Round the World in a Wheelchair

After a year of rehab, I began a return-to-work programme in which I started to look at the field of travel with a disability, or, more broadly, accessible travel. Although I did manage to get back to work at my old job as Editorial Manager at Lonely Planet – a role I had fulfilled for some years and one I dearly loved – with the relocation of editorial functions to London, my role was made redundant. It was then that I took on the role as Lonely Planet’s Accessible Travel Manager full-time, launching our Travel for All project last December. Shortly thereafter, I was invited me to speak at the inaugural accessible travel summit in Montréal, Destinations for All.

I almost didn’t make my first flight on the morning of Monday 8 September. The only visa I needed before leaving was for India and, although I’d left things late, I hadn’t taken into account the infamous Indian bureaucracy. Having completed my visa application online on Thursday, with a processing time of five days I thought I'd be fine. Wrong. I checked with the high commission on Monday morning and they had still not received my passport, although I’d put it in an overnight express post bag. I asked if I could fast-track the application and they said only after they had received the passport could it be fast-tracked. I called later that day, when they told me that they had received it, so I went in on Tuesday morning to start the process. As it turned out, you could only request that the process be fast-tracked; there was no guarantee that it would be. Come Thursday, my travelling companion was informed that her visa was ready and, since we had started the fast-track process at the same time I assumed that mine would be too. Wrong again. I was told to come back at 4.30 p.m. on Friday. That’s cutting it fine, I thought