Accessible Vacations

An Insider's Guide to 12 US Cities

Simon J. Hayhoe

Having vision and hearing loss, or difficulties learning, remembering or getting around needn’t stop us enjoying vacations to cultural places, either in our local cities or someone else’s.

Accessible Vacations is a problem-solving guide book on the most accessible museums, monuments and theaters for vacation visits or day-trips in twelve of the US’s most visited cities. It describes accessible outings, activities, courses and exhibitions you may want to try out, and places to go and see great shows or movies using a simple five-step plan.

Accessible Vacations is not exhaustive and won’t sell you a hotel room or flight. It also won’t tell you about diners in the local area, or the best souvenirs. It’s written in the hope of making your life easier and more interesting in your leisure time, or to help in getting a cultural education. It also gives you a realistic, accessible picture of what’s available in the US when you choose your destinations.

Whether it’s viewing paintings, watching musicals or walking trails, Accessible Vacations will show you that you can learn, find pleasure, develop personal interests, or build a life journey in the US’s biggest cities. You just need to know where to go to make these activities possible, or how cultural places can help support you as elderly and frail folk. If you are a museum or theater professional, it will also let you know the state of the art in the US, and which cities have the most accessible places.

Accessible Vacations is in two main sections:

•Section 1 includes ways you can get access to museums and theaters if you have problems with vision or hearing loss or difficulties with memory or learning, and includes information on: technologies, audio description, captions, special classes and performances, sign language, accessible mobile technologies.

•Section 2 has a chapter each for a dozen big, accessible US cities, with listings of facilities for museums and theaters using this book’s five-step plan. These cities were chosen because they are amongst the most visited in the US, they are spread throughout the country and they are the home of important cultural places that represent this country so well. They are also a mix of young and old cities, centres of the arts, different forms of art and centres of business. They include the east and west seaboards and the states of the north and south as well as the Mid-West.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 208 • Trim: 6 x 8½

978-1-5381-2869-5 • Hardback • October 2020 • $32.00 • (£25.00)

978-1-5381-2870-1 • eBook • October 2020 • $30.00 • (£22.99)

Subjects: Travel / Special Interest / Disabilities & Special Needs, Travel / Special Interest / Hikes & Walks, Travel / United States / General

Accessible Vacations

An Insider's Guide to 12 US Cities

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Having vision and hearing loss, or difficulties learning, remembering or getting around needn’t stop us enjoying vacations to cultural places, either in our local cities or someone else’s.

Accessible Vacations is a problem-solving guide book on the most accessible museums, monuments and theaters for vacation visits or day-trips in twelve of the US’s most visited cities. It describes accessible outings, activities, courses and exhibitions you may want to try out, and places to go and see great shows or movies using a simple five-step plan.

Accessible Vacations is not exhaustive and won’t sell you a hotel room or flight. It also won’t tell you about diners in the local area, or the best souvenirs. It’s written in the hope of making your life easier and more interesting in your leisure time, or to help in getting a cultural education. It also gives you a realistic, accessible picture of what’s available in the US when you choose your destinations.

Whether it’s viewing paintings, watching musicals or walking trails, Accessible Vacations will show you that you can learn, find pleasure, develop personal interests, or build a life journey in the US’s biggest cities. You just need to know where to go to make these activities possible, or how cultural places can help support you as elderly and frail folk. If you are a museum or theater professional, it will also let you know the state of the art in the US, and which cities have the most accessible places.

Accessible Vacations is in two main sections:

•Section 1 includes ways you can get access to museums and theaters if you have problems with vision or hearing loss or difficulties with memory or learning, and includes information on: technologies, audio description, captions, special classes and performances, sign language, accessible mobile technologies.

