TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

Adaptive Sports

TravelAbility and Becoming RentABLE Launch a Disability Events Calendar

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image of a calendar with 3 call-outs of disability events happening in May
TravelAbility and Becoming RentABLE are proud to announce the launch of a new calendar of events for disability conferences, events, and para sports events in North America. This collaboration aims to provide a comprehensive resource for individuals with disabilities and destinations so that they can prepare their stakeholders for upcoming events. The full calendar will be available on both the TravelAbility web site and Becoming RentAble web-site.

The calendar will include a wide range of events, from conferences on accessibility and inclusion to para sports competitions. The goal is to provide a one-stop-shop for individuals with disabilities to find events that interest them and provide opportunities for networking, learning, and fun.

“Disability has never had more visibility to the mainstream,” said Becoming RentAble CEO, Lorraine Woodward.  “Providing information about adaptive sports events and conferences creates networking and relationship building opportunities for a community that is woefully underserved.”

“We are thrilled to be working with Becoming RentAble on this project,” added TravelAbility founder, Jake Steinman. “Our goal is to raise awareness among destinations that hosting adaptive events and disability conferences provides an excellent opportunity to educate their hotels, attractions, restaurants about how to serve these visitors in a way that is welcoming and inclusive for everyone, and this calendar is a big step towards achieving that.”
The calendar will be available on both the TravelAbility.net and BecomingRentAble.com websites and will be regularly updated with new events.  
Stay tuned for more information on this exciting collaboration!
 
If you know of an upcoming event in your destination add it to the calendar . Listings are a free service for the community.

New Saudi Ultra-Luxury Resort Caters to the High-End Disabled Traveler

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photo of a man. seen from the back with a prosthetic leg wearing a wet-suit, carrying a surfboard and heading into the ocean

Our Takeaway: The Saudis have suddenly awakened to the fact that they will run out of oil in the year 2344, and, following the example of Dubai,  they’re building an infrastructure around aging gazillionaires who love to travel in the lap of luxury.

Red Sea Globalhas promised the giga project will be entirely disability friendly.

The developer, backed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, will add ramps and accessible rooms at all its hotels, but also offer adaptive diving experiences and make sure that people with disabilities can stay in the “more challenging” accommodations, such as the Desert Rock Mountain Resort.  

RSG group CEO John Pagano said: “If we are truly going to do better for people and the planet, we can’t leave anyone behind. There are approximately 1.3 billion disabled people globally. It is not only totally inexcusable for our industry to exclude so many people, but commercially short-sighted.” Read More.

Conde Nast Magazine announces, “Beyond Barriers” Monthly Column Celebrating Accessible Travel

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photo of a disabled skier on top of the mountain

Tom D Morgan-Courtesy Sophie Morgan

Our Takeaway: In some ways, the UK media is light years ahead of their American counterparts when it comes to inclusive values.  Will others follow?

I would like to share a photograph. In it, a smiling 18-year-old girl wearing a faded sleeveless vest and ragged jeans leans forwards to counterbalance a backpack. She is embarking on her first intrepid adventure, standing on the precipice of a journey, but also of girlhood. She’s at that giddy time when everything seems to offer the promise of potential opportunity. The world is her oyster, and she knows it. When I look at this picture, nostalgia twists gently in my stomach. Then the feeling tightens with foreboding. In just a few weeks, that girl—her wanderlust tickled from a trip around southern India—will be paralyzed in a car crash. Read More.

Is it a Wheelchair or a Tank? It’s Both!

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Georgia’s Department of Natural Resources and the Aimee Copeland Foundation unveiled a fleet of all-terrain power wheelchairs for rent at 11 state parks and outdoor destinations, including Cloudland Canyon. Read more.

Scuba Diving Becomes a Sublime Experience for the Disabled

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Male scuba diver pictured underwater.

Tracy Schmitt, a quadruple amputee and accomplished sailor, skier and mountaineer spent years trying to convince dive instructors to take her on as a client. Tracy said, “They couldn’t imagine: no legs and no left arm, and my right arm is unique with one finger – how would I do it?”

Once she found an instructor, she excelled in the pursuit and is now “an advanced scuba diver approaching my one-hundredth dive,” she said. “The whole world goes silent and your worries just drift away,” she said, adding that “It was the first time I felt like myself again.”

Cody Unser, who developed transverse myelitis (TM), a rare autoimmune condition that left her paralyzed from the waist down at age 12, was introduced to scuba diving by her brother. She experienced an increase in lower-limb sensation while underwater, and took that to her doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Interested in researching this phenomenon more, a team of researchers and a group of veterans with spinal cord injuries traveled to the Cayman Islands for a scuba-diving trip in 2011. According to the news release from Johns Hopkins, the participants had “significant improvement in muscle movement, increased sensitivity to light touch and pinprick on the legs, and large reductions in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.”

To learn more about the exciting power of Scuba diving, and initiatives to make it more accessible to disabled people, read the article in Stars and Stripes.