Travel Advice
What it’s like to travel as a blind person
This Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), disability awareness consultant and award-winning content creator Sassy Wyatt discusses her experience of travelling blind – and solo!
I wasn’t born blind. In fact, I wasn’t born disabled either.
At the age of seven I broke my arm which became the catalyst of arthritis; an autoimmune condition where the body attacks itself and leaves the person in considerable pain. For eight years of my childhood, I was a wheelchair user, and just as modern medicine helped me regain some mobility, the arthritis attacked my eyes and I started to lose vision. I underwent an eye operation that I believed would restore my drastically deteriorating sight, but my eye had ruptured during surgery and it had taken my professor all of his years, skills and expertise to save my only working eye. But in September 2013, my biggest fear had come to fruition: I was totally blind.
As a child, I was fortunate that my parents didn’t wrap me up in cotton wool but encouraged me to adventure and explore. Camping and caravanning across Devon and Cornwall and European trips to Spain and Portugal (always with an accessibility focus) I learnt travel could be for everyone. The first trip I took after losing all my vision was a holiday to Norway with my family. I couldn’t wait to ski on real snow again, but it turns out that skiing is a tad more tricky when you can’t see where you’re going.
As a blind traveller, I do still get to see the beauty of this world through humanity. I get to experience the kindness of strangers giving me directions, the family-owned restaurants who read and explain the menu to me, the hotel receptionists that guide me to my room and show me where the plug sockets are, the tour guides that allow me to touch the architecture while describing its beauty, the instructors that give me a literal helping hand to traverse gorges, or my fellow travellers championing me and guiding me verbally as I grab the rope swing before plunging into the river.
The majority of the time I am also accompanied by my rambunctious guide dog Ida. We’ve been a partnership since January 2017 and her zest for adventure and unwavering confidence gave me the determination that I could travel solo with no sight. We’ve been on planes, trains, coaches, cars, buses and boats and she is never phased by a single one. Travelling with Ida feels like travelling with a celebrity, everyone wants to say hello to her anywhere we go.
The joy of sensory exploring
My two favourite ways to explore a new destination is to take a walking and food tour. It allows me to learn about the history, architecture, and culture whilst also directly delving me into the smells, sounds and tastes of that place. I learn so much from the incredible locals that create these tours and as a blind person it allows me to build a mental map of my surroundings, giving me confidence to explore the area again in my own time, especially if I am travelling solo.
Museums are a great attraction to visit as they generally have audio guides, giving you detailed information about your surroundings and sometimes even retelling of personal stories. I have not long returned from Tallinn, Estonia and was truly impressed by the braille and tactile audio guides, not just giving me information but teaching me how to use it. As I followed the tactile line throughout, the Bluetooth beacon would locate me and automatically start playing the next audio track. Tallinn also has specific context about the accessibility of their museums and where there may be barriers to access.
Although public transport is not created equal in its accessibility across the globe, I strongly encourage other disabled or visually impaired travellers to use local buses and trains where possible. I feel you learn a lot more about a city or country, and you usually get to meet fascinating people along the way.
When planning my trips I personally read blogs to get a flavour of what to expect when visiting, it’s also a great way to find out intelligence specific to accessibility alongside personal recommendations, and it’s why I use my own blog Blind Girl Adventures to help others find information. Social media is another great tool to gain insight and people’s perspectives. I would just urge any personal or business account that uses social media to implement alt text, closed captions and visual descriptions to help blind or disabled people access your content too.
A long way to go
I’m so glad that accessible travel is vastly becoming acknowledged and is inviting towards disabled travellers, but there is still a long way to go. Researching a destination, or even looking for transport or accommodation is always my first barrier to access, as over 98% of websites are still not accessible to blind people, especially those of us who use screen readers. Accessibility means something different for every disabled person, and even though we have a spending power of over $13 trillion annually, many businesses are still missing the mark on including basic but key information to allow us to make informed decisions.
Can you imagine, navigating your way around an airport or train station with its cacophony of sounds, smells and neverending terminals? Escalator zigzagging across the platforms, negotiating cases and buggies all the while listening intently in case the next announcement over the tannoy is for you? Thankfully, most of the coordination is down to Ida, and passenger assistance is a lifeline for me as a blind traveller. It gives me the freedom to travel where and when I want, and have a smooth, stress-free journey.
It’s not all a seamless VIP experience, though. At airports, you have to arrive an hour before your non-disabled peers, wait landside for an undetermined amount of time until enough of you are booked onto the system, and then get shuttled through security like cattle until you reach the ‘disabled access zone’, usually with barely enough time to grab yourself a drink or go to the toilet. I wish all airports and train stations had tactile guidelines to each check-in desk, Bluetooth beacons that could work with your smartphone, and audio described blueprints of each airport map so I could investigate and orientate myself ahead of time.
Technology has advanced so much in the last two years alone that apps like Be My Eyes, Soundscape, Seeing AI, NaviLens and Good Maps exist – however they all rely on having both signal and data to work, lengthy logistics and implementation (in the case of NaviLens or Good Maps), not to mention the exorbitant rates of which your phone battery uses as you try to locate a sign in the first place. This is why I feel it’s imperative for all websites to have easy to access, clear and up-to-date facts so disabled people can have autonomy over their travels.
I love being a blind traveller, I get to experience this beautiful earth in a completely different way to my peers, and when I travel with others, I get to see the world through their eyes and words. I feel privileged to be blind in today’s era, the combination of technology and humanity is a perfect antidote to realising that this globe is a lot smaller than you think and we are all not too different from each other after all.
Learn more about Sassy by visiting her website blindgirladventures.com, or follow her adventures on Instagram and YouTube.