TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

Innovation of the Month

Rio Mobility’s Firefly is Expanding Accessible Adventure Travel for Wheelchair Users

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For wheelchair users, joining a bike tour, cruising a boardwalk, or keeping up on a family outing can require far more planning,and far more compromise, than most destinations realize. Rio Mobility is changing that.

The company first caught the attention of the disability community with the Dragonfly, the industry’s first attachable handcycle. Lightweight, portable, and designed for everyday wheelchairs, it gave users a faster, easier way to navigate the world without replacing the chair they already relied on.

That innovation evolved into Rio Mobility’s flagship product: the Firefly.

Part power assist, part adventure vehicle, the Firefly attaches directly to a manual wheelchair, transforming it into a powered ride capable of traveling 12–13 miles per charge at speeds up to 12 mph. Five speed settings let riders choose the pace that works best for them, while an optional second battery can double the range for longer outings.

The Firefly creates a simple way for wheelchair users to participate in wheeled experiences that have traditionally been difficult to access, from bicycle tours and waterfront rides to scooter and Segway-style excursions.

Now the company is expanding the concept even further with the eDragonfly — a hybrid electric and manual handcycle that blends exercise with powered assistance.

The Firefly

The eDragonfly

The Firefly creates a simple way for wheelchair users to participate in wheeled experiences that have traditionally been difficult to access, from bicycle tours and waterfront rides to scooter and Segway-style excursions. For destinations and tour operators looking to expand inclusion, it’s a practical solution with immediate impact.

At $2,649, the Firefly sits in a price range that makes it more attainable than many adaptive recreation devices, while still opening the door to a dramatically different travel experience.

Rio Mobility’s focus is refreshingly straightforward: lightweight design, broad wheelchair compatibility, competitive pricing, and responsive customer support. In an industry where accessibility solutions are often bulky, expensive, or overcomplicated, that simplicity stands out.

A New Way to ‘See’ History: AI Audio Tours in Saratoga Springs Expanding Around the Nation

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L.F. Leon shares the story behind the story on how Saratoga Springs History Museum is bridging the gap for blind and low vision guests. Their new AI program not only adds words to the visual experience, but guests can leap through time and converse with AI powered characters.

How Saratoga Springs History Museum Employed AI for Inclusion

By L.F. Leon

The journey towards inclusion had a clear starting point, but it’s also been a natural progression.

When I joined the museum in 2024, I started thinking about how we could make our exhibits more accessible. Not every visitor engages with traditional display text in the same way. For some, it’s due to visual impairments or other disabilities; for others, it may be attention span, language barriers, or simply personal preference.

Additionally, our museum has two floors that are not wheelchair accessible. That made it especially important to find a way for visitors who couldn’t physically access those spaces to still experience the stories they hold.

That’s really where the idea came from, how do we make the full museum experience available to everyone, regardless of how they move through the space?

The answer was an AI-narrated audio tour. We also enhanced it with ambient sound design for each exhibit, so visitors aren’t just hearing the history, they’re stepping into it. The combination of narration and atmosphere helps create a much more immersive and inclusive experience.

Why AI for Accessibility?

The decision to use AI was largely practical. As a small non-profit museum, we simply don’t have the budget to hire voice actors, book studio time, and manage post-production.

AI allowed us to overcome those barriers entirely. It gave us the ability to produce high-quality narration quickly, affordably, and at scale.

More importantly, it gave us flexibility. We can update content easily, expand the tour over time, and adapt to visitor needs without having to redo an entire production process. For a museum like ours, that kind of agility is invaluable.

What’s the Real-Life Impact of AI for Accessibility?

Visitors who are blind or have low vision have told us how much they appreciate being able to fully engage with the exhibits through audio.

It’s also been impactful for visitors who aren’t able to access all areas of the museum physically. The audio tour allows them to experience exhibits on upper floors they may not be able to reach.

One of the most rewarding things we’ve heard is that the narration, combined with the ambient sound, helps bring the exhibits to life in a way that feels immersive and engaging. It reinforces the idea that accessibility isn’t just about access, it’s about quality of experience as well.

How You Can Revolutionize Museum Accessibility and Engagement in Your Destination

Our experience led us to build a platform specifically for this purpose, called MuseumAI.

MuseumAI allows museums to create AI-narrated audio guides, but it goes a step further. It also enables interactive experiences with historical figures, where visitors can speak directly to AI-powered characters in real time, either through kiosks or their own smartphones.

These AI figures are designed with distinct voices, personalities, and historically grounded knowledge, allowing visitors to ask questions and engage in a more natural, conversational way.

For those who prefer not to speak, there’s also a chat-based experience available on mobile devices, supporting 10 languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Arabic.

For institutions interested in exploring it further, we’re currently preparing for a broader launch and inviting early adopters to join the waitlist at museumai.co.