•Section 2 has a chapter each for a dozen big, accessible US cities, with listings of facilities for museums and theaters using this book’s five-step plan. These cities were chosen because they are amongst the most visited in the US, they are spread throughout the country and they are the home of important cultural places that represent this country so well. They are also a mix of young and old cities, centres of the arts, different forms of art and centres of business. They include the east and west seaboards and the states of the north and south as well as the Mid-West.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 208 • Trim: 6 x 8½

978-1-5381-2869-5 • Hardback • October 2020 • $32.00 • (£25.00)

978-1-5381-2870-1 • eBook • October 2020 • $30.00 • (£22.99)

Subjects: Travel / Special Interest / Disabilities & Special Needs, Travel / Special Interest / Hikes & Walks, Travel / United States / General

Author

Simon Hayhoe is the author of six books on art education and museum access for people with disabilities and is also an educational advisor for the World Health Organization. His current work focuses on inclusive mobile technologies, and he has just completed a European project investigating the use of mobile technologies by disabled people in museums and monuments. Hayhoe has also won numerous awards in his field, including a Fulbright Award and a Fellowship of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he has presented his work at major museums and colleges in the US, Russia, UK, Singapore, Belgium and Italy. Beyond work and writing, Hayhoe lives in a beautiful town on a hill with his wife and two children, close to where he was born and raised.

Table of Contents

1 Introduction
My First Experience of Traveling through the US
Accessibility and the Law
Accessible Vacations’s Five-Step Plan
What Follows in Accessible Vacations
Section I: Access Needs
Developing Access or Planning Your Own Access
2 Hearing Loss
Living with Hearing Loss
A Family Experience of Hearing Loss
My Hearing Loss
Hearing Loss in Cultural Places
3 Sight Loss
Types of Sight Loss
Experiences of People with Sight Loss
Access Needs and Sight Loss
The Gravity, The Levity—Fayen D’Evie and Georgina Kleege
4 Learning Difficulties and Memory Loss
The Nature of Learning, Memory, and Aging
What Higher-on-the-Spectrum Learning Difficulties Are
Higher-on-the-Spectrum Learning Difficulties and Cultural Places
Memory, and What Higher-on-the-Spectrum Memory Loss Is
Higher-on-the-Spectrum Memory Loss and Cultural Places
5 Mobile Technologies and Cultural Places
Using Tablets and Cell Phones in Cultural Places
Apps and Functions for Accessing Writing and Typing
Recording Voices and Other Sounds Using Apps and Functions
Taking Photographs and Recording Videos Using Apps and Functions
Using Touch and Gestures Settings
Summary
Section II: Twelve Cities
The Five-Step Plan
How the Cities and Cultural Places Were Chosen
6 Atlanta, Georgia
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
7 Boston, Massachusetts
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
8 Chicago, Illinois
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
9 Denver, Colorado
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
10 Houston, Texas
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
11 Los Angeles, California
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
12 Miami, Florida
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
13 New York City, New York
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
14 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
15 San Francisco, California
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
16 Seattle, Washington
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
17 Washington, DC
Insider Tip
Access for Visitors with Sight Loss
Access for Visitors with Hearing Loss
Access for Visitors with Learning Disabilities, Memory Loss, and Autism Higher on the Spectrum
Access for Visitors with Mobility Issues
Access for Supporters
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author

Reviews

Even as travel is currently limited during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s energizing to read Hayhoe’s latest—and reconfirm a mutual spirit of adventure. Here he provides, pure and simple, a good navigation to U.S. travel for those experiencing sight loss; hearing loss; "learning disabilities, memory loss, and autism higher on the spectrum"; and mobility issues (with guidance for accompanying travelers who support them). The first section elaborates on issues of accessibility concerning each of these conditions and spells out how to manage and accommodate travel via technology, from tablets to phones. A dozen U.S. cities . . . are then featured—Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, DC—each with a handful of carefully selected cultural sites and museums, including contact information and accessibility details, such as assistive listening guides and accessible parking and restrooms.

— Booklist

Accessible Vacations

An Insider's Guide to 12 US Cities

Simon J. Hayhoe

Accessible Vacations

An Insider's Guide to 12 US Cities

ALSO AVAILABLE