Accessible Everything - An accessible & inclusive travel blog for people with disabilities » 2007

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August 2007
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Lucas “LazyLegz” Patuelli

Matching Houses

By Craig Grimes

Matching Houses is a disability holiday exchange site created by disabled people for disabled people! They say the best ideas are often the simplest ones. Matching Houses is based on a simple yet powerful idea. If my accessibility needs match yours, our houses will be accessible to one another.

You join and describe your house – including its accessibility in quite some detail. When you log on to look for matching houses to swap with, only houses likely to be accessible to you are shown. And likewise your house will be to them. International house exchange based on accessibility – so you can concentrate on where you want to go not if you can.

Matching Houses – so simple. Why hasn’t anyone thought of it before!

Posted in Accommodation, Travel, Blogroll | No Comments

Planning for Nicaragua 3 - Our House in the middle of our street.

By Craig Grimes

The planning continues and the preperations in Nicaragua are under way. We will be based in a town called Matagalpa and Edurne (my partner) has been looking around for a house for us to rent. This is not an easy task as many of the houses have a fair few steps to get into them so that they don’t flood during the wet season. There is also the consideration of the state of the roads to take into account as I need to be able to get out and about independently during my time there. To the right is one of the roads outside a house that Edurne has lookedat over the last few days.

She’s eventaully found one that is in the centre of the town with reasonable roads and easy to ramp steps. It’s basic but there’s plenty of living space and even a garage. The bathroom isn’t ideal either but a patio chair in the shower will soon alleviate that problem. All the doors seem to be wide enough for my wheelchair but we just need to do some last minute measurements to make sure.

Photos of our new house.

Posted in Accommodation, Central America, Nicaragua, Travel | No Comments

Technorati

By Craig Grimes

Currently tracking 101.4 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.

Technorati is the recognized authority on what’s happening on the World Live Web, right now. The Live Web is the dynamic and always-updating portion of the Web. We search, surface, and organize blogs and the other forms of independent, user-generated content (photos, videos, voting, etc.) increasingly referred to as “citizen media.”

Technorati Profile

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Technology | No Comments

Rolling Rains Report

By Craig Grimes

Many of you will know of Scott Rains, if not here’s a brief introduction. Scott is a wheelchair user that lives in the USA and is at the forefront of universal design for all. He is a keen activist in disability rights, legislation and inclusive tourism. In fact, his entry today the 28^th August is titled “Hostels and Inclusive Travel”.

His blog “The Rolling Rains Report: Precipitating Dialogue on Travel, Disability, and Universal Design” is well worth keeping up with, as if it’s happening he knows about it. He’s always flitting around the world and having interesting experiences.

Posted in Universal Design, Travel, Politics, Blogroll | No Comments

Planning for Nicaragua 2

By Craig Grimes

20th August 2007

My partner left for yesterday and should currently be flying somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean on her way to Miami. I’m left here in Barcelona feeling slightly nervous and excited about the prospect of joining her in just over 5 weeks. The planning stages of my trip now have to continue. One of the first parts of this started with ordering all of the medical equipment that I need during my stay overseas. I am sufficiently paranoid about loosing my baggage where most of my medical stuff will be that I asked Edurne (my partner) to take some with her. This means that, should all go well and she arrives with all of her bags intact, I will at least have a small supply of catheters and sheaths waiting for me in Nicaragua when I arrive. So even if I do loose my bags during the flight I will still have some emergency supplies there that I can use whilst I resolve the problem.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Flying, Central America, Nicaragua, Travel | No Comments

Basics about Barcelona Transport

By Craig Grimes

As I live and work in Barcelona it’s probably a good idea to blog about some of the basics for disabled people that want to visit this great city. I will be referring my own guide (AccessibleBarcelona) to as it seems to be one of the main sources of information in English.

Getting To and From Barcelona

The best way for most people to get to is flying, although this may be fairly obvious some airlines are a little misleading. There is only one airport in Barcelona which as one might guess is called Barcelona International Airport.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Trains, Barcelona, Public Transport, Flying, Travel, Blogroll | No Comments

Planning for Nicaragua 1

By Craig Grimes

I’ve been scouting the Internet for information regarding accessible travel in Central America as I’m planning a trip in September for two and a half months to Nicaragua. I’ve known Gordon Rattray in Belgium for some time now as I stumbled across his website about safaris for disabled people.

Gordon is a C4/C5 tetraplegic that loves to go on safari and has provided information about his previous trips to various places (not just on safari) including Tanzania, Botswana, Chicago, Ethiopia, Australia, Kenya and Malawi. According to his site he should currently be in Tanzania for 3 months.

He gives a host of travel tips and I found his “World Guide” particularly useful as there is information about Costa Rica which is one of the countries I will be hopefully visiting.

Gordon’s site “Accessible Adventure Travel” may be found at www.able-travel.com I’ll be keeping you posted on my progress through the blog, writing about the planning, vaccinations, visa requirements and all the other adventures as time progresses. My flight dates are set for the 25^th September so time is counting down and I’m getting very excited!

Posted in USA, Australia, Africa, Central America, Travel, Nicaragua, Blogroll | No Comments

Accessible Cruises

By Craig Grimes

Thinking of going on a cruise? www.cruisecritic.com has some very useful information for disabled people including Editor’s Picks; Best Cruises for the physically challenged, a review of the cruise ship Disney Magic, top ships for cruisers with disabilities and general tips on cruises for disabled people.

Their page about cruises for people with disabilities can be found at: http://www.cruisecritic.com/cruisestyles/area.cfm?area=30

Ideal Cruising also offer some useful information including popular cruise ships for people with disabilities: http://www.idealcruising.co.uk/accessible_cruising.php

And finally a shameless plug for my own company, which offers onshore excursions for disabled cruise passengers in Barcelona, Valencia and Palma de Mallorca: www.accessiblecruisetours.com

Posted in Barcelona, Cruises, Travel | No Comments

Your Level Best

By Craig Grimes

Mary Dixon is a wheelchair-user that lives in London who likes to socialize by meeting friends and family in pubs or restaurants - so of course these places must be disabled-accessible. The toilets must be wheelchair-accessible, too. Venues listed on the website claim to meet these criteria.

The list currently covers the UK, not just London, if you want to go to an accessible bar or restaurant in your area, just type in your postcode or town and Level Best will find them for you. You can also add entries of venues to help build up the database. http://www.yourlevelbest.com

Posted in United Kingdom, Venues, Travel | No Comments