Guest Editor’s Note

As excited as I am to be the guest editor of this spring issue of Accessible Journeys Magazine, it is also bittersweet. One of the stories that I was most interested in doing was on my mom, a polio survivor. She traveled around the world with my dad into their senior years—with both of them using mobility scooters on many trips.

My parents were the inspiration for my travels. They started me with cross-country car trips with my brother and I while we were still in diapers, and continued with cruises in adulthood that included their grandchildren. Cruising was their favorite way to travel with mobility challenges. It has also become mine since I started using a power chair full time.  

I began my career as a writer very young. It started in the world of entertainment while still in college. I still cover music occasionally.

After receiving my bachelor’s degree in Journalism with a Spanish minor at 19, I happened to land in the world of tennis, which I covered for many years. I ran a magazine, College And Junior Tennis, and wrote for nearly every other tennis magazine in print and online. I also wrote a book, “American Doubles, The Trials…  Triumphs… The Domination.”

It was tennis that brought me to Illinois, where I moved in 2008, when the publishing industry was in flux and tennis was not going to support my Long Island house. I’ve fallen in love with the Midwest (see my story on an accessible trip to Michigan).

I decided to switch to travel writing after the move, substituting in special education and Spanish until I established my business. It was a successful transition into full time freelance travel writing. Fibromyalgia made it difficult at times, but it wasn’t until 2015, when I was diagnosed with lupus, that I had to cut down my hours and travel.

Unfortunately, Lupus was not my only diagnosis. Dermatomyositis would follow and the autoimmune diseases would cause lung issues. I would also find out, in 2021, it wasn’t so great that I could easily bend and twist to yoga positions, and do splits on the balance beam. I wasn’t a total klutz, constantly tearing ligaments, tendons, muscles, and having massive degeneration on my back by the time I was 40. I had Ehlers Danlos Syndrome my whole life and didn’t know it.

I began using a cane around 2015, then a walker and a scooter for distance, and now I have a power chair. I use it all the time after two serious falls. It has not stopped me from traveling. I have now been to all 50 states in the U.S., as well as 31 countries on 4 continents.

While I continue to travel, what I do has changed. I was fortunate that my parents always encouraged my brother and I to do things they could not. I remember my uncle teaching us to ice skate and the basketball hoop my dad got us hanging over the garage. There were also ski trips with lessons for us in the mountains of New York.

I had plenty of time in my young able-bodied years to go on snow mobiles, hike, skate, ride roller coasters, and zip line. I am thrilled that these things are now available to others who are disabled, but I’m happy with slower travel. I want to luxuriate in a spa, take a cooking class, browse through a museum, have a wonderful meal, or just enjoy the scenery. I also now treasure the ability to go on these trips with friends and family.

In 2023, I thought I completed my bucket list with an Alaskan Cruise on Princess. It was my 50^th state. I have since thought that maybe there was something left: visiting the Greek Islands. What I thought was not a possibility at one time, may be accessible to me, especially if I go on a cruise.

The one thing I will never get to do is interview my mother about her travels with my dad. During the production of this magazine, she passed away suddenly. I find myself thinking a lot this week about the Hawaiian cruise we took with my daughter years ago to honor a year since my dad ‘s passing, the Parisian long weekend we did to try to forget he wasn’t with us at Thanksgiving, and the cruises the two of us took together,

No matter how I look at it, it all comes back to the memories of travel.

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