Summary
In this episode of CareLab, host Emilia Bourland interviews Amberly Wiese, a former occupational therapist turned accessible travel entrepreneur. Amberly shares her journey from healthcare to launching Back to Life Travel, a business dedicated to helping individuals with mobility, medical, or sensory needs travel confidently and comfortably. The conversation dives into the importance of accessible travel planning, the challenges faced by caregivers and travelers with disabilities, and how professional support can turn travel dreams into reality. Amberly also offers practical tips, success stories, and insight into the growing field of accessible travel planning.
Key Questions Answered
-
What is accessible travel planning, and why is it important?
Accessible travel planning ensures that travel arrangements—like accommodations, tours, and transportation—match the specific physical, medical, or sensory needs of individuals. It reduces stress and risk while making travel more enjoyable for both travelers and caregivers. -
How can travel positively impact caregiver-care partner relationships?
Shared travel experiences can help restore a sense of normalcy, joy, and equality in relationships that have shifted due to caregiving roles. It allows both parties to reconnect outside the caregiver-care recipient dynamic. -
What are some commonly overlooked details when planning accessible trips?
Things like bathroom doorway widths, elevator sizes, or cruise port access can significantly affect a traveler's experience. These seemingly small details can make or break a trip, especially for wheelchair users. -
What is the benefit of working with a certified accessible travel planner?
Certified planners bring expertise in matching individuals’ functional needs with destinations and services. They consider all types of accessibility, including cognitive, sensory, and invisible disabilities—something general travel agents or online booking platforms may miss. -
Are there specific destinations that are more accessible than others?
Yes. Cities like Barcelona and Rome have strong infrastructure and suppliers familiar with accessible tourism. Amberly recommends these spots because of their resources and proven success in supporting travelers with special needs.
Transcript
Emilia Bourland
What if your next great adventure didn't have to come at the cost of safety, stress, or leaving your loved one behind? In this episode of Care Lab, we're going to meet Amberlee Wise. She's a former occupational therapist turned accessible travel trailblazer. After years of seeing caregivers, I'm going to start over. Sorry, Malik.
Amberly Wiese
And it's been really lease.
Emilia Bourland
well, I should really start over then. Okay. What if your next great adventure didn't have to come at the cost of safety, stress, or leaving your loved one behind? In this episode of CareLab, we meet Amberlee Weiss, a former occupational therapist turned accessible travel trailblazer. After years of seeing caregivers sidelined by burnout and barriers, Amberlee built a travel business that's changing the game for families with mobility or medical needs.
Amberly Wiese
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
From making vacations truly accessible to training a new wave of travel care pros, our mission is simple. Make rest, adventure, and dignity available to everyone. Don't miss this inspiring journey from clinic to coastline.
Brandy Archie
Amber Lee, we're so glad to have you. I just wanted to tell everybody a little bit about you and that you are turned into an accessible travel entrepreneur after years of working with patients and families. so now she's inspired, this has inspired her to build a travel business that helps families, especially those with mobility or medical needs, experience the world without fear or overwhelm because everybody deserves to experience the world. So she's helping
She's also helping other travel professionals get started through her accessible travel planners and also admins a growing community that connects professional travel caregivers with individuals and family in need of support on the go because if you can't find each other, you can't work together. So her mission is to make rest, adventure and dignity accessible to everyone. Amberlee, thanks for coming on the podcast and we're so excited to have this conversation about travel.
Amberly Wiese
Hey, glad to be here.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, thank you so much. Would you mind just getting started by like sharing a little bit of your journey from how you went from, you know, practicing occupational therapists to, know, really focusing on accessible travel planning for people.
Amberly Wiese
Sure. Yeah, so I started out as like a general occupational therapist and I've pretty much worked in every setting except maybe inpatient rehab. And I did that for about 10 years or so. And then because of health issues, I was no longer able to work in like an inpatient setting. And so that really kind of forced me into thinking about entrepreneurship and
having the flexibility of having my own business. So that's when I started my mobile occupational therapy business and I did that for about four years. And then health issues and a surgery kind of knocked me out. And I realized that I didn't really want to be like a owner with employees and having all that stress. So while I was recovering from back surgery, I saw another occupational therapist working in travel and she was just starting to talk about how we can.
combine our skills with the travel industry. And I was like, it makes so much sense because we help people be independent at home. So like we can still help people be independent when they're out and about and traveling and travel is fun and it's motivating for people. So I jumped right in and have been doing it ever since.
