Even before the pandemic, Sylvia Longmire had a substantial social media following. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005, the Air Force veteran details her experiences traveling the world as a wheelchair user for her website, Spin the Globe, and the platform is a popular one. This spring, she launched on TikTok, offering 30 to 60-second snippets of her life to a mainly millennial audience – and her new demographic can’t seem to get enough.
“I just started making these little videos…about how I live as a wheelchair user: how I drive my accessible van, how my house is set up, how I board a plane, how I go on a train, how I go on a cruise ship,” Longmire tells Lonely Planet. “It went bonkers.” One of her first videos became a viral sensation, and she’s notched millions of views and more than 100,000 followers since.
While some of her followers are wheelchair users, Longmire says most are younger people curious about her lifestyle. “I’m 45 years old, and I’m in a wheelchair, and the major TikTok audience tends to be millennials and Gen Z and even younger than that,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Are these kids really going to care about somebody in a wheelchair?’ Well, it turns out that they do.”
“The questions that they ask are simple, basic questions,” she continues. “They’re not judgmental, and they don’t feel bad for me. They’re just really, really curious because you don’t see wheelchair users out and about as often as you should, based on how many of us there are. And there’s really no acceptable forum for somebody – a teenager – to go up to a wheelchair user and say, like, ‘Dude, I’m really, really curious. How do you take a shower? What does your house look like, or how do you get in a car?’ So the videos kind of fill this gap in knowledge.”
A lifelong globetrotter, Longmire received her MS diagnosis while on active military duty. After her medical retirement, travel took a backseat while she adjusted to her new reality. However, a divorce in 2015 got her back on the road, and she jumped in at the deep end with a 16-hour nonstop flight from Orlando to Dubai. “Go big or go home,” she laughs. “After that, I said, ‘Well, if I could do that, I could go to a lot of places.’”
A cruise to Alaska came next – her first as a wheelchair user – followed by solo trips to Iceland and Alaska. She recalls, “I said to myself, ‘If I’m doing all of this traveling and this is going to be my new gig, why don’t I write about my experiences so I can share it with other people who maybe need to find more information about accessible travel?’”
And so Spin the Globe was born. Longmire has now visited 57 countries, 49 as a wheelchair user. In addition to travel writing – for her site as well as outlets like Lonely Planet – she runs an accessible travel agency, helping her clients navigate the often tricky experience of exploring a new destination. “They want to know that they can, in the most general sense, enjoy activities and participate as much as possible like everyone else,” Longmire states.
Using digital tools like Adobe’s Sign and Document Cloud to keep on top of details while she’s on the move, she carefully checks various aspects at the beginning of each new working relationship: do they need a high or a low bed? In the bathroom, a tub or a roll-in shower? On a cruise ship, do the staterooms have doorways wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair? Does the shower have grab bars, and are the doors too heavy to open? Can they reach the drinks at the bar or at the restaurant? “Every single wheelchair user or person with a mobility issue is like a fingerprint,” Longmire explains. “Just because I have certain needs for accessibility doesn’t mean that their needs are the same.”
Hotels can be particularly tricky, she notes, even in the United States, where the Americans with Disabilities Act offers some protection. While she’s noticed more awareness over the years, the actual improvements in the industry have been negligible. “At least 50% of the time, there’s a gross violation of the ADA,” she states.
Case in point: a recent trip to Austin, Texas. “I stayed at a brand-spanking new Candlewood Suites – I mean, you could still smell the sawdust,” she says. “And I couldn’t take a shower, because the fold-down bench was completely opposite to the wall where the shower controls and the handheld showerhead were located. So if you can’t stand up or take a few steps, there’s no way you could sit down on the bench and turn on the water. Simple things like that indicate that somebody is maybe reading the ADA requirements, but they’re not reading them closely. Even 30 years after the ADA, hotels are not spending a couple of extra pennies to bring in somebody who actually uses a wheelchair to run them through because it’s not legally required.”
Cruises have been an excellent option for her clientele. “One of the biggest concerns for disabled cruisers is the availability of accessible shore excursions, and the cruise lines have been getting better at offering their own,” Longmire explains. “It used to be that we had no choice but to go third-party to secure shore excursions with companies operating in that country, and they tend to be extremely expensive. It tends to be cheaper if you go through the cruise line since the group tends to be larger, distributing the costs among more people.” She highlights Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, Holland America, and Disney as improving their options “to give us more variety instead of just rolling off the ship and getting a drink in the little village on the dock.”
Moreover, she notes, there’s been progress with airlines, “thanks in no small part to the amazing senator Tammy Duckworth, who created legislation that airlines now have to track how many wheelchairs they damage or lose every month. That was postponed over and over again by lobby groups that didn’t want the airlines to spend more money implementing this program, despite them tracking suitcases for years.”
