This story was originally published by Reasons to be Cheerful
Mark Colman has swum with turtles in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, basked on a beach with marine iguanas in the Galapagos Islands, bungee jumped in New Zealand, braved the 166-story “edge walk” off the CN Tower in Toronto and skied in the Austrian Alps.
That’s an impressive list of accomplishments for anybody — activities that Colman himself, for many years, considered out of reach. “I had convinced myself that I didn’t want to travel, because it wasn’t a possibility — I can’t do it, so I won’t,” recalls Colman, who is based in County Durham, U.K.
Colman lost his sight at the age of 25 due to retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic, degenerative eye condition he was diagnosed with when he was seven. Until the age of 36, he had never been overseas. Now, at 48, Colman has been on over 30 trips abroad, with outdoor adventure playing a big part in the destinations he chooses.
What changed everything was a radio interview he heard in 2010 with Amar Latif, who went blind at the age of 18 as a result of the same condition. At the age of 36, in 2004, Latif founded Traveleyes, a company that runs tours catered to blind and visually impaired travelers, but with a twist. The trips are also marketed to sighted guests, who receive up to a 40 percent discount, in exchange for accompanying one of their blind counterparts throughout each day’s activities and meals, describing the details of what they’re seeing and doing.
This unique model convinced Colman that a tour aimed at blind people wouldn’t be dumbed down or make him feel unnecessarily disabled.
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“The way it’s set up works really well, because [the sighted guests] aren’t carers. They’re on the same holiday as I am, and we’re sharing an experience,” he says.
“We’re not there as a ‘service user’ and ‘employee’ — it’s more of an equal relationship. I kind of veer away from the more traditional blindness charities, because a lot of them are targeted at older people, as many people lose their sight later in their life, so they have different needs.” Traveleyes, he adds, is perfect for indulging his adventurous side, giving him a break from his busy career managing digital services for Durham County Council.
An underserved niche
There aren’t many travel companies whose target customers are blind people who are fit, active, relatively young, and want to travel to far-flung destinations: Experiences currently advertised on the Traveleyes site include whitewater rafting in Costa Rica, safari in Eswatini, and volcano trekking in Tenerife.
Another option in the U.K. is Seable, which currently lists skiing trips to Italy, hiking holidays in Scotland, and a safari in Eswatini, but uses trained local chaperones to accompany blind guests on activities. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Mind’s Eye Travel offers trips such as a river cruise in Portugal and a country music experience in Nashville, with one sighted guide per two blind travelers included in the ticket price.
Open Doors Organization, a Chicago-based nonprofit that aims to increase the accessibility of the tourism industry, has estimated the value of the inclusive tourism market in the U.S. alone at around $50 billion, highlighting the commercial benefit of embracing travelers with disabilities. And according to the European Network for Accessible Tourism, one in five tourists has specific access requirements when travelling. But despite readily available numbers on “accessible tourism” as a whole, it’s hard to get a handle specifically on considerations for blind travelers — and that’s both a bugbear and motivation for Traveleyes’ Latif.
“The travel industry gets it so confused, because when they talk about accessible tourism, it means so much. You’ve got so many disabled people with so many different needs. For example, there will often be an emphasis on ramps for wheelchair users, but blind people don’t need ramps,” says Latif, who is based in Leeds, U.K.
“We just need to be able to navigate ourselves around places, and a different way to appreciate what’s around. We like to do it independently, and the most independent way is not having to rely on your family and friends so you can go on a trip.”
Most travel websites, he adds, are also not accessible to blind people, meaning it’s difficult to even book a trip without help.
“I would also challenge the accessibility of the travel industry from a blind person’s perspective, because 95 percent of airline websites are inaccessible,” says Latif.
For Latif, having sighted travelers join Traveleyes’ tours is imperative for creating an environment of independence and equality, as they aren’t employees or carers — an important distinction. That decision was made based on his own experience of being excluded by traditional travel companies.
“When I was in my 20s and I wanted to travel as an independent person on group holidays, they all rejected me and said they couldn’t accommodate me as a solo blind person — I needed to bring a carer with me,” says Latif.
“But I didn’t need a carer. I was a healthy, active guy in my 20s. And they said that even if I did bring someone, I wouldn’t be able to do anything like cycling, skiing or hiking. That left me feeling powerless, and I felt the world closing in — I was feeling blind again.”
Latif’s favorite memories of TravelEyes tours — of which there have been over 1,000, taking over 20,000 guests — include climbing Mt. Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa, and sailing the Ionian Sea. Some guests have even done skydiving.
For sighted guests, he adds that the extra sensory experiences offered are once in a lifetime — for example, being allowed to touch ancient relics such as the Incan artifacts in Peru and the terracotta warriors in China.
“When you’ve lost your sight you don’t have as many opportunities as sighted folk. Everyone’s constantly telling you that you can’t do certain things, so when someone comes along and offers you the chance to do something different, the natural answer is yes,” says Latif.
Latif doesn’t choose destinations based on accessibility, but rather finds a destination his customers would love and makes it accessible.
“We start from the basis of what’s going to be a great and exciting destination and itinerary whether you’re blind or you’re not. Then we make the experience as accessible and as sensory-based as possible for all of our travelers,” says Latif.
“We go wine tasting in South Africa. We make traditional pasta and pizza in Tuscan farmhouses. We salsa dance on the beach in Cuba and taste fresh sugarcane.”
Marketing blind tours to sighted people
As tantalizing as these trips may sound, filling the tours with an equal ratio of sighted to blind guests can be difficult, and the occasional trip has had to be canceled because not enough sighted guests have signed up. An upcoming trip to France’s Loire Valley — to be explored on tandem bikes — currently has a waiting list of blind customers, who can join once enough sighted guests sign up.
Canceling trips and turning people away is something Latif hopes to avoid in the future. Toward that end, in 2024, Traveleyes entered into a partnership with HF Holidays. The U.K. tour operator, which specializes in hiking trips all over the U.K. and the world, now sells TravelEyes tours.
“Working with a mainstream tour operator, and helping [their staff] to feel comfortable with blindness, by going on our trips and learning about what we do, is really special,” says Latif.
For Glyn Evans, who has long volunteered with blind people, traveling with them was a natural next step. Having made friends with Latif through his work in the blind community, it was a no-brainer for him to book on the first TravelEyes tour as a sighted guest.
Evans has since been on 30 TravelEyes tours, including memorable trips to Canada, Sri Lanka and South Africa, and has kept in touch with many fellow travelers, both blind and sighted. In fact, he’s looking forward to catching up with Mark Colman on an upcoming TravelEyes trip to Liverpool, home of The Beatles.
Evans now knows a thing or two about what it takes to be the perfect sighted companion to a blind traveler — and top of the list is the art of conversation.
“Some people want to know every single detail about where we are, and other people just really aren’t bothered about any details. They just want to natter about the latest football game or something like that. So it’s about knowing who you’re guiding and what they want,” says Evans, who is based in Lincolnshire, U.K.
“If we’re going around a church, I will say to the person, ‘Do you want more information, or less information? Or do you just want to talk about Arsenal?’ It’s common sense.”
For Evans, the best part of a TravelEyes trip is not the discount, or the activities, but the friendships.
“The best part is in the evening, when we’re sat around having a drink and chatting. You get to know people you’d never have a chance to meet in your daily life. It’s given me a lot of happiness,” he says.
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