People stop traveling long before they have to, usually after one bad trip that was preventable.
Before booking
Ask what accessible actually means at that property. It is an unregulated word in a listing. Ask for the step at the entrance in inches, the clear door width of the bathroom, and whether the shower has a lip.
Ask for photographs of the bathroom. Anybody who will not send one is telling you something.
Ground floor, or a lift that is not the only one. A single elevator in an older building is a single point of failure.
Equipment that flies
Powered mobility equipment travels in the hold and it gets damaged. That is the honest position rather than a warning.
What helps: tell the airline well in advance, not at check-in. Provide the make, model, weight and battery type. Remove the joystick and anything else detachable and carry it with you. Photograph the equipment from every angle before it goes.
Batteries have their own rules and they vary. Sort that with the airline before the day rather than at the gate.
Take a repair plan, not just equipment
Know who services your make at the destination before you go. A damaged chair in an unfamiliar city on a Sunday is a very different problem with a phone number than without one.
Take basic spares: a puncture kit for pneumatic tires, the charger, and any tool the chair needs.
What to rent rather than carry
Frequently the better answer. A rollator, a transport chair or a scooter at the destination avoids the hold entirely.
Equipment reuse programs and rental suppliers exist in most places worth visiting.
The small things that make the difference
- A portable threshold ramp for the step nobody mentioned.
- A folding shower stool, because hotel bathrooms rarely have one.
- A suction-free grab handle is not a fall-arrest device, and it is a useful balance aid.
- A transfer board for car and bed transfers in an unfamiliar room.
- Medication in carry-on, with a list.
Most of that ships free from our online shop and packs small.
Pace it
The commonest reason a trip goes badly is not access, it is fatigue. A rollator with a seat turns a day that was impossible into one with rests in it, and our rollator guide covers fitting one properly.
Plan fewer things. The trip people remember fondly is rarely the one with the fullest schedule.
If you are traveling to help somebody
Take a gait belt. Transfers in unfamiliar bathrooms, on unfamiliar floors, are where caregivers get hurt, and our transfer aids guide covers the rest.
Getting through the airport
Request assistance when booking rather than at check-in, and again at the 24-hour mark. Arrive earlier than you think, because assistance queues are their own timetable.
If you use a wheelchair, you can usually stay in it to the aircraft door. Say so, because the default is often a transfer to an airport chair much earlier than necessary.
Aisle chairs exist for the walk to the seat. Ask about them rather than assuming somebody will improvise.
Driving instead
Frequently easier. Your own equipment, your own seat, breaks when you need them. A transfer seat or a scooter lift makes the car workable, and our vehicle guide covers the options.
NHTSA’s adapted vehicles guidance is worth reading before any trip involving modified equipment.
Insurance
Check whether your policy covers mobility equipment in transit, at what value, and what documentation it requires. Photograph everything before it leaves your hands.
Hotels: the questions that actually work
Not “is it accessible.” Ask: how many steps from the parking area to the lobby, is there a lip on the shower, what is the clear width of the bathroom door, and is there a bench in the shower.
Four specific questions get four specific answers. One general question gets a yes that means nothing.
Cruise and rail
Both are frequently easier than flying, because equipment stays with you rather than going in a hold. Cabins and carriages designated accessible vary enormously, so ask the same specific questions.
Build in a rest day
The single most useful piece of advice on this page. A trip with a rest day in the middle is one people come home from wanting to go again, and our rollator guide covers the seat that makes the other days work.
Charge everything, and take the right adapter
Power chairs, scooters, hearing aids, alarms. Take the original charger rather than a substitute, and where the trip is international check the voltage the charger accepts rather than assuming an adapter is enough.
A chair that cannot be charged is a chair that has to be pushed, and that changes the whole trip for whoever is with you.
Wheelchair damage in the hold, and what to do about it
Airlines are required to repair or replace mobility equipment they damage, and the practical difficulty is proving the condition it went in.
Photograph it at the gate, from four angles, with the date visible on your phone. Photograph the joystick, the footplates and the tires specifically, because those are what break. Then report any damage before leaving the airport, in writing, and get a reference number. Claims made later are harder.
Ask for a gate delivery rather than baggage claim, so the chair comes back to the aircraft door. That is normal and it has to be requested.
The transfer onto the aircraft
An aisle chair is a narrow chair used to get somebody from the door to their seat. It is uncomfortable and it is brief, and the thing that makes it better is telling the crew how you transfer rather than letting them decide.
Ask for a bulkhead seat where possible, and ask whether the armrest lifts, because a fixed armrest makes a lateral transfer considerably harder.
Bathrooms in transit
The part nobody plans for and the reason many people stop flying. Aircraft bathrooms on single-aisle planes are effectively unusable for anybody who cannot walk to them.
Practical answers: choose flights under a length you can manage, route through a hub rather than flying direct where the direct leg is very long, and use the accessible facilities at the airport before boarding rather than after.
It is an uncomfortable thing to plan around and planning around it is what makes the trip possible.
Medication and equipment paperwork
Carry medication in hand luggage with a list of what it is and who prescribed it. Carry the specification sheet for any powered equipment, particularly the battery type, because that is the document security and airline staff ask for.
A letter from a physician is rarely required and occasionally smooths things considerably.
Tell them twice
Assistance requests get lost between booking systems. Request at booking, confirm 48 hours before, and confirm again at the desk. Three touches sounds excessive and it is what makes it arrive.
Keep the booking reference for the assistance request separately from the flight reference, because they are frequently different numbers in different systems.