Brandy Archie
That is awesome. So, okay, I can totally see the connections because I'm not a facial therapist. I know what we do. But would you like go into a little bit, maybe even an example of like how having an accessible travel planner is really important. Like what does it look like without you and what does it look like with you there?
Amberly Wiese
Okay, yeah, so I'll start with if you don't have someone. There's a lot of stress placed on the actual traveler and the caregivers for, you know, the logistics, making sure that the location is accessible, making sure it will fit their needs because accessible means different things for different people. And as you probably know, like when you're out and about, businesses don't always have places that are fully accessible, even though they
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Amberly Wiese
advertise it. So when somebody travels and they don't look at all those things, sometimes they can get to like the hotel or a tour and realize that they can't go on it, or they can't get into their room and things like that. So it's just really stressful to kind of leave your your safety of your home and the good setup of your home into the world where it's not perfectly set up for you sometimes. So that's where an accessible travel planner
really looks at the details and as an occupational therapist, we really match the person's function with their environment. So being able to do that as a travel planner has been really similar actually. I kind of do an evaluation and ask them, what can you do? What are things that you'd like to do? And then I try to match the destination with their needs. So those are kind of the differences.
Emilia Bourland
Awesome. Okay, so as you're talking, one of the things that comes to mind for me is like so often, know, we encourage caregivers to take breaks, take care of themselves, you know, get respite care. And a lot of times like the whole idea of being able to go on vacation, if you are providing care for another person is that you have to find respite care for that person so that you can leave.
them behind and you can go and you can have this like time on your own or this vacation on your own. And your, your kind of model here really changes that potential like paradigm and that potential dynamic. Can you talk a little bit about the benefits of doing travel with your care partner?
Amberly Wiese
Yeah, that's a great question. Like the last thing we'd want to hear is somebody's being left behind because they don't have the supports available when they're traveling. So that's where we really come in and try to educate the caregiver on, you know, there are supports out there. Sometimes it's just, I guess, inspiring them that this is possible. Like my first client, I was actually seeing him
for occupational therapy. And then his wife was saying she was the caregiver and she was saying that they wanted to go see family halfway across the country and they weren't sure how to fly. And he didn't have head control. He had to use suction. He used a power chair. And really I didn't do that much because she is such a great caregiver. But I was just like, it's possible. Like if we have some support set up and she was like, she just went for it and.
booked the flight and got to see their family and it was awesome to hear about it. So then I think it was their 40th anniversary too. things like that, just inspiring people that like you can bring your loved one with you if you have the right supports and let's talk about what that means exactly. So hopefully that answered your question.
Brandy Archie
Yeah, think like, well also that's why the name of your business is really awesome because it's Back to Life. So much of therapy is focused on, yes, Back to Life, but back to like the basics, because that's where you got to start, right? But then once you've got your home set up done and you guys have a system and things are working pretty well, then it's like, okay, how can I do, how can I get back to life life when we do things outside of just brushing our teeth and getting out of the bed and going to work.
Amberly Wiese
Thank you.
Brandy Archie
whatever, right? Everybody desires, we do those things so we can do the fun things, right? And so travel either used to be a part of lots of people's lives or they wanted to be and then let's say something interrupted that. And so my question is, because I travel a lot and I love travel and I have worked with travel agents and I know that they spend some of their time going to the places in order to experience them so they can better educate their clients.
but the world is endless. And so I'm assuming that you haven't been all the places that people might ask you to help them get to. And because sometimes things are advertised in not such a fair accessible way, how is it that you like parse through and figure out like, is this place that we're looking at going actually accessible? What are the things that we need to do? What are some of those supports that help you make sure that like this is gonna go really well?
Amberly Wiese
Yeah, so there's vendors or suppliers that cater to accessibility and they actually have boots on the ground that take pictures of the rooms. take pictures of like hotel lobby and the size of the elevator and things like that. So there are some networks out there that actually look at things like that. And then it's just a lot of back and forth with the locations and some are better at communicating than others. Some will actually take a picture of the room that
Brandy Archie
Mm.
