My fiancé, Paul, has used a wheelchair since he had a car accident at the age of 21. Now both in our mid-forties, we love travelling together, and have learned to ask a few essential questions when booking places to stay, to make sure they can accommodate his wheelchair. Is there disabled parking and step-free access in the building? Are there rails and steps in the pool? And a room with a roll-in shower?
Thankfully, access in the hospitality sector is improving all the time. We’ve found that, with a little research, we can quickly find places with well-planned gravel pathways and accessible bedrooms.
Best websites to find wheelchair-friendly accommodation on holiday
Paul likes to use Booking.com to find wheelchair-friendly accommodation, because it features a wheelchair-accessible filter that’s still absent from many leading search engines. Using that, we’ll check that entrances are step-free and doors are wide enough for Paul’s wheelchair.
A few other accommodation providers’ websites also feature accessibility search functions. For example, Premier Cottages (premiercottages.co.uk) has a collection of wheelchair-accessible luxury stays in England sleeping two to 10 people, listed on a dedicated page on its website.
For budget stays, we like Haven (haven.com). Its website also has easy-to-use accessibility filter functions allowing you to search a host of adapted holiday homes.
Wheelchair-friendly cruises
Another great way to holiday with a wheelchair is cruising. Newer cruise ships have accessible cabins, and we always notice plenty of wheelchairs and scooters on board. We like the chilled vibe on Fred Olsen ships, which tend to have an older clientele, and also rate P&O Cruises around Norway for affordable rates.
Best UK holiday destinations for wheelchair users
In terms of UK destinations, we recently returned from a lovely weekend in Hull. I was pleasantly surprised by its combination of city, countryside and accessible coastal walks.
An hour’s drive north of Hull, RSPB Bempton Cliffs nature reserve offers wheelchair users free use of a tramper (electric all-terrain mobility scooter) – pre-booking is required. It gave us full access to the cliffs, with stunning views.
We also enjoyed strolling through the Enchanted Forest, a winter light display in Pitlochry in Perthshire, Scotland, which has improved its accessibility in recent years by installing a freshly gravelled pathway.
Worst UK holiday destinations for wheelchair users
Walking outings are sometimes thwarted by rain making tracks too muddy, or when there’s no tramper available to hire – we can’t always get far in a manual chair. We’ve also had problems in some big cities, such as Birmingham and Edinburgh, which can be steep in parts and have lots of steps, seemingly little disabled parking at venues and few drop kerbs.
Check out our list of 20 spectacular wheelchair-friendly walks.
Seeing the world from a wheelchair
Paul says he gets to see the best in people from all walks of life and in many parts of the world – people are often keen to assist if they see us struggling with his wheelchair. In a hotel where we stayed in Agadir, on the coast of Morocco, the pool and bar were on a steep hill – and I struggled to push Paul up it. Seeing us stuck at the bottom, staff immediately rushed to assist us, and continued to do this three times a day during our holiday.
Meeting such kind people is a good reason to keep on travelling.
Words by Erica Crompton
Top image credit: Photo by Riccardo Milani / Hans Lucas / AFP via Getty Images
