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IN TOUCH – Travelling

TX:Ìý 17.05.2022Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening.Ìý Tonight, we have a travel special for you but it’s not a list of special offers or hopeless access horror stories, although there are still plenty of those around, what we’re interested in tonight is how to get the best out of your travelling if you are visually impaired, given the inevitable restrictions that poor sight or none at all imposes.Ìý Not seeing the view, not having all your familiar stuff around you, just not knowing where the heck you’re supposed to be going.Ìý And also, how to get the best out of it for yourself without ruining it for anyone sighted travelling with you who might end up feeling like an unpaid guide.

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Well, we’ve got three seasoned blind and partially sighted travellers to kick this around this evening.Ìý Rosie Fluskey, who travels widely with her sighted partner and produces who own travel blog; Nigel Garry, who intriguingly for a man on a travel programme, doesn’t even have a passport and Nicola Naylor, who’s frequent solution to the problem of not spoiling it for everyone else, is to travel alone.

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So, one quick question for each of you to start with, starting with Nicola.Ìý What’s the appeal of travelling alone, given when there are so many potential pitfalls to it?

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Naylor

I suppose some misguided sense of independence maybe or maybe just because I didn’t always have the opportunity to travel with somebody.Ìý I have travelled with people and on my own and it just depends what opportunity comes my way really.

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White

Right, well we come back to you on the travelling alone and travelling with other people.Ìý

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Nigel, why no passport, I have to ask you that?

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Garry

To be honest with you it’s never, never really appealed to me Peter, the furthest Karen have been has been Jersey and Guernsey and going abroad has never appealed to me, simply because I’ve been a guide dog owner for 41 years and I’ve just thought it’s safe to stay on the British Isles.

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White

Okay.Ìý And Rosie, Rosie Fluskey, tell me the idea behind the blog.

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Fluskey

Well, I started Flying Fluskey in late 2016.Ìý I work in travel and I deal with passengers day-to-day and I realised I was giving them tips and tricks and telling them my travel stories.Ìý So, it was partly to try and get those down in some sort of formal way and partly because my husband, Carl, has a shocking memory and we’ve done so many amazing travels together and I just thought it would be really nice to have this all down on virtual paper.

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White

Okay, here’s just a snatch of the kind of thing that you might hear on Rosie’s blog, this really philosophical debate between you and your husband on the streets of Italy.

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Flying Fluskey blog clip

Rosie

So we’ve just finished a Pepe in Grani and the question is, Mr Fluskey, was it the best pizza in the world?

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Carl

I think without doubt actually it was the best pizza in the world.

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Rosie

I still don’t know.

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Carl

You’re not sure?

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Rosie

No.Ìý The crust of Sorbillo was the best crust I’ve ever had.

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Carl

But I really like the toppings here and I thought the crust was fluffy and cheesy.

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Rosie

So, I’m going with the best overall pizza but not the best crust and you’re going?

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Carl

I’m going best pizza I’ve ever had.

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White

I imagine, Rosie, you dig a bit deeper into the problems and challenges of travel than the quality of the pizzas?

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Fluskey

I mean the food is always very important, I think.

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White

Yeah, right.Ìý So, let’s stay with you for a moment.Ìý You travel together a lot, what’s the division of labour between and you and your sighted partner, who does what?

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Fluskey

So, I love travel research, I’m almost as happy planning our holidays as I am when we take them but I think as soon as we kind of leave the country, then I do slightly rely on Carl to be checking for signs or making sure I’m not walking through things that say ‘no entry’ on pain of death.Ìý But, yeah, I think I’m kind of the 90% of it until we leave and then he’s the 90% of it when we get there.

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White

So, what’s the secret, basically, of getting the most out of travel without relying on him?

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Fluskey

One of the things I use a lot is my phone.Ìý Obviously, it’s amazing to have a small computer in our pockets.Ìý So, it helps me email places ahead of time to ask how they do their access things, do they have any discounts, do they do touch tours, it’s all that kind of forward planning.Ìý And then when we’re away, downloading apps that will tell you when the next subway is coming, which platform it’s going to and where it’s going, especially in somewhere like New York where it can be quite confusing.Ìý That takes the power back into my hands to know what’s going on as well, even if he is still doing it for his own benefit.

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White

So, has the smartphone rather revolutionised things for you then?

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Fluskey

Oh, my goodness, yes.Ìý I was a very confident child, a very confident teenager, to just walk up to someone and say – can you be my eyes for a second, can you tell me which platform the Brighton train’s going from.Ìý But now I have that in my hand before I’ve even stepped off the tube into Victoria station, which is, I think, really empowering.

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White

But I do think that’s interesting that you say that because quite a lot of visually impaired people are still reluctant to ask for help because I’ve always thought that the most useful thing you could possibly be taught is how to ask for help confidently because I just think people don’t mind being asked to help.

