It was a snowy afternoon when I first spoke with Lindsey Young, in her Seagrave apartment, about the challenges of travelling for people with handicaps.
“Vacations are supposed to be relaxing,” explains Lindsey, as she sits in her kitchen re-calling some of her past travels. “But, when you’re in a wheelchair and the hotel is not accessible, the vacation becomes so stressful. I want to put the relaxing back in holidays.”
Lindsey has always loved to travel so it wasn’t surprising that while attending Port Perry High School, she took part in a co-op placement with a local travel agency for two years before enrolling in the Travel and Tourism course at Fleming College in Peterborough.
Virginia Frew, owner of Marlin Travel speaks highly of Lindsey and her infectious personality. “Lindsey worked here for almost four years and everybody just loved her. She is so sincere and genuine.”
Having always been an avid traveller and adventurer, Lindsey longs for the blissful excitement that visiting an exotic location brings. However, her dreams are cut short when she thinks about the many disabled people who miss out on such exhilarating experiences because they feel travelling is too difficult. Born with cerebral palsy in her legs, Lindsey understands first-hand just how frustrating it can be to find suitable accommodations.
Lindsey Young, of Seagrave, started Accessible Travel
Adventures to help people with disabilities enjoy travel.
It was a combination of both personal experiences and a desire to help others that prompted Lindsey to leave the comfort of Marlin Travel and create Accessible Travel Adventures - a company which inspects international hotels and rates each according to their accessibility.
Lindsey says a trip to Toronto a few years back was the igniting force behind her decision to start the company. Upon arrival at her “accessible” hotel, Lindsey was overwhelmed with disbelief. “The hotel definitely wasn’t user-friendly,” she says with a slight smile as she remembers the day. “This experience motivated me to do something about it.”
Along with her best friend from college, April Brown, Lindsey started Accessible Travel Adventures in May 2008. In their mission statement, the girls address their desire to be “the first company to create accessibility reference guides written by people with physical disabilities for people with physical disabilities.”
Her former boss was not surprised at all that Lindsey would head out on her own. “We were thrilled to be able to work with Lindsey for as long as she was here, but always expected great things from her.”
“This was an absolutely great opportunity for her and I’m looking forward to seeing what she can accomplish in the future,” Virginia says.
So now with their eyes set on the future, both Lindsey and April plan to travel as much as they can together, visiting a variety of different vacation destinations and publishing guides on the most “accessible” hotels in each area. So far, they have toured Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic and they have just returned from a business conference in Florida.
As for their next venture? Lindsey says she would love to get on board a cruise ship. “The standards on the new ships should be good,” Lindsey says as she explains that the cruise lines tend to have better “accessibility” when compared to Caribbean resorts.
But it’s not all fun and games for the two girls; they have a strict mission with each new trip. “We follow our own instincts when we do our hotel inspections,” explains Lindsey. “Unfortunately, there are no universal or international standards for accessibility.”
Lindsey says she and April rate each hotel according to its level of accessibility. A hotel can be classified as one of the following: fully accessible, accessible with assistance, accessible with minimal walking and not accessible.
The girls look at the hotel and its surroundings from the perspective of someone in a full-time wheelchair. They inspect the width of the doors, the height of the beds, as well as the accessibility of the common areas, such as restaurants, lounges and public washrooms. In just one week, Lindsey and April can inspect up to 24 hotels!
For Lindsey, launching Accessible Travel Adventures was her true inner calling. As a little girl, she was a dream recipient from Sunshine Dreams for Kids and she was granted a trip to Ireland. Lindsey says she will never forget what it felt like to receive such an amazing gift and she only hopes can similarly help others who believe they have to pass up on their dreams.
Accessible Travel Adventures is just the beginning in Lindsey’s long list of personal goals. Some goals she describes as long-term pursuits, others she refers to as immediate changes she feels she can accomplish.
“Many don’t realize that when you go to book a hotel room, you can request an accessible room, but the hotel can never guarantee it,” she explains. “I want to change this. I want to make accessible rooms a category that hotels can’t oversell.”
As for the distant future, Lindsey says she envisions opening her very own fully accessible hotel. “But that’s a long way down the road,” she assures with a quiet laugh.
For now, her attention is purely focused on publishing her guides, opening a window of opportunities to those who
deserve the same travel options as anyone else.
If you would like to donate to Accessible Travel Adventures, feel free to email her at Lindsey@accessibletraveladventures.com. For more information, visit her website (presently under construction) at www.accessibletraveladventures.com.
Christina Coughlin
Focus on Scugog
Personalities
