Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of Summer here in the US (astronomically, Summer doesn’t start for a couple of weeks). Families are making plans to travel to destinations near and far, from sunny beaches to mountain campgrounds. The same is true for people with disabilities and their families. Traveling with a disability can present challenges, such as physical barriers to popular attractions, the complication of traveling with assistive devices, or the physical toll of getting from one place to another.

We turned to the NIDILRR community, and the greater disability community, to see what tools and tips they recommended to make summer traveling less stressful so you can enjoy the trip!

• Before heading to the beach, listen to the Southeast ADA Regional Center‘s ADA Live Podcast about beach access and check out the resources (PDF) they recommended.
• Avoid getting sand in your swimsuit and listen to their podcast about access to pools, too.
• Hotels, resorts, and restaurants may want to visit Hospitality & Disability, from the ADA National Network, and learn how to provide excellent customer service along with accommodations to Summer travelers with disabilities.
• The Research and Training Center on Community Living‘s Glen White and Dot Nary, among others, wrote about Taming our fear of flying in a 2014 issue of New Mobility Magazine.
• Chanelle Houston from the RTC on the Prevention of Secondary Conditions in the Rehabilitation of Individuals Spinal Cord Injury (2009-2014) shows you how to ride Amtrak as a wheelchair user.
• Members of the Northwest Spinal Cord Injury System center shared their experiences of traveling with a spinal cord injury in this SCI Forum.
• Check out GPS wayfinding technology developed by the Sendero Group under NIDILRR SBIR and field initiated grants (and meet their principal investigator Mike May, a hiker, skier, and biker who happens to be blind).
• Elsewhere, we recommend checking out
  • American Trails Q&A on water trail accessibility.
  • WheelMap, an online, crowdsourced database of the accessibility of cities around the world.
  • The Access Pass, granting free access to the National Parks for people with disabilities.
  • Search Accomable, an accessible alternative to AirBnB.

These are just a few resources to help you enjoy a Summer of travel. You might also like to dive into research on travel and disability from the NIDILRR community and elsewhere, available from our collection.