With the amazing help of Monica Guy here on the accessible.travel Community and the owner of Accessible Cape Town, we have been able to launch the accessible.travel Cape Town destination page. There’s still a lot of work for us to do in South Africa and a lot of information to collect, but now we have four hotels for you to choose from with varying levels of facilities for people with disabilities.

Below: accessible.travel Community member Scott Rains on Safari in South Africa earlier this month.

Brussels will also be launched as a destination accessible.travel early next week with another 5 hotels to choose from. Another member of the accessible.travel Community, Bill Forrester, has been collecting hotel data and information with us in Melbourne and all of this has just been sent to the accessible.travel designer to be published.

Ian Chill has also been sending us some great information about accessible hotels in Cairns as well as posting information in the accessible.travel Community Cairns Group. I’ll announce when Cairns is available with instant hotel booking here on the blog as soon as it’s ready. Another collaborator with the accessible.travel project is Hartmut Smikac and will be helping us collect information in Germany, Austria and Hungary. Again in Europe, Luis Varela from Accessible Portugal has agreed to work with us, this time in Portuguese capital, Lisbon. Luis is the latest person to agree to work with us and I’m really looking forward to working with him further.

Hartmut has also translated our audit forms into German and Loretta Jaumandreu has translated them into Spanish making it easier for us to work with local people with disabilities at destinations that speak these languages.

If you would like to get more involved with the accessible.travel project and help us collect information about hotels, attractions, museums, bars, restaurants, nightclubs and transport where you live and earn commissions for the work you do, please contact me through my profile.

Craig

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

Interview and Links

Podcast

Today I saw an interesting article named “America’s 10 Most Walkable Cities” from The Daily Green. I’m curious as to whether the 10 most walkable cities are also the most accessible for people with disabilities.

You can vote for the most accessible US city on the accessible.travel Community (it will only take a minute to sign up and it’s completely free). Below is a picture of the accessible.travel Poll with the different city options, you cannot vote here on the blog, please join the accessible.travel Community and go to my profile page to vote.

Craig

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.

Here are some links to the policies of European Budget Airlines with regards to carriage of people with disabilities. Some are more useful than others, but this list provides a reference of quick links to the policies of airlines that you may have booked or are thinking of booking with:

Aegean Airlines: Passengers with special needs

Aer Arann: Passengers with reduced mobility

Aer Lingus: Special Assistance

Airberlin: After looking through their site and in the site map I couldn’t actually find anything for people with disabilities. Please check the airberlin site and if you find anything please post it here!

Air Malta: Pregnancy and Medical

Air Southwest: Can Air Southwest accept passengers with disabilities?

ArkeFly: Minder validen (in Dutch)

Avro: FAQ’s: Health, Special Assistance and Requests. Scroll down the FAQs to the relevant links.

Blue Air: 7. Refusal and Limitation of Carriage. Click on the title to reveal “Special Assistance.”

Blu Express: 9. I have special needs; who should I contact? Scroll down to relevant section.

Brussels Airlines: Special Assistance

bmibaby: special requirements

Condor: I couldn’t find anything on their site but then again it’s in German, see the Condor site for further details.

Easyjet: Passengers with specific requirements

Flybaboo: FAQs number 26. I am an invalid and need special assistance. What should I do? Scorll down to relevant part.

Flybe: Special Assistance

flyglobespan: Special Assistance

Fly Thomas Cook: I couldn’t find any information on the site but they did have a “special requests” page. I’d suggest trying one of the numbers there.

Germania: Handicapped Passengers

Germanwings: Passengers with limited mobility (click on the + sign at the end of the title to see more information)

Iceland Express: Passengers with Disabilities

Jet2: Special needs and mobility assistance

Meridiana: Special Assistance

Monarch: See Avro

Norwegian Air Shuttle: Special Needs

Peagsus: Passengers with Special Needs

Ryanair: Special Assistance

Smart Wings: After looking through their site I couldn’t actually find anything for people with disabilities. Please check the Smart Wings site and if you find anything please post it here!

Sun Express: After looking through their site and in the site map I couldn’t actually find anything for people with disabilities. Please check the Sun Express site and if you find anything please post it here!

Thomsonfly: Passengers with special needs

Transavia: Site Map Look under “practical information”.

Tuifly: FAQs Scroll down to relevant part. They basically say contact the TUI Service Centre.

Vueling: What conditions does the company offer for passengers with special needs?

Wizz Air: Useful Information: Passengers with special needs. Scroll down until you get to the relevant section.

From the accessible.travel Community

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.
View Larger Map

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