The platform is now being expanded so other museums and cultural institutions can benefit from it as well.

We’ve already implemented MuseumAI at the Saratoga Springs History Museum, and the response has been incredibly positive, not just for its innovation, but for how it improves accessibility and engagement across a wide range of visitors. You can learn more about that here: https://museumai.co/case-studies/saratoga-springs-history-museum

For institutions interested in exploring it further, we’re currently preparing for a broader launch and inviting early adopters to join the waitlist at museumai.co.

At its core, the goal is simple: to help museums share their stories in a more inclusive, interactive, and future-facing way.

L.F. Leon

Director of Communications

LinkedIn

Tactile Restroom Maps: Even Grounds Uses 3D Models to Improve Accessibility for Blind Visitors

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Tactile restroom sign with braille and raised map showing accessible men’s restroom layout.

Even Grounds began as an accessibility consulting company in 2023, but its roots run much deeper.

“I have been an accessibility consultant for over 25 years,” says founder Tom Babinszki.

Originally, Even Grounds focused on digital accessibility. But that quickly evolved.

“Originally I offered digital accessibility consulting services, but soon it expanded to holistic accessibility, all you need to do to be inviting for people with disabilities.”

Holistic accessibility. Not just compliance. Not just websites. But the full, lived experience of being welcomed into a space.

And then, travel changed everything.

A Blind Traveler Missing Out on Famous Architecture

Tom is a blind travel enthusiast. And like many travelers, he loves visiting landmarks and historic buildings.

But there was a problem.

“When I was visiting different buildings, I didn’t know what they looked like.”

So he did what innovators do: he built a solution.

“I hired a 3D designer and a 3D printing company to create replicas for a few famous buildings.”

When he shared them with friends, the response was immediate.

He began creating additional replicas and tactile maps, tools that became especially relevant for museums and educational organizations looking to offer meaningful inclusion, not just verbal descriptions.

Today, Even Grounds’ tactile products are being used and exhibited on four continents.

“One of our greatest achievements is the work with the Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired. We sent tactile maps and educational objects to African schools.”

Access to understanding space shouldn’t depend on sight and this work proves what’s possible when inclusion is designed intentionally.

The Icky Restroom Problem No One Talks About

“For me, when I visit a restroom in order to find my way around, I have to touch so many things I’d much rather not.”

It’s something sighted people rarely consider. Navigating a public restroom often means trial and error and physical contact with surfaces you’d rather avoid.

“Thus, we created a 3D representation of a restroom so that blind people can understand the layout of the restroom before they enter.”

Instead of exploring by touch inside the restroom itself, a person can study the layout in advance.

“Instead of finding their way around, they know exactly where everything is — down to the detaisl of knowing where the flush button is or where the soap is at the sink.”

That level of spatial awareness changes the experience from uncertain to confident.

How Do You Find A Sign You Can’t See

Tom is used to this question. 

“This tactile map is designed to be placed by the ADA restroom sign so that people who look for the restroom would find it without having to look for it.”

Most importantly, the design goes beyond braille.

“The innovation is that all objects are so tactile that even if you don’t read braille, you could feel what they are.”

This matters. Because not all blind or low-vision individuals read braille and inclusive design needs to account for that reality.

What’s it Worth?

True inclusion means understanding space, feeling oriented, and entering a room without anxiety.

“Since all restrooms are different, anywhere from a single family restroom to a large complex, the pricing differs.”

The basic order begins at $300, with significant discounts available for similar layouts, such as men’s and women’s restrooms or identical floor plans across multiple levels.

“What we need is a drawing of the location, and a few photos or videos so that we understand the sizes and proportions.”

From there, Even Grounds creates a tactile model tailored to the space, turning an everyday necessity into an accessible experience.

Learn more and order your tactile maps at https://evengrounds.com/accessible-tactile-3d-printed-restroom-maps/

How RightHear Is Changing the Way Blind Travelers Navigate the World

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From an interview with Idan Meir

A young man walking down a tree covered sidewalk using a white cane to navigate and holding a phone up as if he is listening.

The Problem: When Compliance Is Not Communication

RightHear was founded, Meir explains, on a clear conviction. “Spatial independence is a human right.” That belief came from recognizing a persistent gap between legal accessibility requirements and the lived experience of blind and low vision visitors.

Under the ADA, venues are required to provide “Effective Communication.” In practice, Meir says, the industry has relied heavily on Braille as the default solution, even though it often fails to meet that standard.

“Fewer than 10 percent of the blind community reads Braille,” Meir says. Even when Braille signage exists, locating it can be more difficult than reading it. “If a message cannot be found or read, the communication is not ‘effective.’”

