This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you possibly can go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2025/10/08/at-72-this-wheelchair-user-travels-the-world-on-her-own/86461974007/
and if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us
How households with disabilities journey collectively
Bethany Hildebrandt is meticulous about planning journeys round her household’s wants as her eldest baby, Kaylee, has cerebral palsy.
Payton Kirol, USA TODAY
- Anne Marie Jones, a 72-year-old solo traveler, makes use of a wheelchair attributable to spina bifida.
- One in 4 Americans has a incapacity, and plenty of face important hurdles with lodging when touring.
- Jones makes use of accessible journey firms and on-line communities to navigate logistical challenges.
Navigating the world as a solo traveler could be difficult but additionally rewarding. For septugenarian Anne Marie Jones, who makes use of a wheelchair, this rings very true – even when it takes her extra effort, planning, and coping with difficulties that others may not face.
The Southern Californian grew up in a household that valued journey, with the will to discover the world instilled in her at a younger age, Jones informed USA TODAY on a current journey with accessible journey firm Wheel the World to Denver to have a good time the Colorado capital’s verification as an accessible vacation spot.
Of the six youngsters in her household, Jones was the one one born with a incapacity. Called spina bifida, her spinal wire and backbone did not correctly type throughout fetal growth, and she or he step by step misplaced the flexibility to stroll as an grownup.
But that by no means stopped her from touring. She recalled the primary time she ever left the nation, when she went to Japan at 16 years previous together with her household. It was, as she put it, “life-altering.” Another transformative time was when she was 20 years previous and studied overseas in England for a 12 months.
“I came back a different person, I came back a lot more confident person,” she mentioned. “That’s where I really found that I like talking to strangers, and with travel, you do that. You talk to people you’ve never met before, but you learn so much from other people.”
One in four Americans report having a incapacity, and they search out the liberty and lifelong recollections from journey simply as a lot as anybody else.
Jones continues to journey all over the world at 72, from the far-off Taiwan to the home Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. Most of the time, she’s on her personal, with out an aide or companion to help. She enjoys going at her personal tempo, doing no matter she needs and chatting with strangers she meets alongside the way in which. While most vacationers really feel intimidated by embarking alone, she embraces it. “It doesn’t scare me,” she mentioned. “Being by myself doesn’t scare me. In fact, it’s kind of adventurous.”
As one of many a number of vacationers invited on the Wheel the World retreat, Jones shared insights into what it is prefer to journey with a incapacity, from the hardships to the rewarding moments – and why it is at all times price it.
‘Pushing the envelope’
Even although Jones knew it was coming all her life, when her legs bought weaker over a decade in the past, she nervous her journey days have been over. “Getting on a plane was a scary prospect, and I didn’t think it would work out,” she mentioned. “I found out that that wasn’t true. And when I found that out, I thought, OK, I’m going to start pushing the envelope here and going back out there and traveling to places that I really want to go to as a wheelchair user.”
Joining Facebook teams with different disabled vacationers gave her a way of neighborhood, and have become a spot to be taught suggestions for the way to journey with a mobility system. Her first journey with a wheelchair was to Rome, accompanied by a good friend who was well-versed in Italy. Jones rented a scooter so she might trip over the cobblestone streets, and she or he additionally employed an accessible tour firm.
While she’ll go on group journeys and nonetheless travels with family members, Jones prefers the liberty of being on her personal. More than simply touring, she additionally seeks an adrenaline rush, from adaptive skydiving in Utah to biking a handbike in Taiwan and sit-skiing in Breckenridge, Colorado.
A niche within the business
Figuring out the logistics for her solo journeys could be taxing, requiring intensive analysis to ensure she will handle issues on her personal. Her lodging, even when deemed ADA-accessible, will need to have enough area within the rest room and seize bars to allow her to enter the bathe and use the bathroom independently.
According to a 2022 survey of two,789 respondents by MMGY Global, 96% of vacationers with a incapacity have had points with their lodging, with over half saying the room they got did not match what that they had booked.
At instances, Jones faces hurdles, like when she went on a tour alongside the northern a part of Spain’s Camino de Santiago and could not discover accessible bogs. “Somebody had to literally pick me up and carry me, and then somebody had to come in with me because there were no grab bars to ensure I didn’t fall,” she mentioned. “That was kind of scary.” In Barcelona, she could not enter architect Antoni Gaudí’s famed La Pedrera as a result of steps.
She additionally turns to firms like Wheel the World that empowers vacationers with disabilities by verifying accessible locations, together with lodging, eating places, sights and extra by mappers who measure over 200 information factors, just like the mattress peak. In August 2024, Jones joined considered one of Wheel the World’s group trips to Costa Rica, the place she explored the nation’s beautiful magnificence, soaked in scorching springs and surfed at Manuel Antonio National Park.
“The funny thing about it is, you know, there’s this attitude that people with disabilities don’t go anywhere – that we don’t have the energy, we don’t have the money. Not true,” she mentioned. Travelers with mobility points journey simply as ceaselessly as these with out, in accordance with the MMGY Global survey.
‘Keep touring’
All of Jones’ travels have taught her one thing about that which applies to herself: that there isn’t any one solution to do issues. “There’s nothing wrong with being different,” she mentioned.
“Whatever your disability is, whatever your age, I’m 72, keep traveling,” she added. “You may have to change your destination. You may have to change the mode of travel.” In the final a number of years, she’s began occurring cruises, the place touring between locations is made simpler by being aboard the ship.
She likened the transition to touring together with her mobility system to being a solo backpacker once you’re younger after which studying the way to journey as a household with younger youngsters. There are nonetheless the invaluable moments from touring, regardless that the way in which you go about it is not the identical.
For Jones, there is no finish in sight for touring. “As long as I can remain independent, my preference is to go on my own, set my own pace, go where I want to go.”
Shortly after the Wheel the World journey in Denver, Jones set out on a three-week-long highway journey by herself to cross a number of nationwide parks off her bucket record. She drove by way of Yellowstone National Park to see the long-lasting geothermal wonders and went to Grand Teton National Park to trip the aerial tram.
As for what’s subsequent, there’s actually no restrict.
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you possibly can go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/2025/10/08/at-72-this-wheelchair-user-travels-the-world-on-her-own/86461974007/
and if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us
