I have traveled to many countries and stayed in hundreds of places.
Since I use an electric wheelchair and a waterproof shower chair I am always on the lookout for good accessible accommodation, especially apartments.
I am also very fussy about accessible bathrooms.
When I speak of accessible, I generally mean wheelchair accessible. I have little experience of other disabilities and would not presume to assume. Since I don’t transfer onto a toilet or shower seat I’m not so fussed about room to transfer alongside a toilet, grab rails and such things. I do however try to include photos of each place I have stayed which show any access gadgets such as the shower and loo, grab rails, door handles, bed height and so on.
We like to stay in a place for at least a week, and often for a month so an apartment with a kitchen is much better than a hotel.
Who wants to eat out every night?
There are plenty of accessible hotels, but apartments and B&Bs are much harder to find. They are becoming a lot more common in new England, and to some degree in France in France (which seems mainly due to relocating English who open accessible Gîtes).
Italy has improved a bit over the last few years as well, especially Agriturismi.
The main problem is finding accommodation using the maze of online sites, many of which have an option for “wheelchair accessible” which cannot be trusted.
Owners of apartments, B&Bs and AirBnBs often tick “accessible” with little idea of what it means.
Over the years I have found many hotels, a few B&Bs and a very few apartments which are wheelchair accessible. I’m a bit nervous about revealing my favourites as they are so hard to find but things are improving so I guess I will ‘fess up; perhaps it will help some other intrepid wheelie traveller.
