Think of a place you have always dreamed of seeing: the landscape you have pictured for years, the journey you picture you will take someday.
But what if, when it’s finally time to head out on this dream adventure, you are faced with countless unknowns. Will I be able to physically enter the hotel? Will I be able to use the bathroom? Will I actually be able to participate in the experience I crossed oceans to have?
The destination has not moved. Your desire has not lessened. What has disappeared is certainty.
That is what travel felt like for me after a car accident when I was 18. I broke my neck at the C5 level and have lived with C5–C6 quadriplegia ever since. I can partially move my arms, I cannot move my fingers, and I use a wheelchair full time. My curiosity about the world had not changed, but I no longer knew whether the world was still open to me.
I grew up in Chile camping, hiking, surfing, and snowboarding. After my injury, I had to relearn how to use my body and move through places rarely designed for me.
The trek I thought I had lost
Silberstein’s friend Camilo Navarro was determined for them to hike Torres del Paine National Park in 2016. They completed the hike with a specialized trekking wheelchair and then cofounded Wheel the World to help other adventurers have the experience.
Courtesy of Wheel the World
For years, one destination represented everything I feared I could no longer do: Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. Before my accident, my childhood friend Camilo Navarro and I had talked about hiking this soaring mountain range, known for strenuous climbs and rewarding views of the Patagonian towers and a turquoise lake at the forefront. More than a decade later, he was planning this trek. During his plans, I asked him to investigate whether someone using a wheelchair could explore the park.
Every answer was some version of no.
But Camilo wouldn’t give up and became even more determined. Before we had figured out the equipment, transportation, lodging, or trail logistics, he bought plane tickets for us and four friends, from San Francisco to Chile (we were attending UC Berkeley at the time). He sent an email to all of us with the subject line: “Life is too short.”
Research led us to the Joëlette, a one-wheeled trekking chair pulled from the front and guided from behind. We raised money to buy and ship one, then assembled a 12-person team including our friends, local guides, experienced mountaineers, and a filmmaker and photographer.
In December 2016, we set out to complete the park’s full W Trek: one of Patagonia’s best treks, connecting three of the region’s most iconic landscapes. Over five days, our team covered more than 30 miles, reaching the Base of the Towers, the park’s most iconic viewpoint sitting at nearly 3,000 feet. We also reached Grey Glacier, part of Patagonia’s ice field with ice walls rising over 100 feet over the lake. On our hardest day, we traveled for 11 hours, 6 of them in rain and snow. The trail demanded ropes to help carry the Joëlette up and down the steepest inclines, constant communication, and complete trust. When we finished, I had become the first wheelchair user to complete the entire W Trek.
What happened after I left
The landscape was unforgettable. But the most important part of the story happened after I left.
We donated the chair to the park, where it’s now kept at EcoCamp Patagonia for other travelers with disabilities to use. Within weeks, a 12-year-old boy used the chair to reach the Base of the Towers. Other travelers followed.
In 2018, Camilo and I founded Wheel the World, an accessible travel company that helps both travelers and destinations. We began by collecting information that travelers with disabilities could use to make their own informed decisions, matching it to their individual needs, and helping destinations and hospitality businesses improve the experience itself by making travel more accessible.
Travelers with disabilities are still frequently treated as a small, niche market. We are not.
Travelers with disabilities are still frequently treated as a small, niche market. We are not. The data bears this out, too, as travelers with disabilities take an average of 3.4 trips a year. That’s on par, and even a bit higher than the general population. That equates to over $100 billion in annual impact when you include companions, according to the Open Doors Organization (a nonprofit education and advocacy group dedicated to making tourism and hospitality accessible to people with disabilities). As access to education, employment, technology, and independence has expanded, so has the expectation that people with disabilities can and should be able to explore the world.
What began with one expedition has grown into a global platform helping people with disabilities and older adults with mobility challenges find and book travel based on their needs. We also help destinations and hospitality businesses verify their accessibility offerings, train their teams, identify improvements, and communicate what travelers can expect.
The opportunity is not simply to serve a growing market. It also is to build a better version of travel.
Our 2018 documentary short about our trip and the founding of Wheel the World circulated online, and messages arrived from around the world. People didn’t just say, “I want to go to Patagonia.” They asked where to find a hotel in Rome with a usable bathroom, accessible transportation in Barcelona, or an experience their family could enjoy together.
Those messages revealed that people were not looking for encouragement alone. They needed a path from wanting to travel to knowing they could. They needed answers grounded in the realities of their own bodies: whether they could enter their accommodations, sleep, bathe, get around, and participate in local activities and experiences once they arrived.
Infrastructure, information, and people
Álvaro Silberstein is the cofounder of Wheel the World.
Courtesy of Wheel the World
At Wheel the World, we believe accessible travel rests on three pillars: infrastructure, information, and people.
Infrastructure makes participation possible: step-free routes, usable hotel rooms based on individual needs, accessible transportation, adaptive equipment, and inclusive experiences.
Information turns infrastructure into confidence. Travelers need measurements, photographs, honest descriptions, and details specific enough to decide what works for them. Accessibility is personal; what works for one traveler may not work for another.
People make the experience human. A well-designed hotel can still fail if its team does not know how to welcome a guest with a disability. A guide who listens, an employee who is prepared, or a stranger willing to adapt can turn an obstacle into a memorable moment.
That journey did not teach me that everything is possible. . . . It taught me that possibility can be designed.
Patagonia taught me that all three pillars are essential. The trekking chair alone would not have taken me there. Neither would information without a committed team. Determination would not have been enough without the right equipment, a plan, and humans.
That journey did not teach me that everything is possible. That would be too simple, and it would not be true. It taught me that possibility can be designed.
One industry, not two
The future I imagine is not a separate travel industry for people with disabilities. It is one industry in which accessibility information is as ordinary as price, location, and availability; where inclusive service is simply good service; and where nobody has to be unusually brave just to take a vacation.
You do not need to have a disability to care about that future. All bodies change, temporarily or permanently. Better access supports older travelers, families with strollers, people recovering from injuries, and anyone pulling a heavy suitcase over a step.
The desire to discover the world does not disappear when a body changes.
The world should not disappear, either.
