Pretty as a picture
Are you looking for an adapted holiday home or trip? Picture Vakanties has put together holiday offers for people with a physical, mental or psychological disability and/or chronic illness.
Most information provided concerns offers in the Netherlands, but if you want to go elsewhere on holiday, you will find some good ideas here. The authors speak from experience (professional or personal). The website, www.picturevakanties.nl, is available in Dutch.
Asthma & allergies
The asthma and allergy umbrella organisation ‘Astma- en allergiekoepel’ has put together a series of practical tips for tourists who suffer from asthma or allergies. You can ask for more information as follows:
e-mail: info@astma-en-allergiekoepel.be
telephone: 0800 84321 (free number in Belgium) or +32 (0)16 25 31 11
fax: +32 (0)16 25 31 16
web site: www.astma-en-allergiekoepel.be. The information is given in Dutch.
You're in a strange country and you have to explain that you're allergic to a certain food or additive. It only works if you have an incredible flair for languages (or a natural talent for pantomime). A German department of the European consumer organisation ECC-Net has found a solution. Their website http://www.ecc-kiel.de/EVZkiel/food-infos/allergy-lexicon.html contains a collection of translation lists (in pdf format) with the most common allergenic foodstuffs. Available in 25 languages!
Luggage carrier
No need to lug round your own suitcases when you go on holiday. Funtrans picks up your luggage at your home and makes sure everything is waiting for you when you arrive at your vacation address. Same thing for the return journey. Funtrans transports luggage to 200 countries, which is pretty much “worldwide”.
Work out the cost yourself on their www.funtrans.com website. Further info also at: Hofstraat 16, 8820 Torhout, tel: +32 (0)50 21 23 08, fax: +32 (0)50 21 18 73, e-mail: eric-at-funtrans.com. The site is in Dutch.
Follow the current
Don't forget to recharge your batteries when you're on holiday If you use an electric aid , you should even take this advice literally. The table summarizing the voltages and plugs used in most countries of the world at http://kropla.com/electric2.htm helps to relieve the tension. The 13 different possible types of plugs and sockets in use at most residential sites in the world are illustrated with drawings and pictures. Available in English.
Travel assistance
An often recurring problem is: where do I find someone who can help me with daily tasks such as dressing, shopping, getting around etc when I’m on holiday? Maybe a classified ad on www.independentliving.org/vacaswap.htmlwill help you find that person. The website also offers volunteers the opportunity to sign up.
The website is in English but classifieds can be found and written in any language.
Travel reports
Word-of-mouth advertising is still an important source of information if you are looking for an accessible place to stay. The internet is full of travel reports from people with a handicap (our column Travel experiences is cheerfully teeming along.)
The site http://www.access4wheelies.be has been composed by a wheelchair user who regularly goes on a journey together with his family. He is commentating hotels, camping sites and holiday cottages in various holiday places from his own experience.
Available in Dutch, French, German and English.
Gordon is a wheelchair user and tour operator with a fondness for adventure travel. On his website http://www.able-travel.com/ you will find travel reports on Tanzania and Ethiopia, travel plans for a trip to Kenya, breathtaking pictures and an array of tips for those who want to travel off the beaten track. Upon request, information about a number of other destinations can also be obtained. The site is available in English, when we last visited the site a Dutch version was under construction.
More general is the French site Yanous (www.yanous.com). This news site on handicaps contains amongst others travel reports, but also interesting links and general leads in French, English, German, Italian, Spanish and Russian.
Winfried knows what he is talking about, and says that there is often too little information about the accessibility of bathrooms. So his web page http://www.winfried-h.de/trips/trips.htm not only contains travel stories about various countries, but also a well-documented chapter about “the smallest room”, in Germany and abroad. The travel information is available in English, occasionally alternating with pages in German. For enthusiasts: his home page is also available in Danish and Gaelic.
You can find a lot of travel reports from handicapped people, from Bruges to the Cook islands (New-Zealand) and back, at www.globalaccessnews.com (Global Access).
Available in English.
Paul and Claudine both have a physical disability and are active travellers. Their website offers substantive information base don their own experience as well as a number of tips gathered elsewhere, together with the necessary links and contact addresses to help you plan your travel. Their website: http://users.pandora.be/paul.pirmez/reizen_op_wielen.htm.
Available in Dutch.
I beg your pardon?
In exploring a new destination, the language, however, can sometimes be an obstacle. A lot of information about accessibility on the internet is especially meant for national use. In this case a translation site can come in handy. A few examples: Babelfish (babelfish.altavista.com) is making machine translations in nine languages. Machine translations are, of course, never perfect, but you will get an idea of the contents. Very handy at Babelfish is the possibility to enter a web address and then the entire page appears fully translated on your screen. An even larger collection of online-dictionaries can be found at Travlang: dictionaries.travlang.com. Obviously there are more similar services to be found on the net.
My world
And for the icing on the cake: a little game. Make a map of the countries you have visited. Surf to http://www.world66.com/myworld66 and select in the table all the countries you have visited to produce a map of those countries. And while you’re at it, you might as well send us all your travel tips via the section Travel Experiences on our website! Enjoy!.