“On average, every single day, US airlines break or lose 25 wheelchairs,” she continues. “It’s like stepping off the plane and having somebody taking a two-by-four to your kneecaps. You know, ‘Sorry, your vacation’s over, you’ve got to turn around and go home.’”
However, even given the potential for mishaps, Longmire would rather see the world than avoid traveling altogether. “When I travel, I learn something from every experience,” she shares. “So even if accessibility is poor, I wouldn’t necessarily steer someone away [from a destination] because the benefits of going there – the experiences of going – are worth the extra effort.”
Instead, there’s one message she strives to emphasize. “The number one obstacle to accessible travel is not finances, logistics, or physical disability – it’s fear,” she points out. “Fear of the unknown, fear of getting hurt, fear of your equipment getting damaged, fear of places that are said to be accessible and finding out they’re not – because all those things do happen. It’s not an irrational fear.”
“I’ll be the first to tell you: I am scared out of my mind before every trip. I can’t sleep before I get [on a plane]. I’m afraid to fly,” she continues. “I do it because I know that the reward is waiting for me at the other end.”
For more on Longmire’s accessible travel advice, read on. [Note: The quotes below have been lightly edited and condensed.]
On overcoming travel fears:
“It’s important to start with baby steps. If you’ve never been in an accessible taxi and you have one where you live, take one and see how it works when they strap your wheelchair into the back. Just go for a ride to a store or to a restaurant or to a movie, or just for a ride around the neighborhood. If you have a train, tram, or bus system in your area, try taking the bus and see what that’s like. For years, I was terrified of taking the bus because I feared getting stuck without being able to alert the driver. But the more I do it, the more comfortable I get with it, and now I love taking the public bus because it’s cheap and accessible, making it one of the easiest ways to get around cities worldwide.”
The next step is to spend the night in a hotel room. If it’s in your own city, that’s fine; perhaps take a drive an hour or two away to a new city in your state. Stay overnight in a hotel, and if things are difficult, you can easily turn around and go home.
Build your confidence from there so you know what to expect. Then, progress to a short plane flight – about 45 minutes. If something goes wrong, at least you can quickly return home.
On improving the odds that a wheelchair survives a flight:
“Some airlines are better about this than others. Domestically, I love flying with Delta – they have pink hang-tags with the wheelchair symbol, and they use a scan code to track your chair like luggage. Their app lets you track not only your luggage but your wheelchair. However, human error can occur, so if someone fails to scan the chair, you still won’t know its location. That happened to me once when I flew to Shanghai; I spent an hour on the plane not knowing where my wheelchair was. Thankfully, they found my chair, but opting for airlines that use a tracking system can help prevent loss or at least clarify where your equipment is.”
On finding a hotel room:
“One major obstacle – especially for foreign travel, but also in domestic travel – is that able-bodied people don’t necessarily share the same understanding of accessibility. When you communicate with a hotel as a wheelchair user requesting an accessible room, especially in a foreign country, their definition of accessible may differ from yours. Many travelers arrive at hotels to find out their ‘accessible room’ only had one step, or there was an elevator requiring three steps to reach it. Therefore, in addition to making a phone call, consider using email, as it may reduce translation issues. Requesting pictures can be very helpful as well; many hotels are willing to send photos. If you’re uncertain, and they cannot meet your accessibility needs or won’t provide the requested information, consider finding another accommodation. Clear communication is essential.”
On the pleasures of cruising:
“A lot of cruises go to destinations where wheelchair users wouldn’t be able to fly and spend a vacation, but they at least provide an outreach through the cruise experience. For example, I recently went on a cruise that stopped at three ports in Croatia. Split was incredible; would I fly there for a week? No, the accessibility is not adequate enough to justify the cost, but on a cruise, I could enjoy the day there and experience something unique.”
On how cities can better welcome visitors with disabilities:
“Add a dedicated page to your website for accessibility, listing restaurants, museums, and shops along with their accessible features, like restrooms or elevators. This is a basic yet vital step; it’s not difficult to implement. By promoting accessibility, you’ll attract wheelchair users, who often have to invest time to find this information themselves. If I must call or research every museum or monument, it can be incredibly time-consuming. However, if cities compile this information in one spot, it simplifies the decision-making process for potential visitors.”
Destinations must recognize the economic contributions wheelchair users make to the travel and tourism sectors and ensure that accessibility is not a hidden feature but rather a highlighted asset. By showcasing what a city has to offer, potential visitors will have readily available information, making it easier for them to choose your destination.
Find out more about Sylvia and Spin the Globe here.
