Get inspired to for your next trip: Highlights from news, new offerings, and eye-opening destinations and experiences
From accessible tours in Italy to dinosaurs in North Carolina, the world of travel is always changing. Much keeps changing for the better, especially the growing number of tour organizers worldwide who offer more and more programs and options for people with mobility disabilities. That gives us lots of travel inspo ideas for our future family trips.
Here are 5 developments and new offerings in travel catching our eye, and sparking our travel inspiration, this week.
Wheelchair-friendly tours in Florence, Italy
Accessible tours from CiaoFlorence Tours & Travels
Granted, our family typically prefers to organize our own trips, instead of leaving that to someone else. However, organized tours work better for many travelers. For travelers who use wheelchairs, it can be a relief to work with a partner who takes their needs into account with the day’s itinerary.
Italian tour operator CiaoFlorence Tours & Travels specializes in organizing group and private excursions from Italy’s main cities. New for 2024, CiaoFlorence Tours & Travels is offering Florence: Florence Without Barriers. These tours of Tuscany’s top city focus on being accessible to travelers who use wheelchairs.
With a focus on making traveling more inclusive and accessible, CiaoFlorence’s tailor-made private accessible tours and transfer services aim to break down the “architectural barriers of the city:”
Guided tour of Uffizi Gallery and guided tour of Accademia Gallery
Discover two of the most famous museums of the world, Uffizi Gallery and Accademia. An expert local guide leads visitors through a tailor-made exclusive experience, specially designed for people with mobility disabilities or wheelchair users.
Guided tour of the historic center of Florence
To break down the barriers of Florence’s city center, a private guide leads visitors on a fully accessible itinerary throughout the alleys of the Cradle of the Renaissance, discovering its glorious history and grand architecture.
Private boat cruise on the Arno river
To take in the expanse and beauty of Florence from the water, a private boat experience on the Arno river brings travelers aboard a traditional Florentine gondola.
Private gastronomic tour
Taste Tuscan delicacies in a private gastronomic tour. This private experience in the heart of Florence is an opportunity to taste the best of local cuisine.
Private transfer service from and to the train station and the airport
CiaoFlorence organizes accessible private transfers from the airport or train station to your accommodation in Florence, and vice versa. Transportation is via a luxury minivan equipped with an approved travel ramp for the transport of wheelchair users.
Where to stay in Florence, Italy
Tiny Pennsylvania adventure town has big appeal
Ohiopyle Borough takes honors as a 2024 USA Today 10 Best Readers’ Choice Award: Best Small Town in the Northeast
Our summer 2024 plans don’t include Pennsylvania, but the more we learn about this large commonwealth a ways north of my native Virginia, the more intrigued we get. Yes, Pennsylvania is home to iconic parts of American history. It’s also an epicenter for vibrant small towns and vast open spaces where you can enjoy the outdoors.
It’s no wonder, then, that this note about Ohiopyle, a small borough with “about a dozen year-round residents,” says USA Today, got our attention.
Borough council president Jessica Kruse describes Ohiopyle as “not just a place; it’s a sanctuary brimming with natural splendor.”
The small burrough’s proximity to state parks and other natural spaces attracts over 1.5 million visitors per year. People come for the rapids of the Youghiogheny River, wander the Great Allegheny Passage, or get moving on the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail and other scenic pathways in the area.
Ohiopyle is part of a larger mountainous area called the Laurel Highlands. Tucked into 3,000 square miles of southwestern Pennsylvania and only an hour east of Pittsburgh, it’s pretty convenient to get to for travelers from throughout the broader region.
Where to stay in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania
Myrtle Beach, SC: Autism-friendly certified destination
“Traveling the Spectrum” series trailer shows Myrtle Beach as welcoming to people with autism
When I was a kid growing up in Virginia, the Myrtle Beach area was our favorite summer vacation family spot. My first memories of ocean waves are at Myrtle Beach. Now as a parent, I’ve delighted in opportunities to bring my own kids to Myrtle Beach, from riding waves to hopping into wetland kayak tours.
While our family mainly works with mobility issues, we know families who need to account for autism in their travel decisions. Yet according to a survey by the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards, and despite more autism awareness and improved accessibility, 87 percent of families with children on the spectrum rarely take a family vacation.
Myrtle Beach wants to do something about that.
Visit Myrtle Beach has released a “Traveling the Spectrum” series that challenges the misconception that individuals with autism cannot travel. Six episodes showcase families who “step out of their comfort zones and confront the daily stigmas of autism to experience a much-needed family beach vacation.”
The Myrtle Beach area and other South Carolina coastal communities have been working to be more welcoming to people with autism. For example, Myrtle Beach’s work with Champion Autism Network resulted in a 2016 designation of Myrtle Beach as an autism-friendly certified destination.
Watch the Traveling the Spectrum trailer
Where to stay in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Route 66 adventures in Illinois
New attractions transform the first hundred miles of Route 66
As you might be aware, our family of four LOVES road trips. While we’ve driven iconic roads such as the Blue Ridge Parkway, California’s Highway 1, and the International Selkirk Loop, we have yet—and I’m a little ashamed to say this—to drive Route 66.
In fact, the only time I’ve even been on Route 66 was during a trip to Albuquerque, NM. While America’s “Mother Road” often gets associated with the US Southwest, Route 66 also extends deep into the Midwest and Great Lakes regions. The more we’ve learned about attractions along the way, the more keen we are to check out this heartland stretch of the Mother Road:
Along Route 66 in Illinois
- Cruisin’ with Lincoln on 66 Visitor Center in Bloomington, IL (good place to get your Route 66 passport stamped)
- Spend time at the McLean County History Museum in Bloomington, where exhibits chronicle the region’s pivotal role in shaping the American landscape
- Visit Funks Grove Pure Maple Sirup, a family-owned maple syrup farm that has been producing delicious syrup for generations, at Funks Grove in Shirley
- Checked out new Route 66 murals unveiled in June 2024 for Cruisin’ with Lincoln on Route 66 Visitor Center, Downtown Bloomington, Lexington, and McLean
- Post with the giant: At the Illinois State Fairgrounds Route 66 Gate 2, you can pose with a 25-foot tall steel giant, adorned with an American flag. You can also visit the Route 66 Legends Neon Sign Park, lit every evening, 365 days a year.
- Old Joliet Prison adds EV golf carts: Electronic golf carts will provide convenient transportation for visitors to explore the rich history of the Old Joliet Prison.
The folks at Heritage Corridor Destinations have been hard at work transforming The First Hundred Miles of Route 66, illuminating this iconic part of America culture and history that runs through Illinois from Chicago to Pontiac.
Where to stay in Bloomington, Illinois
Dueling Dinosaurs Exhibit and Paleontology Lab in Raleigh, NC
31,000 pound tyrannosaur and a Triceratops: possibly the world’s coolest fossils on display at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
Like many kids at heart, I remain a complete and total wide-eyed sucker for dinosaurs. When our travels take us to the Raleigh area, we’ll be making lots of time to explore North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in downtown Raleigh—especially a fossil experience that began with a fight 67 million years ago.
A new fossil display at the museum displays what some are calling ”one of the greatest dinosaur fossils ever discovered.” That 31,000-pound fossil is made of two complete dinosaur skeletons: a tyrannosaur and a Triceratops. Paleontologists reckon the dinosaurs were locked in a predator-prey encounter, and the fossils remain partially entombed in the Montana hillside rock where they were first found in 2006.
The exhibit also includes public viewings of a new paleontology lab, set up to explore the secrets of this dual fossil find.
