Accessible travel is a vital topic that transforms the way we think about exploring the world, and today, we dive deep into this subject with Matt Dennis from the Empowered Traveller. Matt shares his personal journey, highlighting how accessible tourism isn't just about wheelchair access; it's about creating opportunities for individuals with various abilities to enjoy the joy of travel. We discuss the beauty of Costa Rica, where companies like Il Viaggio Travel offer tailored experiences that cater to diverse needs, ensuring that everyone can enjoy adventures like white-water rafting or art workshops. With practical tips and inspiring stories, we emphasize the importance of mindset and resilience, proving that the barriers we perceive can often be overcome with the right support and information. So, whether you're planning a trip or just curious about accessible travel, this conversation is sure to ignite your wanderlust and reshape your perspective on what is possible.

This is Destination Unlocked with me, Daniel.

Ledward just now ready to depart.

Hi, welcome back to Destination Unlocked.

Great to have you here.

What an inspiring conversation is on the way.

Today I'm joined by Matt Dennis who runs the Empowered Trust Traveler and he has the absolute best mindset for getting out there and embracing all that life has to offer.

And I tell you, whether you yourself have physical accessibility needs or not, you will find this conversation very, very inspiring, I'm sure.

Please enjoy.

So Matt, what are you unlocking for us today?

What I'm unlocking for you today is the focus and the opportunity presented by accessible tourism as part of the tourist market.

What would you say is accessible tourism?

What does that mean?

Accessible tourism covers a huge range of abilities and disabilities.

Quite often accessible tourism is seen as how do we adapt tourism to help people who are in wheelchairs?

And that is seen as the first go to point.

But actually what we're looking at is a whole range of different disabilities that people have.

They may be physical, they may be people who are blind, people who are deaf, they may be people with neurodivergence, a whole scope of people who are outside the able bodied bracket.

And how did you get interested in this area?

It is something I'm really passionate about.

So I'm actually disabled myself.

I have a paralyzed leg which happened when I was 18, and as you can tell by my gray hairs and gray beard, that's quite a while ago.

So I lost use of my leg many moons back and travel has always been something that I have loved and I retreated from back at that moment in time because my perception of how I interacted with the world changed quite a bit at that moment in time.

However, in the effort to sort of grow my confidence back, it's a boundary that I started to overcome.

So I looked at where I could go and what I could do and started to look at traveling as people did.

And what I found after the six weeks that I was away is that the boost it gave to my confidence, to my self image, to how I felt about the world, how I felt I interacted with the world was huge and was really quite a dramatic effect on me as an individual and me mentally, which was really empowering.

Which has led me to eventually, after another 20 plus years, to set up the Empowered Traveler, a website that I run which highlights good accessible practice, places that are accessible, places that I've been to and visited.

And the aim of it is to encourage other people with disabilities to get out and to engage with the world to find out what they can do and to push the boundaries of what they're capable of.

It's a balance, isn't it?

Understanding what you're capable of, but also, as you say, pushing boundaries.

You find you're more capable than you might have initially told yourself.

There are clearly going to be certain things that aren't possible for everybody to do.

And that's absolutely.

That is a fact of life.

But people can so often achieve more than they initially tell themselves.

You're absolutely right.

And I think it's a really key point.

The psychological side of it can be a massive help, but it can also be a massive hindrance as well.

So it's one of the key points when I'm talking to people in companies about accessibility is information is really key.

There's often a perception by companies, you know, that they think when we talk about accessibility that they're going to have to restructure a building or they're going to have to build X, Y and Z, they're going to have to widen doors, knock things down, open things up.

But that's often not the case.

I mean, the first and most convenient are probably cheapest thing that anybody can do is put the information out there about what is available.

Because I think every traveler, every disabled traveler especially, is going to be aware there are going to be certain things that they might not be able to do.

But if they have that information first and they can go to a location forewarned, then it isn't going to be a problem.

They're already expecting that to be there.

So it doesn't come as a last minute shock or the people that they're with don't feel that that person's being left out because they've already structured and planned around that idea.

So what sort of things are you looking for?

What's the most helpful information that places could share in advance?

There's some really good practice out there.

And one place I came across recently was a hotel in Ireland called Bramley House.

