Context Travel is an agency that offers walking tours in a variety of European cities. We took one of their walks on our trip to Italy several years ago, and were favorably impressed, but considerable advance negotiation was required to find out what might be accessible.
Context is now rolling out a formal Mobility Program to provide services to travelers with mobility limitations:
The services and features of the program include:
- a collection of walking tours, specifically designed to adhere to accessible guidelines, in each of our cities
- a team of docents who have been trained in leading mobility-friendly itineraries
- a client resource document for each city, which includes: wheelchair rental information, accessible taxi and transfer options, accessible travel resources and trip planning web sites
Good job, Context!
If you go on any of their tours, let me know about it.
I like the whole Context Travel concept. Thanks for putting me on to it. I wish I had looked into it when we visited NYC in ’09. The Met says that the cloisters are not w/c accessible but Context does have a walking tour their. Perhaps it is accessible to different disabilities but it would have been nice to have tried.
Don’t be confused – just because Context has a walk doesn’t mean it’s accessible. Their new program, as I understand it, plans to designate some walks as accessible (or perhaps modify existing walks so that they are accessible) as well as train their docents in accessibility issues: here docents are learning from a Florentine wheelchair user.
http://www.facebook.com/contexttravel#!/photo.php?fbid=10150130369305349&set=a.376025010348.163993.45159985348&theater
Yes, you’re correct. This is a new program we’re endeavoring that will grade and classify our existing walks according to their accessibility, train our docents to be more effective with mobility challenged clients of all types, and maybe even suggest new walks. An update: At this point we’ve put together a mobility advisory board of experts in this topic who’ve equipped us with a framework for analyzing our walks. We are currently rolling it out in New York, London, Paris, and most of our Italian cities. By the end of the year we should have between 2-4 walks for w/c users and other mobilities in each of these cities. We’ll continue in 2012, expanding to the rest of our cities (Madrid, Istanbul, etc.) and increasing the walks available in our core cities. Stay tuned!
Hi.
We’re here at Beehive Rome. i wonder if you still have room for My daughter (adult) and I to join your group for a tour of St Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel tomorrow Monday 6/26 or on Tuesday 6/27. I understand that the tour takes at least 3 hrs. Left me know please, email me your responso and the cost. If not do you have and suggested tour company to go to? Thx