If you are a wheelchair user and you want to go on vacation, you must find wheelchair accessible hotels. There are lots of things to think about in order to find these hotels, some of them practical and some of them focus more on experience. Let’s take a look at some key things of importance.
How to Find Wheelchair Accessible Hotels
Top tips for finding wheelchair accessible hotels:
Search online.
When you find something online, don’t presume a little wheelchair sign also means the entire hotel is accessible. You must do more research.
Phone the hotel and ask whether the lobby, different rooms, gym, spa, restaurant, and other facilities are all accessible to wheelchair users.
Find out details about the room – is the shower accessible, how high is the bed, is there a step to the door?
Check out reviews. There are numerous forums specifically for the disabled traveler and people there will be able to provide you with lost of tips, guidance, and advice on specific locations, hotels, and more.
Look into how you can get from your accommodation to the sites you want to see. Perhaps there is a shuttle available, for instance, in which case you need to know whether the shuttle is accessible to wheelchair users as well.
Other Things to Look For
As a disabled traveler, you will quickly find that there are a number of other things you need to think about, including:
To always having a plastic bag or shower cap with you to cover the joystick on your wheelchair should it suddenly start raining.
To find out where your nearest wheelchair repair shop is, should something break down.
To look at wheelchair rental locations, again in case there is a problem with your own chair.
To check the voltage in your different locations and to take transformer plugs so that you can fit your power plugs in their sockets.
With these tips, you should be able to book a fantastic wheelchair accessible vacation to just about any destination you want to go to, regardless of your ability. Long gone are the days when someone in a wheelchair, someone who was blind, or someone with any other kind of disability, was basically housebound. The only trips that were available to them were trips organized for people with exactly the same disabilities. This meant that people didn’t have a choice about where to go or who to go with.
Thankfully, those days are gone. Now, someone with a disability can travel the world, on their own if they so choose. And that is a good thing. Unfortunately, however, the reality is that there are still a few things that you need to look into and check out, just for your own peace of mind. Perhaps, one day, we will live in a world where everything is fully accessible, but that world is still a long way away, although progress is being made.
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