And Mairead, the owner of Bramley House, had put on a website a specific page for her hotel.

And on that page there was all the information about step three, the width of the doors, the access to showers, lifts, access to the building, quiet rooms, all in one place so that people could go there and they could find and be certain of what they were going to experience when they reached the hotel.

But what she also did, which I thought was fantastic, is she took This a step further.

She went to a lot of locations, you know, day trips and places around her area and did a miniature audit on each of these places as well so that she could recommend places and put in place the similar sorts of assessments that she'd done on her own, building on local venues, which is a fantastic idea because through talking to people around her, she's then presented an entire package.

People can spend a weekend knowing that somebody has taken the time to look at these places and formulate an itinerary.

Almost that is above and beyond.

Does she have a personal connection to it?

Was she made aware of how useful that would be because of personal experience or she's just a very thoughtful person.

The Bramley house was actually her parents home that she converted into a hotel afterwards.

Her dad, I believe it was, was ill and required some motability assistance.

So the home had some of those designs in it already.

But it also made her very aware as a person who was responsible for her dad, why it was useful to have the information forewarned that would allow her to take a dad out for the day, that it would allow her to get her dad around the house.

But again, it's simple things that she did that she looked for information that was freely available and put it in one place so it was easy to access by everybody else.

So everybody who goes to it now can look at this information, know exactly what they can do.

They can plan a day out just by going to a website and know what they're going to expect when they get there.

It's, it's so simple and it costs time.

That's it.

Maybe a day or two of research and talking to people.

And I suppose once you start the conversation, those places might actually improve what they're doing by virtue of the fact that now they're more familiar.

Hey, someone just came to check our door width.

Ah.

Oh yeah.

And you sort of start to think, oh well, if our door width is okay, oh, we could probably.

Instead of that one step that's in the way, why don't we just put a ramp in instead of that one step?

Absolutely.

Little things make a huge difference.

It sparks ideas, the impact that the market can have.

One of the key factors I keep saying is the accessible market isn't just for people who are what we would classify as disabled.

We are all getting older.

We live in a global population that by and large, particularly in the Western world, is aging rapidly.

So as we get older, we be to be slower, be less steady on our feet, we might need handrails, we might need these assistances to help us get around.

So having these solutions in a hotel, in a venue, in an attraction, whatever it may be, it's building in success, it's building in sustainability.

It's a no brainer.

At the end of the day, it's.

Clearly a huge contingent of people who will benefit from accessible travel policy and accessible adaptations within sites.

But before we get to the older side of life, let's go to the younger side of things.

Because for you, this life change happened at 18 and it sort of shook your confidence a bit.

It took away your way of connecting with the world for a period until you rebuilt that up.

And in your formative years, teenagehood and into those sort of early 20s, those are the times where you're exploring independence, you're getting to know yourself and you're proving to yourself what you can or can't do.

And that does set a framework for the rest of your life because you start to write your own story.

What sort of advice do you have for people who are in your position, they're currently 17, 18, 19, listening.

I would say you are probably more capable than what you think you are capable of.

The story that we grow up listening to the title disabled for a start.

Disabled.

We're not as able, but everybody has different abilities, whether you are classically able bodied or not.

So get out there, give it a go.

Understand that possibly you won't be able to do everything, but you will be able to do some things.

And contrary to what we see in the mainstream media, the people of the world are really nice.

95% Of people out there in the world are lovely and will help.

Wherever you are in the world, if you talk to people, interact with people, you need a bit of support, you need a bit of assistance, people will be willing to help you.

It builds your faith in people, it builds your faith in humanity and it builds your own self confidence, your ability to be able to deal with the situation.

I have various screws and bolts on the brace on my leg and at various points in time those are broken or the screws have come loose or falling out and I've had to deal with them on the trot.

So kakiarelli is the Italian word for screwdriver and I know that purely because I had to go to a garage and find a mechanic to be able to oil A joint and screw in and go to a hardware shop and ask for a screwdriver to be able to tighten the screw up in my leg.

If you're wheelchair banged or something like that, there's going to be bike shops, great places to mend things.

But if you get out there, it teaches you the confidence to be able to deal with whatever is placed in front of you to some degree.

And people will help.

