TravelAbility Insider

The Intersection of Travel and Disability

Museums & Attractions

The Future of Inaccessibility? Wheelchair Space Kitchen — A Parody Exhibit Opens in Denver

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The Wheelchair Space Kitchen gives a preview of what it’s like to be disabled.

There are parts of the Wheelchair Space Kitchen—just one of many rooms in Meow Wolf’s 90,000 square-foot Convergence Station, which opens in Denver on September 17—that won’t be accessible. A cabinet will be too high, a countertop too low. You might feel like you’re Alice in Wonderland, shrinking too small to reach a table or growing too tall to fit through a door. Some messages are written in Braille, and unless you read Braille, you’re out of luck.

This exhibit will give visitors an opportunity to feel what it is like to face obstacles — hopefully kindling in them a sense of understanding and empathy for those who face barriers on a regular basis, whether as a result of a disability or for some other reason. To read more about the Wheelchair Space Kitchen, see the original article in Thrillist.

New Lease on Color: Denver Art Museum Brings Color to Life for Colorblind Visitors

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Two men looking at art in a museum while wearing glasses that correct colorblindness.
Photo courtesy Museum of Contemporary Art Denver.

Denver’s Museum of Contemporary Art has debuted a new accessibility feature – EnChroma glasses – that bring the vibrant colors of paintings and other art exhibits to life for colorblind people.

EnChroma glasses, specially engineered for people with a color vision deficiency, compensate for colorblindness and reveal colors that the wearer has never seen before. The museum received four pairs of the glasses, which retail for between $269 and $429, as a donation from the manufacturer.

Brad Ingles, the museum’s memberships and community partnerships manager, raised the idea. In speaking about his own experiences with colorblindness in art museums, Ingles reflected that “Every single person was experiencing what the artist was talking about, except for me.” Now, with the EnChroma glasses, he and museum visitors can experience artwork as the artist intended.

OUR TAKE: EnChroma glasses are an exciting new accessibility tool that can bring a wider range of colors to colorblind people, and art museums are the perfect place to debut. As more museums make EnChroma glasses available to museum goers, travelers can look forward to more vibrant and colorful experiences!

To read more about this exciting development, read the full article in Hyperallergic.

New Travel Guide Shows Wheelchair Users How to Explore Salt Lake City

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Salt Lake City skyline.

TravelAbility Advisory Board member John Morris recently traveled to Utah and published a free wheelchair accessible travel guide to Salt Lake City on his website, Wheelchair Travel.

The travel guide contains detailed information on accessible attractions, hotels and transportation services in Salt Lake City – resources disabled travelers need to confidently explore new destinations. In rating the key areas of access for disabled tourists, Morris gave Salt Lake City high marks for the accessibility of its tourist attractions and public transportation system.

The Salt Lake City wheelchair travel guide is one of more than 50 accessible travel guides on the Wheelchair Travel website and can be accessed by clicking here.

Special Needs Kids Meet Special Needs Animals to Form Healing Connections

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Jamie Wallace-Griner and her husband, David Griner, are the owners of Safe in Austin, an animal sanctuary and rehabilitation center located in Texas. Their mission is “to rescue animals from severe abuse or neglect, rehabilitate and rehome the ones that are able, and offer a safe and loving forever home for the rest.”

What makes Safe in Austin truly special, according to an article in Good News Network, isn’t the care it offers to the rescue animals, but rather the companionship those animals provide to the sanctuary’s visitors.

Wallace-Griner said, “Our animals provide healing to trauma, at-risk, and/or special needs children by way of unconditional friendship and a clear, loving, example of what they are looking for most… hope.” One of those children is her own son, who has autism and enjoys interacting with the animals.

Although the sanctuary has moved to private, small group tours during the pandemic, Wallace-Griner still wants to ensure the animals are accessible to those most in need. She regularly invites potential visitors out to meet the animals on a “healing hearts tour” if she believes it will help in their situation.

To learn more about Safe in Austin and Wallace-Griner’s work, click here.

Accessibility at Disney World During the Pandemic – Is it still “The Happiest Place on Earth?”

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Cinderella's castle at Walt Disney World.

Kelly Mack, a wheelchair user, recently traveled with her husband to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and wrote about her experiences for the Disney Information Station blog.

Mack says she traveled to Disney because she “felt very good about the precautions” taken to keep guests safe and because “it’s a place we can travel where we don’t worry as much about accessibility of the hotel, the transportation, and the overall fun because Disney has planned it all out.”

OUR TAKE: Accessible travel can be done safely during the pandemic and Kelly’s story highlights some of the steps Disney has taken in their parks and hotels that provide travelers with a sense of security.

To learn more about how Disney has safely reopened its parks and what visiting a theme park during the pandemic is like for a wheelchair user, click here.