Why is it so surprising that people with disabilities want to travel independently?
Travel remains a huge challenge for many people with disabilities due to inaccessible transportation, hotels, and services. Accommodations are just temporary fixes, not solutions. Even when something is accessible, no one with a disability wants to pay double to bring someone along who would otherwise not need to be there.
The public often thinks people with disabilities need to be protected from themselves as if they should be wrapped in bubble wrap. Comments like “you’re so brave” and “I couldn’t do that” are ableist expressions manifesting the speaker’s fear of turning into one of those unfortunate disabled people. We will never be an inclusive or sustainable society until this mindset is modernized.
There are actually two separate problems here: one is that the public thinks these ableist thoughts, and the second is that the public doesn’t think twice about expressing their ableist opinions to the impacted individual.
Independence should be the norm, not the exception.
Alt: Young man completely wrapped in bubblepack with a caption: “people without disabilities want people with disabilities to look like this”