Making Travel Accessible: Planning A Holiday Everyone Can Enjoy

Going away on holiday is something we all enjoy doing. Even with having to get through a busy airport and surviving the plane journey without jet lag and/or someone kicking your chair the whole time, you’ll set foot in a new country that has so much to offer you. It’s a great thing to even just think about, isn’t it? But if you’re someone who has reduced mobility, or you’re in a wheelchair, or you’re living with learning disabilities, it can be very hard to try and enjoy a holiday. 

Even when you’re with friends and family, and you’re all supposed to be having a laugh together, that fact that you can’t join them on that sightseeing tour, or you’re still recovering from the exhaustion of the plane journey, is really going to limit the amount of fun you can have. It’s why things have to change in your holiday booking plans! There’s nothing wrong with going away with your loved ones, but your needs need to be taken into account here too. 

Making your travel more accessible is the real key to ensuring you enjoy every single holiday you go on, and there are quite a few options out there you might not have considered quite yet. And with the points below, we hope to help you plan your next holiday to be the best one you’ve ever been on!

Book the Room Right.

Booking the room right is a big part of ensuring your holiday is as accessible as you need it to be. Plus, finding an accessible room is a lot easier than you might think; make sure you know what the rooms look like, look for reviews from people just like you, check where the hotel is actually situated, and don’t be afraid to actually get in touch and ask about how the hotel provides for disabled customers. 

The hotel needs to be a quiet and comfortable place, to make sure you can rest up easy every night, and you might want to also fork out a little extra to make sure you can eat in the facilities as well. It’ll certainly save you from scouring the city for an accessible restaurant, and provide an easy option to use as a Plan B when your dinner plans don’t quite work out. 

Not to mention, you might want to keep in mind how you feel on your ‘worst days’. Put yourself in this mindset, and book with your needs on a day like this in mind. It’ll ensure you’re not going to put yourself through something you won’t actually be able to manage when the time comes. 

Ask for Assistance.

You can also ask for assistance, whenever you’re travelling and have to go through the airport – getting on a plane, with all of your equipment, can be hard when you have reduced mobility or special needs, and it’s much better to make the airline aware of this. So get on the phone to the airport, a good week or two before you’re supposed to fly, and ask for their guidelines for disabled passengers. 

Ask for their recommended checking in times for passengers with needs like yours, and also ask them where their ‘assistance points’ are located. These will be well signposted throughout the airport itself, and all airports should have them, but it’s good to have a clear direction to go in before you arrive. 

Once you’re at an assistance point, it should be very easy to communicate what you need. The staff that man these areas are specially trained in accessibility, and should be able to carry out things such as baggage handling and boarding for you. Be honest with them about what kind of help you need, and make sure you get to points like these in good time. 

And once you get to the destination airport, the flight team who helped you board should be able to help you get through baggage pickup and customs on the other side too. If you’re worried about not being able to find help in a foreign country, research the destination airport’s accessibility policies before you go, and make sure your travel partners are aware of your worries too. 

Cut Down the Walking Opportunities.

Then we come to the real awkward rub of the holiday problem – there’s just way too much travelling to do, and for a lot of people, that means walking through cities and up and down hillsides, just to make their back to the hotel in the evening. 

And if you’re someone who struggles to walk, or finds it impossible to get a wheelchair down a cobblestone street or in and out of all those crowds, this is just too much work to handle. The holiday stops being fun and relaxing, and you just worry about how far you’ve got to go tomorrow. 

So what do you do? You come to an understanding with all of your travel partners: cut down on the walking opportunities! For example, when you step off the plane at the airport, and you’ve got to make it to your accommodation, order an airport taxi to get you there, rather than try to walk it or get on a local bus – there might be enough room for your equipment with the latter option. 

Similarly, you could book to stay somewhere that’s halfway in between your destination and the airport, to make sure you never have to go too far in either direction. It’ll be a lot easier to manage, and there will be some much easier, more experienced routes for you to take, and you’ll be able to take your time too. 

Accessible travel is something we all need to think more about and prioritise when travelling. So, if you’re someone who finds it hard to keep up with others, due to a variety of reasons, going on a holiday that’ll really suit you will ensure you’ll have just as much fun as you deserve to! 

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