Motorized Wheel Chair

Gone are the days when people with disabilities lived a restricted life fully dependent on other people for support and entertainment. People’s mindsets have changed these days and it is now possible to see people with disabilities participating fully in life, whether it is work or even a vacation. There is even a growing demand for vacation options where people with all sorts of disabilities can enjoy themselves to the fullest without having to feel that they are missing out on things or even slowing other people down. Advances in wheelchair technology have helped immensely in this regard. Those with physical challenges have achieved greater independence and it’s about time. Wheelchair travel is growing as a market.

The travel industry has realized the business potential of offering vacations tailor made for disabled persons and it offers them all sorts of exciting packages of accessible travel to destinations all over the world. It is possible for people with mobility issues or any other disabilities to go on accessible cruises, safaris or even scuba diving since arrangements are made to ensure that all participants face no inconvenience and their wheelchairs are accommodated on the vacation. The only limitations will be the imagination and your budget of course, but plan accordingly.

There are many vacation options for accessible travel for disabled persons. It depends on what your preferences are. People who wish to travel alone or with their travel partner or travelers wishing to join in a group are available, all depending on one’s tastes. Tour operators who specialize in handicapped travel have to ensure that all needs are anticipated so that problems do not occur. It is best to rely on tour operators who are experienced in accessible travel rather than attempt to make bookings on one’s own because there are many problems one could encounter, especially in foreign countries where people are not fully sensitized to the needs of people with disabilities.

Hotels which have included disabled access as one of their amenities for handicapped travel are becoming more common today. If one chooses a tour which is especially designed for disabled travelers, one can anticipate that all particulars such as all the reserved hotels, bathrooms, flights, trains and bus include disability access. The group will also get special assistance with their wheelchairs whenever they use rail, ship or air transport so that they do not face any unexpected problems. These vacations are usually extremely well organized and vacationers on these tours can expect to have a great time participating. So pack your suitcase, your motorized wheelchair, get out your traveler wheelchair and get ready to have a wonderful vacation!

Where would you like to go and are you planning your next vacation? Let me know if any of you have found a great resource for accessible travel, hotels or tours.

A German entrepreneur, Paul Krauthausen has designed an accessibility map showing wheelchair-accessible locations worldwide.  The site is call WheelMap. Org.  Volunteers have contributed to this wheelchair mapping site, mapping over 73,000 places, chiefly in Europe at the current time in order to help the 185 million people who are in search for wheelchair accessible locations around the globe.  The WheelMap.Org site will no doubt grow overtime to reflect the needs for such a website as this indispensable tool.  It just goes t o show that anyone can do anything.  Identify a need and then fulfill it.  Personally, I think this is a great idea and it’s about time.  This wheelchair news story first appeared in www.dw-world.de.

Every day, countless people use Google Maps or other online mapping services to figure out how to walk or drive from one place to another. But for the 185 million people in wheelchairs around the globe, stairs and other uneven surfaces are constant obstacles in their daily lives.

One year ago this month, 31-year-old social entrepreneur Raul Krauthausen launched an online tool that maps wheelchair-accessible locations in different cities around the globe. He’s one of 1.6 million wheelchair users in Germany. Over the past year, 2,000 contributors have mapped over 73,000 places – mostly in Europe – including bars, cafes, government offices, and train stations on WheelMap.org.

“Two years ago a friend of mine was sitting with me in a café and told me that he hates this café where we meet every day and he wants to go to another place,” Krauthausen explained.

“But as a wheelchair drive …you always have the problem that you don’t know which café is wheelchair accessible.”
The site makes use of “open data,” information that is stored in a particular file format so that it’s easy for programmers to create new visualizations or variations on it.

Developers point out that commercial online mapping tools like Google Street View often don’t take into consideration how wheelchair users use public transportation. But, with open data tools like OpenStreetMap, they can create the online tools that cities or companies have neglected.

In recent years, there has been a greater movement pushing cities like London, Manchester, Madrid and Turin to make their transit scheduling available as open data. Wehrmeyer had to collect this information on Berlin by hand.

“In addition to timetables, public transport companies should also provide real-time updates as to where the elevators or escalators have recently broken down – because people with disabilities depend on these services,” he added.

Krauthausen has developed into the site which now draws around 100 new entries every day. The site is dependent on wheelchair users who contribute their own knowledge of places under four color-coded categories.

Wheelmap has become almost indispensible for many of its users, especially in older European cities like Berlin that are not always designed to accommodate them.”

Author: Cinnamon Nippard, Photos: dw-world.de