There's so much negative media around how people are in the world, how people treat each other, and I think actually when you scrape the surface, that's claptrap.

The truth of it is that most people are willing to help you and.

It teaches you resilience, it builds your own resilience.

It certainly does.

Your ability to be able to rely on yourself.

And whether you were abled or disabled bodied at 18, I think that's key.

You know, most of us are leaving home at that point in time and developing our own self, you know, learning to cook for ourselves, clean for ourselves, look after ourselves, all those sorts of things.

No different whether you're able to disable bodied to an extent.

But those skills need to be developed and one way of doing that is pushing the boundaries of your confidence.

I do find human beings are so remarkably versatile as a species.

We have demonstrated time and time again in individual cases how we can adapt to almost anything, given the time and a bit of mental willpower.

I've been following on Instagram a couple of sisters who make pottery and paint it.

One of the sisters is paralyzed from the neck down.

She paints with her mouth.

She holds the paintbrush in her mouth and has such total control over what she's painting.

So one sister makes the pottery, the other sister paints the pottery.

Fantastic.

The final piece, you'd have no idea.

It just shows that with the right mindset, there are usually workarounds to be able to connect with something that's meaningful to you, even if you're doing it in a different way.

Absolutely.

You've just triggered something in my mind as well.

As recently in Costa Rica with a company that specializes in accessible tourism and tours in Costa Rica.

And one of the workshops that we did was with an artist called Yero.

And he did exactly the same thing.

Painted with a paintbrush in his mouth and ran the workshop with the paintbrush in his mouth.

And you get the opportunity to try it.

And it's incredible, the amount of detail and control that he had, just superb.

This company is a company called Il Viaggio Travel, run by a wonderful lady called Stephanie Proti.

She's amazing.

Not only does she focus on accessibility on a basis of enabling tourists to be able to explore Costa Rica and do everything from white water rafting to climbing volcanoes, but she also engages the disabled community to provide workshops like that as well.

So it's sort of a two way thing, you know, disabled travelers generally travel with able bodied travelers as well.

We're normally part of a group, so it allows other people to see how easily integrated people with disabilities can be, how that equality should be presented.

And I think this is a key part and we're seeing it more and more nowadays in the representation of disabled bodied people in the media and in schools, which makes it more normal, more commonplace.

And I think that's key as well is seeing everybody comes in different sizes, shapes, colours, abilities, disabilities.

We're all part and parcel to just one.

When you change your perspective to that, it becomes more about an aptitude to a specific task rather than a broad brush.

Able or not, it's how do you feel about this moment doing this thing?

Let's not write a person off for everything or write a person in for everything because even the most wonderful all rounder isn't going to be able to do everything.

Everything you said about a lot of people who have an accessibility need do travel with somebody who's totally able bodied as a companion.

I interviewed the owner of a company called Travel Eyes a couple of years ago and that was fascinating because what they do is they pair up a full sighted traveler and somebody who's blind.

Okay, you go on the trip and everybody's in these pairs.

You haven't necessarily met your buddy before, but when you go the person who's sighted is explaining the scene, they're describing it.

It's actually helping both of them see the scene more because the person who's fully sighted doesn't actually look fully.

In regular life, you don't use the senses that you've been given.

You're running on autopilot so often you overlook half the scene.

But when you're forced to think what am I seeing?

So that I can explain it to the person who's standing with me and sharing this experience with me, but can't see it with the eyes, now I'm seeing it so much more, it's amazing.

That's a superb idea.

I've not heard of that one before, but yeah, it makes you very mindful, I guess, of what you're actually seeing.

Yeah, yeah.

So Costa Rica was an adventure trip and you were out doing whitewater rafting and all These sorts of adventure activities as well as the creative stuff.

Was there a point in that trip where you thought, oh my gosh, oh, too much or you felt very comfortable through the whole.

I like the moments when I think, oh my gosh, they're great.

That was probably the only point where it crossed my mind about my ability was on a night walk in a jungle.

And I walk on crutches when I'm not sure where I'm walking.

And so in the dark with a head torch on, I'm very aware of my footing because I don't want to fall.

We crossed a road bridge, but with a wider base so it was easier to get across this river into deep jungle.

And it was nighttime.

