By Jennifer Allen, caregiver, travel writer, and TravelAbility editor-in-chief

I see a lot of celebratory press for new destinations becoming Wheel the World Verified.

Allow me to start with my own understanding of the terms. 

When I first saw a social media post that celebrated a destination as “Wheel the World Verified” I thought, “Great! That place must be really accessible.” 

Spoiler alert: that’s not what it means. 

A Lousy Vacation in a Verified Destination

You can visit a Wheel the World Verified destination and have your vacation ruined by inaccessibility. You might book a room that doesn’t work for you. You may not even be able to take a shower. You may head to the forest and find accessibility that ends with the parking lot. You may get to a restaurant and find a step that you climb keeping you from dining. You can have a lousy vacation and come home raging that Wheel the World is useless… but it would be because you didn’t understand what the verification meant.

Sometimes, it aligns that a place that is verified is also more accessible. Destinations that are investing in inclusion are often the ones who are excited to take it to the next level with Wheel the World. When they do this, Wheel the World comes in with literal tape measures confirming door widths, bed heights, and ramp slopes. They assess each hotel, restaurant, or attraction to evaluate its facilities against more than 200 specific accessibility criteria. These details are then freely available through their website. 

Travelers can not only find transparent, detailed data for each place that has been verified, but they can create an individual profile through the Wheel the World site that will then score each destination on how well it matches their individual needs. Unfortunately, if this isn’t communicated through the destination, many travelers will never know it’s there. 

Without using the website to plan your trip, there’s no way of knowing which hotels are verified, no less which ones have low beds and shower chairs.

The first time I visited somewhere Wheel the World Verified, I was only moderately impressed. At that time, all I knew was the label. I had never visited the Wheel the World website and I hadn’t done a lot of digging on the destination’s website. I just knew it was a place with a good reputation for accessibility. We had a good trip, but I didn’t understand what all of the hype was about.

Learning the Ropes

At my first TravelAbility Summit, I met Alvaro. I heard his powerful story and I learned what Wheel the World Verified meant. I checked out the website and was absolutely blown away. 

If you’re not used to traveling with a disability, there’s really no way to explain to you the excess of hours that go into digging for accessibility information that doesn’t exist, and calling to speak to managers who may or may not actually understand the answers to your questions. If a destination is Accessibility Verified, that’s no longer a necessity–not because every spot in the destination will meet your needs, but because every detail you might need is readily available.

Our next few trips, I was excited to plan through the Wheel the World site. Of course, there were still a lot of gaps in the Wheel the World Verification map, so many locations just didn’t have it. When they did, however, I knew exactly where to stay, where to eat, and I had at least a starting point for activities. I’m a big points and miles traveler, so I never booked anything through the site, but it gave me enough information that I felt confident requesting a room in a verified hotel.

If only Wheel the World were everywhere, what a stress-free way to travel!

The Wheel the World Shift

This is embarrassing. I was still doing it wrong. It wasn’t until two years later when my family was invited to be a part of the Wheel the World video campaigns with Travel Oregon that I was asked to create a profile. I had seen this come up at this point, but I’m a working mom of three children with disabilities. I don’t take time for extras.

In order to fully understand what we were promoting, I created a personal profile based off of my son’s mobility needs. Now, when I open the Wheel the World site, every location appears with a percentage grade, based on how perfectly it matches his needs. This was cool to see, but since Wheel the World was planning the activities for this trip, I still didn’t grasp how life-changing this could be for frequent travelers like us.

It wasn’t until our next trip, when we were planning our own itinerary, that I fully grasped what an incredible tool it can be–and now I can’t stop talking about it. I can choose my hotel by what has the highest score for my actual family. I can search adventures that are our style, and then sort them by what works best.

On one trip, we shared an accessible itinerary in a small town in Oregon, simple things like a museum, a bookshop, a carousel, and a restaurant. It was met with comments like, “accessibility is not something Oregon does well or often.” On this same trip, we went kayaking, biking, hiking, and golfing. We played pickleball, went bowling, and played in a retro arcade. All of these things were in the “inaccessible” Oregon. Clearly, the commenter didn’t know about Wheel the World Verified.

Wheel the World is Useless IF

• No one knows you have it.
• Businesses don’t link to the Wheel the World page or contain the information.
• Potential visitors don’t understand how to use it.

What Wheel the World Verified Means

• Confidence. We know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into.
• Efficiency. I get hours back on planning each time I use Wheel the World
• Welcome. When we see the sticker on the door, we know we’ve been thought of and planned for.
• Adventure. This is where I find more than just a place to stay.

What it Doesn’t Mean

• Everywhere is accessible. Not every business in a town is verified. The ones that are clearly share what accessibility features they do and do not have, but it doesn’t mean they will work for everyone.
• Bookings through your site. Just because we find a hotel or activity through Wheel the World doesn’t mean we’re booking through your page. 
• Automatic increase in disabled guests. I will absolutely choose the WTW Verified destination over another, but I can’t know you’re one of them if you haven’t spread the word.