Feature
Page 7
Travel for Blind People
"You don't have to be a passive traveller, with someone telling you what to do," says Glaswegian-born Amar Latif. Amar, who has only five per cent sight due to retinitis pigmentosa, runs a travel agency in the UK for blind people, called Traveleyes.
Amar is a man who takes his own travel experiences to the limits. His last adventure into the jungles of South America was with a group of 11 disabled, intrepid individuals. Their task was to complete a 220-mile trek from Nicaragua's Atlantic coast, through the interior to the Pacific coast.
Amar pushed wheelchairs up live volcanoes, through bogs and across marshes. He used machetes to chop down trees and make bridges across gullies.
"I wanted to show that we can be leaders," he says. "The journey's never been done by an able-bodied person. Christopher Colombus tried it and gave up halfway. I absolutely loved it."
The trip took four weeks and was filmed by the BBC for a series called Beyond Boundaries. It was, Amar says, a great learning in how resilient he is."Physically, I'm nothing special. If I can do it, most people can." The journeys that Traveleyes organises for blind and vision-impaired travellers are nowhere near as arduous, but they can be life changing all the same.
"We aim to achieve holidays where people can be independent of their families," says Amar. "A 27-year-old woman came on the last trip to Malta. It was her first holiday without her family, and the first time she felt treated as a person, rather than as a blind person." People can build pictures in their minds, says Amar, of their holiday destinations, by reading up about the place and the culture in advance.
"Travelling with a sighted person, you then bring the knowledge and they bring the descriptive details to the partnership."
"Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living."
Miriam Beard
Page 8
Traveleyes staff research the accessibility of accommodation, what landmarks there are nearby, whether hotels will produce braille menus, and other issues that increase independence.In New Zealand there is one company specialising in arranging accommodation and rentals for people with disabilities who want to head off on their own, as well as tours. Accessible Kiwi Tours is run by Shona and Allan Armstrong.
Travelling with a tour group may not be your bowl of latte. Chances are you fall into one of two broad categories when it comes to taking holidays and travelling. You either plan everything to the last detail, or prefer to just launch yourself out alone into the cosmic soup with only a broad idea of the direction. The thrill of the adventure or the safety of an itinerary and a guide: our anecdotal research shows that sight, or the lack of it, makes no difference to the essential way you pack up and go. The rest of this article is dedicated to tips for international travel, and a special kind of South Island experience.
Heading overseas
Chris Orr, who works for the Foundation and has been blind for over 30 years, is a seasoned international traveller.
"I treat it like an adventure," he says. "You just need the confidence to know that if you get lost, someone will find you. We've never lost a blind person yet."
People, he says, are generally very kind. "You can walk into a pub and within 10 seconds someone will come over and offer to help."
Despite his adventurous ways, Chris allows extra time when catching planes and trains, in case he temporarily misplaces himself.
Some of his other tips for travelling are:
1. Book the 'meet and greet' service with the airline you are travelling with. A staff member will meet you and assist you to check in and find the departure gate. Ask if they have priority tags for your baggage so you can get out before the main queues.
2. Filling out the forms.
Page 9
Immigration, customs and arrival forms are all part of international travel. Just ask the person sitting next to you or the cabin staff to help you. Alternatively, your travel agent can complete the forms for you and have them ready when you collect your tickets.
3. Travel insurance. You are not obliged to disclose that you are blind and you shouldn't experience any problems obtaining insurance.
4. Contact in advance the local blindness or disability organisation in the city you're going to. They may be able to give you great tips on accommodation and getting around, or any documentation you require.
5. Guide dogs. Guide dogs can travel free on most airlines, but plan even more carefully if you decide to take your dog. You have to be able to toilet them easily and find suitable accommodation. Don't forget to check with Guide Dog Services to make sure you have all the relevant paperwork.
6. Guide books. Lonely Planet and Rough Guide books have separate sections for disabled travellers. While not laden with information, they are a starting point. Lonely Planet also now has accessible e-guides, specially formatted for blind and vision-impaired people. So far, they are only available for Andalucia, Malta, Morocco, California and Italy.
7. Get important phone numbers in advance, such as reputable taxi companies, bus and train timetables. Remember that taxidrivers are not allowed to leave their vehicles unattended at transport centres like airports, so they can't physically assist you into the terminals.
Keeping it Kiwi
Foundation member Bill Theyers is
Page 10
one of those people who gets up and goes, when he can. He's pretty busy running a campground called Blind Billy's, with his wife Maureen, which they've done for the past 10 years. It's located in Middlemarch, Otago, at one end of a popular 150km rail trail (old train track) that extends up to Clyde. Bill, who has been blind since the late 1970s, has walked and cycled parts of the track."It's great because you can feel the rock formations and tussock," says Billy. "Last year a German mobility instructor brought his blind fiancee and they tandem biked the trail."
Blind Billy's campground is accessible, with handrails, ramps and no obstacles. You can get there by the Taieri Gorge Railway, from Dunedin to Middlemarch.
Essential information
Blind Billy's and the Middlemarch rail trail: www.railtrail.co.nz; blindbillys@xtra.co.nz or phone 03 464 3355.
Accessible Kiwi Tours New Zealand: info@tours-nz.com or phone 07 315 6988.
Traveleyes and accessible Lonely Planet e-guides: www.traveleyes.co.uk
Trips to the Sinai desert for deaf people: www.windsandstars.co.uk
Qualmark
To find out if your potential accommodation is fully accessible or not it's best to rely on the accessibility standard (the wheelchair symbol). Qualmark is the New Zealand standard for official quality tourism. The star-rating organisation identifies quality accommodation "suitable for any type of traveller" but their criteria for suitability don't include accessibility unless the place specifically advertises that it is accessible.
If you have some interesting travel stories to share with us, or some great hints and tips for fellow blind, deafblind and vision-impaired travellers, then please send them to us.
Email: comms or post them to:
The Editor, Outlook, Private Bag 99941, Newmarket, Auckland