By now, you’ve officially rung in the New Year, put away the holiday décor, and gotten back into your familiar routine. As the January doldrums set in, visions of warm, sunny locales occupy your thoughts and you might be aiming your sights on a getaway. However, for those with visual impairments, travel can present a number of challenges. Advance planning and preparation can go a long way in smoothing some of those difficulties to ensure a safe trip and an enjoyable vacation. PROSE users also have some unique needs that require extra consideration prior to traveling.
The American Foundation for the Blind and The Braille Institute offer these specific suggestions for a safe travel experience:
- Be sure to identify yourself ahead of time as having a visual impairment and ask for help when you need it.
- When making reservations online, confirm by phone to find out about special services that may be available to you.
- Carry written travel itineraries, directions, and destination addresses with you. Even if you can’t read them, you can ask for help by showing them to someone else if you get lost.
- Memorize your identification numbers, charge card numbers, passport number, and bank number or set up a system to access them easily if you lose your wallet.
- Keep necessities on you at all times, such as money, keys, and tickets. Avoid putting them in your purse or carry-on in case you lose your bag.
- Preboard and bring carry-on luggage only to avoid the hassle of crowds and obstacles in aisles and eliminate a visit to the congested baggage claim area.
For our PROSE users, we recommend the following additional preparedness tips:
- Be advised that when traveling by plane, you can carry on all necessary solutions except H ₂ O ₂ and Clear Care, which are not allowed in carryon baggage under any circumstances. These can be packed in your checked luggage. BFS will provide you with a medical necessity letter addressed to the Transportation Security Administration detailing what you should be allowed to bring onto the airplane due to medical reasons.
- Document BFS emergency contact information and carry it with you at all times
- Research retailers at your destination that sell device solutions to ensure that ample supplies will be available in case your luggage becomes lost. Bring a list of PROSE solution and device care product suppliers that will ship directly to you in case needed supplies are unavailable locally.
- Make note of alternative solutions you can use to care for your devices in the event you cannot find your standard solutions at a local retailer.
- Swim while wearing the devices only while using watertight goggles.
If you intend to embark on a solo trip and the prospect seems daunting to you, help is available. You can hire a travel escort to ensure that you get safely from your home to your destination and back again. Companies such as Flying Companions offer professional travel assistance en route and even during your trip, if needed. While a travel escort can add substantially to the cost of your vacation, sometimes the peace of mind is worth every cent.
If you have other tips, please share them here. Safe travels!
Great stuff, as always.
My biggest hurdle, though, is international travel — something I used to love to do, but that is much more daunting as a PROSE wearer.
For those of us with “anterior segment” (surface of the eye) issues, the cabin of an airplane represents one of the most hostile environments we can encounter. They’re drier than the Sahara Desert !
For domestic flights, I can fight my DNA, and manage to stay awake.
On international flights, though — particularly since I’m still visually-impaired WITH my lenses — there’s not much for me to do besides sleep — a definite no-no with the lenses, particularly IN that dry, dry climate.
The last time I endeavored an international flight, then, I:
– left my lenses out
– pretty much filled both eyes with Muro 128 ointment,
– wore a pair of vented dry eye goggles, over my closed eyes
– took a pretty liberal dose of sleeping pills, to allow me to sleep until near the end of the flight
– put my lenses in just as they were announcing that we would soon land
I wonder whether others have found this to be an issue, and/or … found good solutions that allowed them TO take long airplane flights.
How daunting! I wonder if you might be more likely to get some feedback about what others are doing to deal with the issues of long plane travel by posing this question on our facebook page. If you have a facebook account and would like to, just post it on our wall. Or, if you would prefer, I can post it and coordinate responses getting back to you or here on the blog.