post about the accessible.travel Community as well as our sister site Tour Watch.

Access Anything said:

“FOR THE TRAVELER

The newest one is called the accessible.travel Community, created by one of our peers Craig Grimes, based out of Nicaragua and with extensive experience in travel and adventure travel for people with disabilities in not only South and Central America but in the European Union as well. Craig’s dedication to bettering the online information for PWD shows in this community, a hub created for the traveler to share tips on accessible places he or she has been.

accessible.travel is for the traveler, the researcher, those thirsting for accessible information at their fingertips. In order for the information to grow, the network must grow, so we are sharing this new community so that it can do so. We hope you pay a visit and join. With already 105 members and growing, this is soon to be a vast resource and a great meeting location for like minded travelers with similar needs who seek travel locations without barriers.”

Thanks to Craig & Andy Kennedy at Access Anything for their continued support.

The European Network for Accessible Toursim (ENAT) talk about accessible.travel in a blog post today. ENAT have been very supportive of accessible.travel and have shared access data for various destinations.

Without ENAT accessible.travel wouldn’t have got to this point so quickly and I look forward to working with them more in the future. I’ll keep you all posted through the blog about developments with ENAT, of which, I am hoping that there will be many in the not too distant future.

A profile about the work of Craig Grimes, Director of accessible.travel, in the Christian Science Monitor.

Matagalpa, Nicaragua – The winding turns, potholes, open sewers, and stray dogs make the streets of this northern Nicaraguan town tough to negotiate – let alone in a wheelchair.

“It’s the worst ever, without a doubt,” says Craig Grimes, with a laugh, as he grasps a signpost to pull his wheelchair up onto a street curb. “A lot of people in Matagalpa don’t know how to use their wheelchairs, because no one has ever taught them. I’ve been showing people in wheelchairs how to get around their own city, and they’ve lived here their whole lives.”

Read more.

Source: Christian Science Monitor

Today Time Online publsihed a short paragraph about accessible.travel. Hopefully this is the first of a lot of positive publicty to come our way. Below are a couple of screen shots of the page, to see the full thing please go to Time.

Images taken from Time.