And the noises that come from the Costa Rican jungle are incredible.

It's an absolute cacophony of croaks and sounds and sighs and whispers, of trees and rivets and frogs and all sorts of.

And it was only me, my partner and our guide.

And as we walked across the bridge and into the jungle, you feel absolutely removed from society, as if you were a million miles away from anywhere.

Explorer, like, you know, you're sort of Dr. Livingstone.

And we got deeper down through this pathway and the guy said, stop, stay still.

So he froze and he spent a little bit of time looking into the bush and he said, look, come slowly, slowly, come here.

And he pointed into the bush and there was basically the world's most poisonous snake.

One bite, you would be dog meat.

He said, right, okay, just watch.

And I was thinking, suddenly it occurred to me, I can't run away very fast if something comes out of this bush.

I'm in the middle of nowhere, I'm on an unsteady footing, I have crutches which are going to get tangled up and everything.

And I can't run very quick.

That's probably the only time it occurred to me in that whole experience was when that fight flight response kicked in.

But the thing is, I know for a fact my partner's able bodied and she felt the same thing.

So that's just a general response.

Mine was just put into context by the fact that she would be leaving me in the dust whilst I was behind getting trampled over by spiders and eaten by snakes.

Save yourself.

Leave me.

Leave me.

So Stephanie's company, when they're taking a booking, they spend time with their clients, speaking to them about their abilities and their disabilities so that every part of the itinerary is structured so that they will be able to do it.

It will push the boundaries of what you can do and what you're comfortable with.

So the white water rafting, for example, was really, it was a really great experience.

So for me I had to take the brace off my leg, which means I can't walk.

I can swim really well, I can't walk, but once you braces off my leg.

So again you feel very vulnerable once you're in that situation.

But because the way the experience was set, because of the guides, because of the information you had beforehand, you feel as comfortable as anyone else going through that experience for the first time.

They design them really well and I think there's a lot of clever operators out there who do this really, really well.

When you're dealing with an accessibility issue, it can't just be under one title, it has to be very individual.

You know, if it's a right leg or a left leg or both legs or one arm, the other arm, both arms, all limbs.

What is the mobility issue?

So it's very specific to a person and I think a good company providing those sorts of tours, talks with their people and interacts on a personal level with them.

If you feel that you're the center of that attention, that's great customer service in my eyes.

Whether you're able to disabled bodied.

Yeah, it's incredible customer service.

Have you gone with any others beyond Il Fiatio?

I am heading off to Peru this year with a company called Red Tours.

So I'm looking forward to that because we'll be going towards Machu Picchu.

Peru are making some big advances.

As well as inaccessible as Machu Picchu is, they are doing their best to make it as accessible to as many people as possible.

They're actually building an airport at the bottom of Machu Picchu for a start.

So you're going to be able to fly basically to Machu Picchu.

I think it's going to open it up.

Why is a lot of tourists but also on the trail there are trail carriers like a cross between a stretcher and a wheelbarrow.

Okay.

So you have a wheel sitting underneath the back of a stretcher in which the person is sat and you have a guide at the back and a guide at the front.

And those guys wheel the person along the trail and they're single wheeled, so they're pretty, pretty manoeuvrable and they take the weight so somebody can experience literally walking out into the middle of the wild.

That's amazing.

It's a very analog way of doing things.

It's very low tech, but it does the trick.

Sometimes I think in the uk, in the States, and in these sort of very highly medicalized societies, we make things more complicated.

I know sitting in a wheelbarrow isn't going to be the world's most comfortable situation, but it does open up a whole world of places if you're willing to sit in a wheelbarrow, but you're.

Not actually in a wheelbarrow, but it's a stretch of same.

So the principle of the wheelbarrow with the one wheel below remains, but you're not actually in a wheelbarrow.

The solution is simpler than we've told ourselves.

It needs to be.

You fit a nail on the head there.

I think it really doesn't have to be complicated.

Put the information there, say what's happening, say how it works.

Looks a couple of years back I went skiing for the first time since I lost the use of my leg.

So 30 year gap up into Whistler in the Rockies in Canada, and they have a center up there and they had a work room and they were showing some of the designs that they'd used over the years.

And one of the alpine type skiing events where people are self propelled along was more or less a chair strapped to two skis with a few bindings on it.

