Welcome to SCOOTY!

SCOOTY strives to make your U.S. and international wheelchair accessible travel easier by providing detailed analysis, videos, and photographs of the accessibility of tourist attractions, transportation options, flight experiences, and hotels. This knowledge helps ease the stress and consternation around travel–if we know the barriers to access that we will face, we can plan ahead and overcome them.

Detailed Analysis and Photos of Wheelchair Accessibility

SCOOTY is a compendium of how-to guides, photographs, and lessons learned from my travels around the world with my electric scooter/wheelchair (due to extreme weakness caused by Spinal Muscular Atrophy). SCOOTY’s detailed information, photographs, and outlines of itineraries are meant to show concrete examples of accessibility at each of the different places I visited. SCOOTY focuses on public transportation to and within cities, accessibility of hotels, accessibility of tourist sites, and the walkability/wheelability of the cities.

The compendium focuses on France, England, Belgium, Monaco, Italy, Switzerland, and the United States (Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Utah). However, I am actively traveling for new content, as well as backfilling with information from my prior travels around the United Arab Emirates, Australia, New Zealand, the remaining U.S. states, and 40+ U.S. National Parks.

In short, check back often for new information. And, if a destination is not covered, feel free to contact me to see if I have been there. If so, I’m happy to discuss any tips/pointers.

Lists of Hotels and Their Accessibility Features

SCOOTY provides a growing list of hotels that have been reviewed for accessibility. These reviews examine each hotel’s wheelchair accessibility information, such as bed height, toilet height, pictures of the bathrooms, pool lifts, community areas, etc. This information includes personal experience as well as information provided directly from the hotels themselves.

This list will continue to grow frequently and steadily, so check back before your next trip for additional hotels in different cities and countries.

Links to Helpful Wheelchair Tourist Information and Other Resources

SCOOTY contains links to the admissions and accessibility websites of the places visited. The goal is to streamline your planning and help guide you to useful information. But these links and itineraries are not exhaustive of things to do at these locales–I leave that wider topic to people like Rick Steves, who inspired me to always “keep on traveling.”

It’s a big world out there, and we all have a place in it. Go find yours!

I blur my face in the photos because SCOOTY is not about me–it’s about people with disabilities having the requisite accessibility information to recreate these trips, tweak an itinerary to work better for them, and/or be inspired to start (or restart) traveling.

  • wheelchair view from Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE
  • Wheelchair accessible view of Sydney Opera House from water ferryboat in Sydney, Australia
  • Wheelchair accessible view of St. Mark's Square in Venice, Italy
  • wheelchair accessible view of Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France
  • Wheelchair accessible view from piazza outside Duomo di Milano in Milan, Italy
  • wheelchair accessible view from cruise ship in fjords of New Zealand
  • Wheelchair accessible view of Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi, UAE
  • wheelchair accessible view of Santa Monica pier
  • Wheelchair accessible view from top of Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia
  • Wheelchair accessible view from underneath Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
  • Wheelchair accessible view of Louvre Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE

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