I just took two different trips in less than a month, and while I definitely want to stay home for the foreseeable future, I am feeling a little bit like a travel expert right now! So it seems like a good time to share an update on some of my travel favorites - the things that I absolutely have to bring with me when I travel.
Since I just got back from a trip to Charleston a little over a week ago, travel is still high on my mind. And since we drove to Charleston, what's also on the top of my mind is everything that I have to bring when I travel. Looking at the sheer amount of things that we fit into our car looks like a game of Tetris where none of the rows ever disappear. So I thought that I'd share the many different things I have to take with me each time I travel, whether it's for a short weekend trip or a week long one.
I spent the first week of August visiting Charleston, SC for the first time! It was such a fun trip - I got to enjoy the (very, very hot) summer weather, check out a beautiful, new-to-me city, and eat lots of delicious food. I thought I'd share where I stayed, what I did, and where I ate!
Traveling with a disability, for me, is pretty complicated. This is not going to be an exhaustive post - there is just so much that goes into traveling that there's no way I can fit it all into one post. But I'm going to cover some of the basics, and add in details where I can. My hope is that for other disabled people, you either learn some tips and tricks or feel seen, and for non-disabled people, that you realize how inaccessible so much of travel can be, and give disabled travelers a little grace.
I kind of imagine myself as a tiny bit of almost DC local now (ha!), because it's become my absolute favorite place to travel. It's an easy driving distance for us, a pretty accessible city overall, and now that we found a hotel we love in The Willard (in this post), it feels comfortable going there. I am actually very, very far from being a DC expert, but I still think it's fun to share what I did while I was there - I always enjoy reading these posts when other people write them.
While I love to travel, I don't always share the places that I stay, because for me, accessibility trumps the cool factor. If there isn't enough space for me and my sister to really get around the room, or there isn't a roll-in shower, I can't stay there, no matter how cute the hotel may be. But sometimes, things just work out and I find a hotel where accessibility and the it factor combine, and I'm truly in my element. For me, that place is The Willard Intercontinental in DC.
I won't lie... when I imagined writing about my DC trip, I imagined it being a little more full of things that we did and places we went. But I think it's almost as important (though maybe not as fun) to share the reality of what it's like for me to travel right now.
I kept meaning to write this post, and then life got in the way, and somehow it's already been weeks since I've been home from my trip to New York City. But I love writing these posts for a few reasons - one, because it's a diary of sorts for me to remember where I went and what I did, and two, because there are my favorite posts to read from other people!
DC is one of my favorite places to travel to - it's an easy drive from here and there's just so much to do! The city is also, on the whole, fairly accessible and easy to get around. So when we decided that we wanted to go somewhere for the Labor Day weekend, DC seemed like the perfect choice.
When I traveled to Cedar Point and Lake Erie back in May, I felt like I kind of had to re-learn how to pack and how to travel, and the same thing happened again when we flew to Myrtle Beach! It had been so long since I had traveled that I had to remind myself what I needed when I packed and the best way to pack it all.