And that was one of their original prototypes that they used.

I mean, they had progressed somewhat since then, but that's where it began.

The idea began very, very simply.

And then moving up to the alpine side of it, I mean, things have got a lot more progressed, but still, essentially you're in a go kart, if you like, with skis on the bottom, going down a hill incredibly fast, admittedly with somebody behind you, making sure that you don't do anything tough.

But there were disabled skiers there that were experienced at using these devices and oh my Lord, they were incredible.

It's just amazing.

But again, it opens up the world.

I'd been skiing before, I was ill and I loved it, but it just didn't occur to me that it would have been something I could do.

Despite the fact that I had some vague idea that there was sit skis.

Up until that point, I hadn't really fancied the idea of doing it and then jumped in and.

Amazing, absolutely amazing.

The freedom of going down through the slopes and, you know, skiing in between trees and the spray of the snow going up in the background and the freshness of the alpine air when you're at the top of the mountain.

All these things that perhaps you sometimes forget are there or you presume are no longer available to, to you can be accessed.

Another part of that story that you tell yourself in terms of whether something's available to you isn't just in your own mouth and your own mind.

It's the words of other people around you.

Sometimes it's convincing the people around you to have the same confidence in you as you have inside.

People can block your ability to make a good move for yourself because they can plant the seed of doubt.

Or in the cases of maybe younger potential travelers, it's a parent saying, dream on, there's no way I'm sending you on that trip.

Yeah.

And sometimes, quite rightly, a protective nature of a parent.

They don't want them to be at risk.

They don't want them to suffer the idea that they might not be able to do something.

They don't want them to experience disappointment.

But actually, one of the biggest things that you learn resilience from is not being able or failing at something and getting.

Getting back up and doing it again, and then getting back up and doing it again until you succeed.

That's what builds resilience.

Another key point on that is a lot of time a disabled person might limit their experience on the basis that they don't want to impact somebody else's holiday who they're traveling with.

Because I think, I won't be able to do this, then we won't look at doing this.

The disabled traveler travels with their partner, they travel with the carer, they travel with their family.

So it's a group of people.

And the perception might be that they could limit that group's experience.

But the flip side of that is that from a economic perspective of a provider, if you have that facility to be able to allow the disabled person to be able to engage in those activities, then you are encouraging the disabled person, their carer, their parent, the child.

Five, six, seven, eight people.

It's a group booking that is either coming or not coming, that you're losing or gaining through the information or the adjustment to the activity.

You've got the economic side, but also I really believe you've got the experience side, because the experience for those who are able can be enhanced by the adaptation as well.

Sometimes an adaptation for one ends up as an enhancement for everyone.

But I can't help get out of my mind when you put the word economic in there as well.

This has got to be a bit expensive.

Is it more expensive to travel when you have accessibility needs?

To put it under one title and say yes or no is virtually impossible.

But.

But the more complex the condition, generally the More expensive it's likely to be, but it doesn't have to be hugely different.

So for example, air travel will cost the same, the hotel room will cost the same, some of the experiences might cost a little more, but it's not going to be vastly different.

One of the things I work at doing most is trying to convince providers to provide a better service and the benefits of doing that.

And disabled travellers do tend to spend more money.

Statistics show the average spend per head is about 660 pounds on a trip for an able bodied person.

About 740 pounds for a disabled person.

Why do you think that is?

Disabled people tend to travel for longer periods of time, so they make one trip last longer.

And also there is a tendency to travel in low season or shoulder seasons because those times are quieter, there's more space, there's more capacity.

So when you're looking at from the outside, from the facilities perspective, it makes so much sense to develop your business to incorporate that.

Because morally, yes, it's the right thing to do.

Economically it makes sense, it makes perfect sense.

And if you have those two things combined, moral and financial, it seems to be a no brainer.

Again, yes, it is a win win.

The biggest thing is don't get overwhelmed with the idea.

Look for good examples of operations and ideas that other people have.

For example, there's an indigenous center in Canada I believe for the squamish people in at Whistler.

One of the tours that they have was for neurodivergent children.

So when their children arrive, they give the children a backpack each and that backpack contains headphones.