“We believe that if a venue has a Braille sign, it must have a Talking Sign to truly fulfill the ADA’s mandate,”

Idan Meir

That disconnect led RightHear to rethink what accessibility communication should look like in real environments. “We believe that if a venue has a Braille sign, it must have a Talking Sign to truly fulfill the ADA’s mandate,” Meir explains.

RightHear addresses this by transforming physical spaces into an audible interface. “We are not helping venues check a compliance box,” Meir says. “We are making sure they are genuinely communicating with 100 percent of their visitors.”

Time for Change

RightHear is no longer an experimental solution. “We have moved way beyond proof of concept,” Meir says, noting that the platform is now widely deployed across top-tier travel destinations.

The technology is active in airports and hotels, but Meir points to parks and nature reserves as a defining area of leadership. “Everyone deserves to experience the outdoors,” he says, “yet nature trails are often the most difficult environments to navigate blindly.”

RightHear is currently deployed in parks around the world, allowing users to self-navigate trails while accessing wayfinding and educational content through their phones. “Users do not need to touch physical surfaces,” Meir explains, which is particularly important in outdoor and high-traffic environments.

More about our work in parks can be found here.

Putting Accessibility Within Reach

Affordability is central to RightHear’s strategy. “Our mission is to make accessibility the standard, not the exception,” Meir says.

Compared to physical infrastructure changes, RightHear is designed to be a cost-effective and scalable solution for venues of any size. The company offers a flexible subscription model that allows destinations to implement the technology immediately.

“Our pricing starts at $360 a year for a very small facility,” Meir notes. The goal, he says, is to remove cost as a barrier so venues can focus on delivering meaningful accessibility rather than minimum compliance.

For Meir, the distinction is clear. “If communication is not usable, it is not accessible,” he says. RightHear’s approach reframes accessibility as an operational and guest experience priority, not just a regulatory requirement.

ADAPTS Transfer Sling: Faster, Safer, Emergency Evacuations

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Two people demonstrate an evacuation assistance device, supporting a seated woman at an accessibility and safety exhibit.

Imagine an emergency that requires an evacuation. The general feeling of panic and uncertainty. The rush to get to safety. Now imagine your wheelchair is stowed…somewhere else. People with disabilities have enough obstacles to overcome while traveling. Safety during an evacuation shouldn’t be one of them.

ADAPTS to the Rescue

ADAPTS reduces the risk of injury and speeds evacuation. Use it to transfer the passenger from a wheelchair to their seat, leaving it on the seat. Then, during an emergency evacuation, ADAPTS can be carried by two crew members or by the passengers immediately behind and across the aisle from the disabled passenger.

Our dream is that ADAPTS will someday be readily available on every airline, cruise line, passenger train and bus—just like life vests, oxygen masks and other safety equipment.

Not Just for Evacuations

Because it’s portable, compact and lightweight, ADAPTS can be used for everyday transfers around the home and anywhere!

Check out some of the ways others are using ADAPTS here.

The ADAPTS Story

Yellow adaptive evacuation seat secured in an airplane aisle seat, designed for passenger mobility assistance.

The seed that would become ADAPTS was first planted in Robin Wearley’s mind in 2005, as she sat in the window seat during a flight home to San Francisco. Filling the other two seats were an elderly man and his wife, who was brought onto the plane in a wheelchair. At the conclusion of the flight, Robin and her two seatmates were required to remain in their seats until all other passengers had deplaned and a wheelchair could be brought on board.

As they wheeled the elderly woman off the plane, a flight attendant thanked Robin for being patient, adding that he hoped it hadn’t been too much of an inconvenience. It wasn’t, but it got Robin thinking—what if the outcome of the flight had been different? What if they didn’t have the luxury of time? How would that woman—or her husband and Robin, who couldn’t move until she did—have gotten safely off the plane?

A dozen years later, after more flights and several conversations with a travel-savvy friend who happens to be a triple amputee, Robin’s idea began to take root. She grabbed her yoga mat and some rope, and fashioned the first prototype of the ADAPTS sling. Convinced she was onto something, she cut up a Slip-n-Slide® and refined her design. She created a third prototype from light cotton muslin, before turning the design over to a seamstress, who created the pattern and instructions for mass production. 

  • $199
  • ADAPTS is made of the material used for life-vests and is water-resistant and flame-retardant to comply with FAA safety standards.
  • ADAPTS weighs 1.15 pounds. It measures 11″ x 11″ x 2″ when folded into a tote. Industrial tested to hold at least 450 pounds!
  • Hand wash or wipe with a soapy sponge and air dry.
  • When unfolded it fits the seat on an airplane or a chair and attaches at the top.
  • There are six handles, two on each side, one at the top, and one at the bottom so that two to six rescuers can move a person swiftly to first responders. 

Want to know more? Check out these videos! 

Watch ADAPTS InnovatAble Pitch below!

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