Amberly Wiese
looking at, some won't. So I tell people like you know always make sure you have insurance, travelers insurance, and then just keep an open mind that like it may not be set up perfectly like your home is. But if you kind of have that sense of adventure you know we can still try to make it work. And then there's like different like there's some cruise lines that I know are more accessible than others. There's some destinations that I know are more accessible than others. So
kind of have that all in the back of my mind. And then we also have another network of accessible travel planners who have been certified and we can bounce ideas off each other. There's a huge accessible travel community that there's people traveling all the time in wheelchairs or, you know, with neurodivergence and things like that. So you can bounce ideas off of them too. So lots of support out there. It's not perfect all the time, but
have lots of ways I can kind of filter through all that information.
Emilia Bourland
What strikes me as you're talking is just how like detail oriented this work has to be, right? Especially the more complex the needs of a person, almost like the more finally you have to think about things like how big is the elevator? How far does that door open? You know, even getting down into like really nitty gritty stuff sometimes like.
Like, you know, thinking about home modifications, one of the things that we look at all the time is like door swing, like how, which direction does that door open and when it opens, what is it blocking and what is it? like having to think about and manage all of those really fine details from a distance is so important. makes, it just makes perfect sense to me that like, as an occupational therapist, that would be such a great fit.
I'm wondering though, can you give an example of like a detail or even maybe it's a specific story or something like that that is either often overlooked if people are trying to do this kind of travel planning and maybe they're trying to do it on their own so it would be a helpful tip or just something that is like, that you're always on the lookout for.
Amberly Wiese
Sure. I would say the width of the doorways into the bathroom. A lot of times those are too narrow for wheelchairs. The size of the elevator, because I had one hotel in Italy, they said they have an elevator and it's like, great, but.
Then I was like, can I see a picture of the elevator? Like maybe some measurements and they were like, well, if the person can stand, stand up and like fold their wheelchair, they'll be able to go up the elevator. And I was like, that probably won't work for my clients because she's unable to stand. And so we couldn't use that hotel, but things like that on cruises, you want to make sure that the ports that they pour at are like, some of them are tender ports.
And that's where you have to transfer into a smaller boat. And then the boat takes you to the port. And then there's other ones where like the ship can like dock right at the port and like the ramps will be there and things like that. So those are some things that people tend to overlook. And, you know, it'd be horrible if you're, if you paid all this money for a cruise and then you have to just stay on it the whole time and just sit on the boat while everybody's out doing their tours and things like that. So those are the couple of things I see pretty often.
Brandy Archie
Do you have any individual stories of either failure that you wish that you were a part of, or so that wasn't a failure, or super success of how exciting it was for people to be able to realize an opportunity to get out into the world despite whatever challenges they were dealing with?
Amberly Wiese
Mm.
Yeah, I think.
One success was a lady that I met who had her own blog and things like that. And she traveled a ton. And she's a wheelchair user on a portable vent. And it was just cool to see her traveling around the world. And I watched her videos about like,
getting in like a chair in Machu Picchu, Peru to see like the ruins and they just kind of like carried her up in there. And it was a little nerve wracking because she didn't have great head control. So as an occupational therapist, I'm like, okay. But she was comfortable with it and wanted to do it. And so, yeah.
Emilia Bourland
I feel sweaty thinking about that, especially with a portable vent involved. But she was living her life the way she to live it. And that's actually what we're here to support, right?
Amberly Wiese
Yep. Yep.
Amberly Wiese
Yep. Exactly. Yep. I'm not going to tell somebody that they can't do it. just tell them, you know, let's give you all the information and then you can decide if you want to do it or not. A failure would probably be the port situation. So like I've heard of somebody booking a huge, huge cruise for their entire family and they had to sit on the, on the boat while their family went on the tours and things like that. And they didn't know it until
Brandy Archie
Mmm.
Amberly Wiese
they got on the cruise. So those are a couple things.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, that's kind of heartbreaking.
Amberly Wiese
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Definitely.
Emilia Bourland
Do you feel like overall accessibility in travel is getting better? Is it worse than it used to be? Is about the same? Like, is this something that people are being more thoughtful about in general? you think?