If they're getting a bit overwhelmed by the noise of the area to be able to put those on elaborately colored and nice sunglasses so that they don't have to make eye contact with people.

It gives them other things that distract them within this bag lots of things that would appeal to somebody who might struggle with interactions on a day to day basis and different ways of learning things.

10 Backpacks, contents cost probably 2, 300 pounds and those are reused and reused.

So small things like that can make a big difference and they can really stand out and appeal to people.

From an accessibility point of view, I think personal facilities is one big key.

So accessible toilets.

If anyone with a disability is traveling, that's one thing that isn't always brought up, but it's absolutely essential.

If you imagine when you're busting for the loo, it's not a pleasant feeling and you know that more or less you could probably slip behind a bush somewhere.

If it came down for that.

Right.

But if you were in that situation and that was playing on your mind and you didn't know where you could use the facilities, that would present quite a stressful situation.

So having facilities that are available to people and make clear where those are is key.

And flipping that now to the traveler, what are some useful apps or tools that can make that experience easier for the individual?

Regardless of where the institutions are currently at the state of the world as it is, what could somebody use to help make their trips smoother?

First of all, all airports and all British rail network and most of the European rail network have assistance facilities.

All, all of their stations and all of the airports, you can have people meet you that take your bags.

You sit on one of the small electric trucks and they will take you to security gate, through security and then through security to boarding and help you to board onto the plane as well.

So that takes a lot of the stress and the strain.

And for that do you need to tell them in advance that you're going to be there or just when you get to the airport, you see them waiting and you go on over.

Always best book in advance so you can turn up and you can approach them on the day, but it's always better to speak to them in advance and also to tell your carrier that that's a requirement that you have.

There is a similar service at train stations that does need to be booked in advance so you can be met at your stop by people who will help you get on and off of the train.

They will take you through the stations with your luggage, take you through the gates with your luggage, help you board the train, ensure that you're comfortable on the train as well.

And that's done through the website?

Yeah.

So whichever rail company you're traveling with, you go onto their website, you can find the different numbers for them on each of their websites.

I think it's about 36 of the European EU countries have those facilities as well.

They're independent to each country, so visit their railway network site and find out what they've got.

But the information is all there on the Internet.

Tfl, if you're going to London, have route maps that show roll on, roll off lines, step free lines, so you can travel through London as easily as you can.

They're actually improving the network over the next few years as well to make, I think they're aiming for about another 70 stations that are going to be step free, which is superb and opens up the capital.

What you also find in a Lot of the European capitals and in the European larger cities are similar accessible schemes which will give you the information of what is and what isn't accessible around those cities.

Some countries are better than others.

If you went to Milan or Rome, both of those are pretty good.

However, if you go to the center of Naples, for example, it gets a bit tricky because as much as it is relatively flat, it's very cobbled, it's very old, and that makes it very difficult.

But there's still a lot of guidance on these tourism websites for you to be able to highlight and find the places that you can visit easily.

So in that case, you're going to the tourist board's official website.

The best point is, if you're traveling to a country, visit the country's website first.

So visit England, for example.

You will have tourist organizations then that are either related to the region or to the cities within that region as well.

So if you're going somewhere specifically Rome, Paris, Madrid, visit the tourist ward for that city and they will have specific details there.

Take some form of disabled identification and you will find in a lot of European cities you can get free entry or discounted entry to a lot of museums and attractions as well.

We mentioned the toilets earlier.

Is there anything useful for knowing where accessible toilets are in a place that you don't know?

There is a website for the UK Cool.

Www.changingplaces.org.

So that's changing with a hyphen in between places.org which has a national search function for accessible toilets.

It also has a link on their website that you can buy a key to the locked, accessible toilets that are found around the country.

As a rule of thumb, most of the big cities are pretty good at highlighting where those facilities are.

But if not hotels, McDonald's, Burger Kings, those sorts of big chains where they're going to have to have followed building regulations, they are pretty good bets for finding facilities that you're going to be able to use.

Sometimes you do just need to take that obvious shortcut in a moment, in.

The moment of needs.

Anywhere will do, right?

Again, it comes down to that thing of being flexible, being resilient, thinking outside the box a little bit and thinking on your toes.

Is there anything in particular in your travels that comes to you as.

