I went to Australia with a good friend of mine from high school about the time I was struggling to walk safely outdoors but not using a wheelchair full time. I borrowed a manual wheelchair from a local vendor and we took it with us just in case.
Sure enough if we were going to see the sights efficiently I was going to have to use that chair and she was going to have to push it. On the very first day, within hours of landing, we were out exploring a local church. Naturally it started pouring rain!
There we were several blocks from the car and had lost our bearings. So she pushed me in the wrong direction for a short time before we realized we were going the wrong way. As huge raindrops fell on us we finally got back to the car and called it a day.
During the rest of that trip she pushed me everywhere including this super long ramp down at the Sydney Harbor that I think she’s still got sore calfs from.
All throughout this trip and even after when we got home and she had to push me around on occasion, she never made me feel like it was a burden to help. There are several stories we remember of help gone awry or situations where we just had to laugh. I’m so thankful that we had the opportunity to travel together and are still great friends today.
One summer I was traveling to Italy by myself to play in a tennis tournament and didn’t know a word of Italian. But I figured as long as I knew how to say “Hello,” “Thank you,” and “Do you speak English?” I’d be okay.
My plan was to fly from Chicago to Rome and transfer to Florence. Since I was unsure about traveling in a non-English speaking country for the first time I made sure my layover was at least three hours. In hindsight, this was the best planning I made on that trip.
You see, when I arrived in Rome, I was taken off the plane and brought to my electric wheelchair in the International terminal. The two Italians spoke English, and said they were taking me to the new assistance area for people who needed special help. As they said this, I remembered reading something online about a new service at the Italian airports to provide assistance to disabled passengers. So I thought I would be fine.
When I arrived at the assistance lounge, I am pretty sure the first words out of the director’s mouth were the Italian equivalent of “Mamma Mia!” which in hindsight would have been “Mamma Mia” so it was probably something even better. They all took one look at me and my chair and were wondering out loud something in Italian. The looks on their faces said that they probably had never helped anyone in an electric chair before.
“How much it weigh?” asked the man behind the desk.
I immediately had to convert pounds to kilograms in my head and said, “Ninety kilograms.”
“Ninety? No, no, no, really?”
“Yes” I said as he began inspecting the chair.
Now imagine the discussion that proceeded. I saw lots of pointing to the chair and arms acting out a lifting motion. One person jumped on the phone, another ran out with a handheld radio looking for someone named Francisco or Antonio or something ending in a vowel.
One nice younger girl tried to tell me in English that it was going to be okay and just wait. I don’t know if that did the trick, but for whatever reason, I was not stressed at all about making my connection. At this point I had two-and-a-half hours, and the staff seemed to know what they needed to do.
An hour passed, but they definitely hadn’t forgotten about me. Every now and then someone would come in and inspect my chair and try to push it even though it was locked in place because I had it turned off. One tried to lift it a little, but let out a loud grunt and sigh as he walked away without being able to make it budge. I just chuckled.
Finally someone came and said, “Come on, we go to the gate” and I followed him through security and downstairs where they queue people to take buses out to the plane. Within a few minutes, a special van was backed-up next to the curb and a ramp as lowered. I got on the van and they took me out to another truck. I got in the back of this truck, which was more like a delivery truck and they drove me out to the plane. Once at the plane, 2 guys got in the back of the truck with me and suddenly we were being lifted up to the plane door. At the door, they deployed this tiny ramp and picked me up off my chair, put me in a narrow wheelchair. The tiny chair rolled over the ramp and the guys put me in my seat.
I heard the truck lower and leave, and from me seat saw it coming around the other side of the plane where they raised it up again and I assume put my chair into the cargo hold.
Transfer complete. And I didn’t have to tell them anything. After all, it’s not rocket science – person and wheelchair both need to get on the plane. Figure out the rest later.
Make sure the hotel you are staying at has the type of accommodations you are expecting. I have learned by trial and error that “accessible room” has a very loose meaning. At a minimum this means that you can get into the room, and fit through the bathroom door. However, if you require a roll-in shower, make sure you specify this as well by saying “I need a shower area with a bench and no tub.” Some people think a roll-in shower still means a bathtub with grab bars.
The best way to make sure you are going to get what you want is to call the hotel directly. Often, the online information is not enough to go on. In fact, many hotels do not even specifically let you reserve accessible rooms on the internet because they are holding the rooms in case someone needs them. This is good because they are saving it for people with disabilities, but it’s inconvenient because you have to go offline to actually make the reservation.
There are occasions when I have not called ahead and the result is a mixed bag of unfortunate rooms and incredible upgrades. If a hotel happens to be somewhat full and you don’t call ahead you might not get an accessible room. However there have been times I’ve gotten upgraded to suites or other larger rooms when accessible rooms were not available upon check in. On one occasion the hotel gave me a whole extra room for a friend of mine because the only accessible room available had only one bed and we needed two.
So feel free to take your chances, but if you definitely need an accessible shower then definitely call ahead.
Another great stress reducer when flying with a disability is to figure out the best way to get from the airport to your hotel prior to traveling. Most cities have taxi companies with accessible vehicles, so you can easily call ahead to make arrangements. Often, the private shuttle companies will have a van or two in their fleets as well – but in my experience you still need to call ahead so they can have that particular van ready for you. Many accessible van rental companies will drop off the vehicle to you at the airport even if their office is not anywhere near the airport. Occasionally this comes with an additional fee, but is very convenient. You can also drop off the vehicle at the airport as well.
Several cities have great public transit between airports and areas near major hotels. The only thing to keep in mind here is that you want to make sure the transit options are running when you arrive. If you have a late flight make sure trains and buses aren’t done for the night. And if you plan on taking public transit to get to an early flight you want to check the schedules as well.
Personally I prefer making two plans. Plan A is to arrange private transportation or taxi and confirm this ride the day before your trip. Plan B is a public transit route, just in case your Plan A arrives late or not at all. This doesn’t happen very frequently but if it does, at least you’re not stuck.
If you are flying, plan for enough time between flights to accommodate your transfer if you have a stop-over. I usually look for flights with 2-hour layovers. This makes it much less stressful if your first flight runs a bit late. Usually it takes but 30 minutes to get off the plane after landing, so an hour layover is do-able if you know you’re not going to worry about it. After all the worst thing that can happen is you get stuck in an airport overnight and that’s not really too horrible, just inconvenient.
You Should Go Anyway 
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