The Traveller - Diana Palmer

I have been watching the movements of our keen disability information traveller, Diana Palmer, on her recent expedition to

• USA,
• Canada,
• the UK,
• Blegium,
• Czech Republic,
• Sweden and
• China.

The aim of the tremendous journey: to investigate provision of accessible and relevant information enabling people with disability to make informed travel choices.

I invite you to explore and discover along her journeys by reading it here on the DisCo blog. Diana does have her own blog and you can follow her findings there. Here's an introduction to what she has discovered:

San Francisco- tuesday April 13th

Yesterday I had a conversation with Scott Rains which was very informative. He is a fellow to keep in touch with and one who has a good understanding of what is happening at the moment in the accessible travel field. He is a very good networker and has names at the tip of his tongue, which has been of great assistance for me in planning the UK leg of this trip. His experience and knowledge of the different operators, experts and opportunities in the field are very valuable. The time spent with him was worthwhile indeed. I hope to be in touch with him again in the near future.



Today I met with Bonnie Lewkowicz from Access Northern California to discuss her experiences. Bonnie is leading activist and a great advocate for people with disability. Bonnie leads a small no profit which has developed access guides for the Northern California region as well as the San Francisco access guide. This was a nice introduction into the workings of the disability advocacy sector in the USA. Bonnie has a good handle on how things work and where things are at. We discussed the issues of maintaining information, its accuracy and reliability. My conversation with Bonnie was the first to see how similar the issues are in the US to those we have at home. The problems of collecting accurate information and maintaining it – the resources needed and the funding for it I don’t think are any different to our experiences in Australia.




For those after some travelogue information – the weather ahs been cold and wet, the tourist sites being visited are the iconic sites and information is being collected on the accessibility of these sites for future use by IDEAS NSW.




Now on to New York…

Introducing Guest Blogger Bill Forrester and Travability

Travability believes that travel should be able to be enjoyed by everyone. Sometimes it represents the fulfilment of a dream held for a lifetime, other times it may be a simple day out with the family or friends.

Three years ago the founder, Bill Forrester, realised that those experiences that we take for granted were not available for people with disabilities.

The information was hard to find and where it was available lacked the critical detail needed to make an informed travel decision. Bill, with Deborah Davis formed Travability to publish accessible holiday destination information with a mission to "Make the World Accessible to All" Travability is a member of the Society for Accessible Travel and Hospitality (SATH).