Amberly Wiese
Well, I haven't been in the business too long to know like long-term trends, but I know that people are abdicating and you know, we've got a huge group of people who are doing accessible travel and making waves as far as like spreading the word kind of like I am right now. We're creating like a network or like a
a database to list accessible travel planners. So I think that's improving as far as like making it easier for people to find somebody. Then we created the certification course. So if somebody is certified in accessible travel, then you know that they've gone through the steps and the training to, you know, recognize these barriers and things like that and look at the big picture. Because before you would just
reach out to a travel agent and hope that they would think about things like that. So I think that's getting better, but the industry as a whole has a long way to go, especially in other countries because they don't have the Americans with Disabilities Act. You know, they don't have laws for accessibility or maybe it's a country with like really old buildings and it's really hard to, you know, add adaptations. So I think that has a way to ways to go to.
Brandy Archie
Can y'all hear me? Sorry, I had an interruption. That didn't interrupt the end of your conversation, your statement, right? I marked it here, we'll cut this section out so then I'll ask my question, I'm sorry about that. Okay.
Emilia Bourland
Yes, I was just waiting for-
Amberly Wiese
Thank
Amberly Wiese
Thank
Brandy Archie
Okay, so I'm so glad you said that about other countries and how, okay, I'm gonna back up and say, sometimes I think that we get a little bit, it's okay to push forward and try to make things better, but I think we forget that like, we have made a ton of progress here in America and there's a lot of structures in place to try to make things accessible. It's certainly not universal, but it's even more so, you know, less accessible in other places.
outside of here because of those structures that are not necessarily in place and just like the age of other places in the world compared to the age of places here. And so in that
I know that your goal is to help make sure that people are traveling where they want to go. Would you say that most people who come to you are like, I'm trying to plan a trip to London, help me make it accessible? Or are people coming to you and saying, we just want to get out of here and go do something. Where's the best place to go that is already fairly accessible that we should go to?
Amberly Wiese
It's a little bit of both actually. I have people who have like their dream destinations that they want me to look into and then there's other people where part of my role is to help kind of filter down to what exactly they want because I've had some people say like I just want to go to a beach and it's like okay do you want a beach that you can swim in? Do you want a less crowded beach? You know all these questions that I asked to kind of
filter it down to exactly where they want. And sometimes during that process, we find out that like, you know, there's something that they didn't think about that they forgot to tell me. And it's like, okay, that narrows it down a lot more. yeah, a little bit of both.
Brandy Archie
And so as a follow up to that, is there like a place that maybe people haven't thought of that is actually pretty accessible? Like one of the things that I often say before you said this about the tendering was like cruises are pretty accessible and a good way to see different places. Is there another thing that you're like, hey, if you don't have like a plan, this is a great like way to get started maybe.
Amberly Wiese
Yes, I usually recommend like Barcelona, Spain or like Rome, Italy. Part of those are because there's really good suppliers there that actually specialize in accessible tours and hotels and things like that. So I know that they're gonna be well taken care of when I connect them with that supplier. I wouldn't say there's like a place that outside of the US that is like super accessible that I...
tell everybody to go to, those top two ones are really good. There's really good support there and I know they're going to be taken care of pretty well.
Brandy Archie
Mm.
Brandy Archie
That's cool.
Emilia Bourland
Okay, what's the least accessible place that you've dealt with, at least that people are trying to go to?
Amberly Wiese
Good question.
I haven't dealt with it personally, but I have heard like...
I want to say like Turkey and places like that with like the older buildings and things like that are less accessible than other places. But yeah, I'm not sure.
Emilia Bourland
Well, the question isn't like, the goal is not to dissuade people from trying to go to those places, right? But I think, it's just kind of like interesting information to know. And also, I think thinking about, maybe the more challenging a place is, the more it makes it worth it to work with someone who is an expert at helping you figure out and solve all those problems. One, because you're going to
Amberly Wiese
Right.