As a moment where you are either particularly proud of what you surprised yourself with that you achieved, or just an amazing memory that you're so pleased that you told yourself to get out and do?

It would have been about 12, 13 years ago I went backpacking in India Structurally, India is just, just wonderfully, wonderfully chaotic, unreliable all over the place, but fantastic.

We went from Delhi down to Fort Kochi and then from Kochi we trained back up towards Delhi.

And I think after that journey I really felt that I could deal with whatever was in front of me, whether it was missed buses, broken calipers, joints that had seized up because they had too much sand in them or whatever it might stop us that I'd lost off of crutches and all these sorts of things that had to be fixed on the hop and dealt with immediately right there.

And they turned out okay.

In fact, you reflect on them as funny stories, you know, and I think sometimes when you're in the moment, things can feel very, very intense.

But if you think to yourself in six months time, I'll look back at this and remember it as a crazy, funny, amazing experience.

I think that's a really good way of being able to reflect on a difficult situation.

I find your mindset so inspiring on that.

The biggest difference of somebody who is disabled and somebody who has extra accessibility needs is mindset.

I think you're right.

This is why it's so important for people to travel abled or disabled body.

I think it just opens your eyes, opens your mind and it proves to you that you can do what you want to do.

The wrap up Roundup Quickfire finish is.

Now ready for boarding.

With accessible travel in mind.

What would you say is the top thing to see or do on your travels full stop?

Just visit Costa Rica.

It is an incredible place.

I mean, I've been lucky enough to travel to various parts of the world, but rarely have I experienced anywhere with such a natural beauty and a variety in one place.

It's stunning.

It's stunning, particularly if you're a nature lover, that it's like wandering around in a paradise open zoo where you open your window and find a volcano in the background with an armadillo wandering across your lawn in the morning.

Just tremendous.

Just tremendous.

I've made a video for Motabilities Lifestyle magazine which is on their website.

I was on the COVID of their magazine recently.

They let me do a video about it and I also did an accessible guide to Costa Rica for Lonely Planet.

What would you say is the top tourist trap to avoid?

The most important tourist trap to be aware of as a traveler with extra accessibility needs, I'd say one of the.

Things you need to be most cautious about is booking through trusting the blue wheelchair sign too much on Airbnb because in my experience and also in the anecdotal experience of other travelers.

The blue badge sign has professed accessibility for travelers to then arrive and find out that actually, for example, the room is accessible but you can't get to the room.

I would say, don't trust that sign.

If you see it, double check, talk to people.

And I think that's probably the biggest trap that people can fall into is in some of those situations, not double checking.

I used to work for a very short period of time in a historic hotel in the centre of London and they had retrofitted accessible rooms and they'd put one of their accessible rooms in a corridor that could only be accessible, accessed via three steps.

Wonderful.

Genius.

You have to wonder again, going back to Naples, it was a visit that I booked a room and I thought I'd just drop the host a quick message and say, look, I walk on crutches.

I've noticed you said there is a lift to the room.

Is that still in operation?

They said, no, actually, it's broken at the moment.

And they refunded me my booking money quite happily.

Right.

Because they realized there was no point.

So it is again, it's just, you know, be open to asking those questions.

Don't just trust.

Yeah.

Be a little bit more proactive.

When would you say is your favorite time of year to go on your travels?

It depends where you're going.

I would have to say I would generally avoid end of July and August and the beginning of September because they're so busy, particularly across Europe.

So Europe wise, I think the shoulder season, so end of September going into October, the beginning of November and then end of April through to the middle of June is just a wonderful time to travel in Europe.

Just really good.

And also Europe in the middle of the summer.

In the last five, six years, it's got so hot, so hot, blisteringly hot.

Finland in the middle of summer is a lovely place to go.

I think last year they were, they were hitting temperatures of about 26, 27 degrees in the middle of summer and they had clear skies, blue skies throughout the whole of June, July going into August.

That's perfect.

That sounds ideal.

And have a country of five and a half million people and the actual size of Finland is one and a half times bigger than the uk.

So if you want space and time and a lovely bunch of people, that's your place to go in the middle of summer.

Now, I'd say what would you say is a top book that people interested in accessible travel might want to check out either for advice or inspiration?

