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Did you know if you filter an Airbnb search for all accessibility features, you can count the house results in the entire United States on one hand? Or if you filter only by step-free and wide entrances, you’re still left with less than 100 entire homes to rent? In the entire United States!
When we set out to build an accessible short-term vacation rental, we didn’t know this. We didn’t know how great the need was for accessible options. We only knew that we wanted to honor someone very dear to us.
After years of planning and construction, we opened Varonica’s View near Yosemite National Park and Bass Lake in March of this year. It’s a four-bedroom house designed to be ADA-friendly, with wide doors, no steps, an ADA bathroom with a roll-in shower, a hydraulic patient lift, easily reachable dishes, and more. We designed all of this with Varonica in mind.
Varonica Priest was the daughter of the property owner, Stephanie Norgard, and my best friend. Varonica was born with mobility and strength disabilities and often relied on a wheelchair and walker, especially when she travelled.
Being best friends since middle school, I learned through our daily lives and travels how difficult it can be for people with disabilities to get around. The smallest of details, like a step or heavy door, can stop you in your tracks. I also learned how ignorant the travel industry is of what is truly accessible.
So, when Stephanie and I decided to restore her family property that had been destroyed by a wildfire, we knew we wanted to cater to the needs of individuals like Varonica and their families and friends. We wanted to create a safe, comfortable, and easily-used environment for people with disabilities.
As we set out to turn our vision into reality, we realized that even with our personal experience, we were still quite ignorant of the range of needs in the disabled community. Our home is primarily designed for mobility challenges, but we are still striving to make it more accessible to a variety of disabilities. It’s a process that will continue as long as our doors are open.
However, more than realizing our own ignorance and room for improvement, we realized the need to spread the word to the short-term rental community. There is a huge demand—a dire demand—for accessible vacation rentals that can not only benefit financial investments but also the lives of countless families who want to experience more of the world despite disabilities.
With Varonica’s View, we had a big advantage because we were designing and building from scratch. We could widen the doors and remove steps with an eraser. Short-term rental owners with existing rentals have to do it with a sledgehammer, but it’s a sledgehammer well worth swinging.
The feedback we have received from the disabled community could be summarized in one word: gratitude. We have received more sincere thanks than we ever expected, further opening our eyes to how much the accessible world needs to expand.
We want to help expand that world. We are currently building an accessible guest house at Varonica’s View and hope to add more locations in the future, but we know we can only build so much. The greater impact is to get the word out. To tell the ever-growing vacation rental industry that they are missing out on an amazing niche that makes a real difference in people’s lives.
We are so thankful for all of those who embrace and share their accessible journeys. For inspiring us to do more and to do better. We hope our story and yours can lead to a chain reaction through the short-term vacation industry, making the world more accessible for all.
To learn more about Varonica’s View, visit: VaronicasView.lodgify.com