Emilia Bourland
know about all the things you're going know, the questions to ask, you know, the things that we need to think of in order to get things done, particularly as, as an occupational therapist and understanding like people's medical needs, well as maybe their mobility needs too. but also because like, it's just got to save people so much time to work with you to fit. mean, I just think about the amount of time that it must take to
call individual hotels and, you know, tour groups and all of these things. Like, it just must save people so much time to work with a certified professional like you.
Amberly Wiese
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's definitely, you know, having that extra person in your back pocket who's following up on these things. And then I always ask my clients to verify the information because they know their bodies, they know their situation. All I can do is present what I know and then they can kind of guide from there. So, but yeah, it's an extra person spending a lot of time researching. So.
Emilia Bourland
I want to switch gears just a little bit here. You know, one of the things that is often really challenging for both care partners in a care relationship is like the change of roles and the change in relationship that can happen when you go from a situation where, you know, your husband and wife to where your husband and wife, but now you're also care partners.
or you're an adult child who is now taking care of their parent or any of those things, right? Like that loss of roles, that change of roles, the change in relationships can be really challenging for people. Do you see the ability to share something joyful together, like travel? Do you see impacts on those relationships that have a positive impact on
both of the care partners too.
Amberly Wiese
yes, definitely. Like, even if somebody hires like a travel companion or even a travel caregiver, that takes some stress off of the logistics and you know, the physical work of being with your person that you're caring for. So I think that allows the person traveling to have a good time and focus on, you know, the vacation aspect versus like the care aspect of things. So that's where like,
The Facebook group that I started really connects people with the caregivers or companions so that they can have that great time together and focus on their relationship together and you know, just all the fun things that happen and the positives of travel by taking some of the stress and the load off of the caregiver. So definitely.
Brandy Archie
I'm wondering a little bit more about the certification and the kinds of things that you learn in a certified class because I could hear some naysayers maybe thinking like, I got like Expedia and the internet and chat GBT. And so, well, maybe it might take me time to do. What are some of the like...
not, maybe not to the specifics, but like some of the things that you learn or like are expert at that really help make sure that the trip is amazing and gives, and is giving somebody a leg up more than just like the time management piece of it, of the planning.
Amberly Wiese
Yeah, so there's travel agents out there who have lived experience, like maybe they use a wheelchair and things like that, which is great and it really comes in handy, but disability is such a wide spectrum and the certification really talks about like sensory, know, cognitive, physical mobility, you know, things like that because like if somebody may be
uses a wheelchair, but they also get overwhelmed in crowds. Like you don't want to put them on a ginormous cruise or like maybe they have sensory sensitivities. And so, you know, you want to be mindful of that. So I think that certification really helps consumers like understand that we look at all.
needs and all like even people don't identify as disabled but they have some needs when they travel so we're really mindful of that and I think that's a really strong point with getting certified.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think I actually really love that you brought up that there are lots of types of accommodations and reasons why travel might be difficult for people. And a lot of times we, we just sort of automatically hone in on folks who have difficulty walking or wheelchair users or, people with obvious, like physical challenges in terms of travel. But
There are so many people who have needs for accommodations that might not be outwardly visible to us that really, really impact their ability to go out and enjoy a space, enjoy an activity, and of course impacts their families or their care partner, whoever that is, that person's ability to go and do things together too. And so I just really, I just wanted to say like, I appreciate so much that you're thinking about those things and that there are folks out there
who are taking those kinds of issues into account. Do you have any examples or stories or anything like that? Or again, any tips involving those sort of more like invisible challenges that people might have?
Amberly Wiese
Yes, I actually live with invisible challenges, so that's near and dear to my heart and some tips I would say is like, especially with flying, like I've gotten used to asking for the wheelchair assistance because I want to save that energy for the fun of my trip versus like actually traveling to get there. So I tell people don't be afraid to ask for help or
Maybe do something that you don't normally have at home, like have a scooter when you're out and about. Like maybe you can walk around your home independently, but walking long distances really wears you out or increases pain. So don't be afraid to, you know, adapt to being out and about and kind of going out of your comfort zone. And then just like building in rest breaks, always plan for more time than you think you would need usually.
because the stress of travel is a lot different than day-to-day activities. those are a few of the tips that I give. they do make these sunflower lanyards. And I just found out my local airport is starting to be aware of them, but it's an invisible disabilities kind of sign, I guess. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it just shows like the airport staff that you have either like a hearing loss or something invisible.