I don't think you should differentiate between accessible and non accessible books.

I think just read travel writing books that inspire you to travel, see things.

So at the moment I've actually flicked back to reading Michael Palin pole to pole.

I'm reading at the moment and it's a brilliant book and it just inspires that sort of sense of wanderlust.

So just read good travel books.

Shantaram is another one if you like.

India is a really fantastic book.

I get caught up in those books because whenever I read a book about a place, whenever I travel to a place, I fall slightly in love with it every time and I start making plans to move there, I start making plans to spend an inordinate amount of time there, learn the language, all these things and then, and the next trip overtakes the last one and then I fall in love with that place and read a book about that place.

So you're fickle.

Yeah, I am, I am fickle, I'm afraid.

But I would say just read good travel writers, read people who are passionate about cultures and places and then work out how you can do it afterwards once you're inspired.

What's been your most memorable food or drink experience on your travels?

I stayed at the Four Seasons in Whistler, which is very nice.

What?

What?

And in the restaurant we arrived at what was for us because of time difference, five o' clock in the morning and the hotel laid out a meal of everything on the menu so that we could try everything that they had because it was dinner time there and it was memorable on tubios, not simply because the food was so good, but because I was so disorientated with this is breakfast.

Well, it's not even breakfast time yet and I'm sat here with a full four course meal in front of me with oysters, scallops, everything under the sun, quite discombobulated.

That is the weirdest part of long haul travel.

Your body doesn't agree with your brain at that point.

You don't know which way is up, let alone what time it is.

And your stomach doesn't know what it's supposed to be doing.

Very confusing.

No, has no idea.

I had no idea at all.

So yeah, I think, I mean all around the world, everywhere has got something lovely.

So I mean in, in the Ivory coast we had the atike and fish and the dishes that they cooked there were really fresh, I mean absolutely fresh.

So the fish was coming out of the sea, being cutted and cooked and that is just lovely.

I don't think things need to Be fancy all the time.

I think a lot of simple food.

Try street food.

Try street food from vendors that seem busy with local people.

Final question.

What would you say has been either an individual or as a trend of something you look for, for a really nice, authentic souvenir that you like to pick up from your travels?

Something real.

Something authentic.

Come on, you've got to get a fridge magnet from everywhere you go, surely.

Okay, so the one that comes to mind is we traveled to the Ivory coast and we were in a small village and we were hosted by the chieftain of the village.

And the chieftain of the village was a lovely man.

He was really, really nice fellow.

And he hadn't hosted anybody in his throne room.

And I say throne room very loosely.

It's like your auntie from the 70s, living room with everything in it, massive TV screen in the background.

But he had all his advisors with him and they were all dressed in their traditional garb.

And he had.

Six months prior to that, he lost his son.

And he was really grateful for us coming and really grateful to see us and chatting to us.

And he gave me a hug and told me I reminded him of his son.

And he took a leopard skin rug from the floor and pulled some hair from that leopard skin rug and gave it to me, presented it to me and said, this is for bravery.

Keep this close to you.

And then gave that to me.

And I keep it in my wallet all the time.

So I think that is probably one of the warmest things that I brought home with me from a trip.

Wow.

Yeah.

Gosh, that's amazing.

I mean, I ate some.

To add, they hadn't been out and killed this leopard recently.

It had clearly been killed a long time before.

I'm not advocating going out there and killing wildlife, but it was very nice to, he thought to give that to me.

Matt Dennis of the Empowered Traveler, thank you so much for unlocking accessible travel for us today.

Thank you, Daniel.

It's been a pleasure to be here.

Well, thank you very much again to Matt Dennis from the Empowered Traveler.

What an inspiring conversation.

My goodness.

Whether it's been practical information that you'll be able to put into to practice right away, or whether it's just the mindset side of things, I really hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.

And also a congratulations goes to Matt, because this very week he has been announced as a shortlisted finalist for a big travel writing award.

So very best of luck to him in that.

Well, thank you once again for listening to this episode of the Destination Unlocked podcast.

Make sure you have followed it wherever you're currently listening, so that you'll easily be able to find us again the next time you want to go armchair traveling somewhere.

Lovely.

I'll see you then.

Bye.

Bye.