How I Made It Home From Vacation in One Piece

For the past month, I’ve been on vacation in Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand has no freeway system, so we found ourselves on a two-lane road heading out of Queenstown. About an hour into the drive we were staring at the back of a semi-trailer truck, slowly making its way ahead of us.

I made my move to pass—but as I was pulling up alongside the truck, a white SUV, hidden from view by a dip in the road, was coming at us head-on, seemingly out of nowhere. The SUV veered to my right. The semi moved to the left.  I somehow was able to maneuver between them with inches to spare on both sides. It felt like a movie stunt. No one got hurt, miraculously. I’m still spending sleepless nights thinking about how I endangered the lives of my wife and stepson, as well as those in the other vehicles. The reason was simple impatience. There was no need to try to rush. We weren’t late. We were on vacation. I am grateful to be alive to tell you this story and the effect it has had on me personally. The reason I’m telling you this is that if just one more person exercises patience on their next vacation, it could save their life and others. The experience has motivated me to work even more diligently to create a conference that will bring the disability and travel communities together to create awareness, opportunities, and solutions that we hope will lead to safer, easier travel for everyone.

Our mission is to create content that will have a ripple effect, educating destinations and their partners to the fact that by making hotels, attractions and tours more accessible, they are helping 25% of the population that has a disability and who deserve a more pleasing travel experience. Thank you for taking part in such an important journey.

—Jake Steinman, Founder, TravelAbility Summit