Use accessibleGO for Travel Accommodation

Two young women with disabilities holding up their fists in a fun, "ready to fight" pose. Text reads, "Welcome members of The Arc! Sign up today for accessibleGO."The Arc is proud to announce a partnership with accessibleGO, the first full-service travel platform for people with disabilities. Customers can book hotels, flights, rental cars with hand controls, wheelchair vans, accessible rides, and mobility rentals all in one place on accessibleGO. Create a free account here.

accessibleGO is the first-ever hotel booking service built exclusively for people with accessible needs.

Learn about the history of accessibleGo:

AccessibleGO was inspired by Emma Eljas, the mother of accessibleGO cofounder Miriam Eljas Goldman. Emma was a longtime wheelchair user with multiple sclerosis, who split her time between serving as commissioner on the Valley Transportation Authority Disability Advisory Commission in her hometown of Silicon Valley, working to improve accessibility for regional transportation, and using a wheelchair-lift van to explore the sights and sounds of her local Bay Area region.

Through Emma’s eyes, Miriam witnessed the numerous challenges faced by people with accessible needs when they traveled. No amount of careful planning seemed to help. Even calling ahead could simply mean being misinformed by a well-intentioned employee and arriving to find that a hotel bed was completely unusable with a wheelchair.

There was plenty about traveling with accessible needs that could get a person down. But, inspired by her mother’s can-do attitude and her lifelong work for the accessible needs community, Miriam felt like there was something more she could do.

On travel websites, it was standard for people to post reviews about a hotel’s various amenities (check-in, how comfortable the beds are, food quality, etc.), but these reviews did not usually include any details about accessibility-related features. Miriam thought there could be a space where travelers with accessibility needs could share important details and real-time information with each other about accessibility features and verify the accuracy and utility of those features, so that travelers could be confident they were going to be safe and comfortable on their journeys. The way Miriam saw it, this simple information, shared within the community, could completely change the game for travel with accessibility-needs.

The vision of accessibleGO is to create a platform for travelers with disabilities to access information, share experiences, and be inspired to travel the world.

Woods v. Centro of Oneida, Inc., Central New York Regional Transportation Authority

Filed: February 10, 2023

Court: Second Circuit Court of Appeals

Overview: Amicus brief explaining why accessible bus stops are critical to the lives of people with mobility disabilities and required under federal disability rights laws.

Excerpt: “Accessible, integrated transportation is essential to the lives of disabled people. The ADA’s findings and remedial purpose reflect this fact. The September 19, 2022, Order of the district court frustrates the ADA’s findings and remedial purpose…If permitted to stand, it will allow public entities to evade their affirmative obligations and deflect responsibility for program accessibility to other parties who may have different obligations, or no obligations at all, to disabled people. If such an avoidance of responsibility and accountability is permitted, people with disabilities will be burdened with having to figure out access to public services, programs, and activities on their own by analyzing the respective roles and responsibilities of an assortment of unrelated public and private parties. Such an outcome could not be further from the “clear and enforceable” standards Congress envisioned when enacting the ADA.”

Case Documents

Amicus Brief

Airport Virtual Reality Video

This virtual reality video, created by Interactive Media Institute, details step-by-step the air travel process so that individuals can become acquainted with a generic airport environment prior to taking a flight to help prepare them for their trip.

En Español:

Position Statement: Transportation

Position statement of The Arc and the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities on transportation.

Position Statement: Life in the Community Summary

Summary of The Arc’s position statements related to life in the community.