Brandy Archie
Emilia Bourland
No, but that's cool.
Amberly Wiese
you know, look disabled, but you need some extra assistance. just it helps people be aware that there are people out there that look healthy, but maybe they need some extra help. So.
Brandy Archie
I am so glad that you brought up the like energy conservation and energy management piece of it because there are so many people who might not even consider themselves having a disability that could benefit from that because if you think about this is what happens I'm not gonna put this on everybody I'm just talking about myself okay you go on a trip and you're so excited about getting there
And you think about all the things that maybe I want to make sure I'm close to the beach, I want to be walking distance to this. You do all the things about the place. But then you forget about the getting to the place. And as a person who's traveled a lot, I think so much more about that now. And I'm fully able-bodied, right? But that still is draining. The difference between like...
Do I want to drive to this place versus fly? There's benefits and negatives to both sides of that and I need to weigh the cost, right? And so like if you're flying somewhere and you have to walk across a big airport, airports are huge. There's so many steps you get in when you're traveling. Even if it's just like, I got to park my car. I got to walk to the little shuttle. I got to take the shuttle to the airport. I got to stand in line. Maybe not even steps, just standing in line takes energy. And I think we highly underestimate how much effort that takes.
And I think about that in advance so that you're not recovering from the travel there during the time that you're to be exploring and doing whatever at your vacation is such a golden nugget that I think even a seasoned traveler sometimes needs to be told so that you can have your best trip. So I'm so grateful that you brought that out because everybody can benefit from thinking about it that way because you want to have a great time, right?
Emilia Bourland
Mm-hmm.
Amberly Wiese
Exactly.
Brandy Archie
spending your energy in the way that works for the time that you're trying to have. And then like the second thing too that I'm always trying to make people's, I'm always trying to encourage people to make their invisible disability visible. like bring a cane, even if you're not terribly unsteady, but it just tells everybody else around you to just give me a little more space, right? And so the sunflower is even such a much better choice.
because then you don't have to like fake, bring an extra thing that you don't need, but you're also indicating to people that you need a little bit extra help, because that's so important. And like having people feel comfortable to do that is just like another thing, because most of the time people don't want to have an extra thing, because they don't want to stand out in front of other people, but you do kind of need the help. And so just being, I'm just encouraging everybody to just be more willing, because the end goal is having fun on your vacation. So.
Amberly Wiese
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Do you have any additional parting tips that you want to give to people who are considering travel or wish they could go back to travel but feel like they can't?
Amberly Wiese
Yeah, so like I said before, like, you know, your home is set up as a certain way and you know, you may be comfortable there, but if you have that desire to, you know, see the world kind of lean on that and we'll find a way to kind of match the place that you want to go with your needs. And then there's just there's people like me who are willing to take the extra time, get to know you and your needs and we can make
Pretty much anything happens. Sometimes we have to guide you to maybe an alternative, but that's what our job is. But I would say don't let things like that hold you back because we can help.
Emilia Bourland
That's such an amazing like final takeaway message. Where can people find you or find more about your services if they're listening to this and they're like, I want to do this. I want to take that step. Let's go.
Amberly Wiese
So I have a website, it's backtolifetravel.com. So you can usually contact me through that. I even have a form that if you kind of know what you want to look into, you can fill that out and it'll send me a notification. You can also schedule like a phone call or a video chat with me too through there. I'm on Facebook and Instagram and things like that, but the website would probably be the easiest way to get in contact with me.
Emilia Bourland
And of course, we'll go ahead and make sure that that is linked in the show notes. So whether you're watching this on YouTube, or if you are listening to this wherever you listen to your podcast, if you go into the show notes, you should be able to link directly to Amberlee's website, backtolife.com, straight from there. Amberlee, thank you so much for being on this episode of Care Lab. Listener, if you made it all the way to the end, please make sure to take a moment to like, subscribe, follow, leave a comment, leave a
leave a review. Those are all really important ways that we can help make sure that more people are getting access to the important information that we're trying to share with the world here on CareLab. Until next time, we'll see you right back here on CareLab. Bye!
Brandy Archie
Bye everybody.
Amberly Wiese
Thank you.
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