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Fluskey

It is scary to rely on the kindness of strangers but you’d be amazed, especially when you’re travelling, people want you to have the best experience, they want you to enjoy wherever you’re going, especially if they’re local.Ìý And, for example, we went to Sri Lanka and in Sri Lanka there are no big electronic boards, there are no handwritten things, it is just a bus number and the number of people that said – of course we’ll show you to the right bus – and took us there, it was really incredible.

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White

Are there any advantages for Carl of travelling with you, apart from loving you dearly of course?

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Fluskey

I mean we both benefit from a discount or two.Ìý We’ve just discovered that Interrail, the passes that you can travel all around Europe on the train, allow a free carer, so I know that we can travel with someone who’d be able to get us on the right train and he can go for half the price.

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White

And have you sort of acquired skills over the years because you won’t necessarily always enjoy doing the same things, that goes for any couple, but I mean it’s a bit more marked if you’re visually impaired.Ìý For instance, I don’t much enjoy trolling around art galleries.

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Fluskey

Yeah, I’ve definitely felt that.Ìý The first time we went to the Sistine Chapel in 2008, you weren’t allowed to use camera phones or cameras and actually the ceiling is really high.Ìý So, I stood around for 10 minutes while he enjoyed it in the flesh and then he stood around for 10 minutes while I looked at a big poster of it because I could just get a bit closer.Ìý The very obvious one is when we go and see nature and he’ll be going – oh, look at that beautiful robin – I’m like small black blob.Ìý He’ll say – Oh, look at that eagle – and I’ll be like ah big black blog.Ìý So, it’s things like that, it’s compromise, marriage is compromise, travel is compromise.

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White

Rosie, hand on there, we’ll come back to you.Ìý But, of course, not everyone has the resources to travel that widely or the confidence and, in the past, on this programme, we might well have been talking about specialist holiday hotels for visually impaired people in this country.Ìý Now, for a variety of reasons – financial, philosophical – those are very thin on the ground, we’ve lost a lot of them in recent years.Ìý And it was this market that Nigel Garry was thinking of when he and his wife, Karen, set up a charity five years ago called The North Wales Accessible Holidays for Blind and Visually Impaired People.Ìý Bit of a mouthful.Ìý Nigel, tell me what it’s all about.

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Garry

There had, sadly, been a demise within the hospitality business for unfortunate blind and partially sighted people and we decided to try something a little bit different in terms of self-catering caravans.Ìý And we set up our lovely flagship caravan on Lido Beach in Prestatyn.Ìý And once inside the van we’ve got every conceivable piece of equipment.Ìý And this has become an advantage to a disadvantage really of me losing my sight at the age of 19.Ìý It’s given me the opportunity to think what would be right and what beneficiaries would need within the caravan.

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White

So, who’s eligible for this, is it for anyone because you’re aiming at a particular market, in a way, aren’t you?

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Garry

Absolutely Peter.Ìý Our criteria is, you must be registered blind, severely visually impaired blind or partially sighted.Ìý We offer absolute free breaks to blind adults, children and carers that are living on a limited and fixed income of benefits.Ìý And that’s done by way of a means test.Ìý You mustn’t have had a break within the last three years but that is extremely hard for us to prove as a small charity.Ìý So, we’ve got to take that on trust really.

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White

Now even those who were providing specialist holidays were hit by covid, of course, you included.Ìý I mean what effect has that had?

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Garry

A tremendous effect but we have survived.Ìý How we did, I really don’t know because 94% of our income comes from community fundraising in terms of supermarket store collections.Ìý We did have some income from one or two trust funds that we wrote to but we were so lucky, Peter, in terms of we are run entirely by volunteers, no one is waged within the charity, so we’ve got no salaries to pay out.

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White

Right, so what are your plans for the future now that covid is, if not over, then at least in the phrase – we’ve learnt to live with it?

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Garry

If, honestly, covid hadn’t have hit, we would have a third caravan now, believe you me.Ìý At January both vans were fully booked during the six-week holidays with visually impaired children.Ìý So, it proves there was a real need for our charity.

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White

Okay.Ìý Now I want to turn to Nicola, Nicola Naylor.Ìý I know you still do a lot of travelling, not least because you’re a Paralympian horse rider but just to concentrate, first, on this urge to travel alone.Ìý For instance, the lone trip you made to India many years ago but not long after you’d lost your sight.Ìý What was the drive to do that?

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Naylor

I lost my sight just as I finished university and many of my friends had gone off and take gap years and done really exciting travel.Ìý Meanwhile, I was recovering in hospital, thinking that actually life had come to an end.Ìý And it was a tough time.Ìý And when I was back on my feet, really, I just thought I want to go and do what all my friends have done and there weren’t really any available friends because said friends had then got jobs or got married or were doing other things.Ìý So, there was only really one option and that was to go alone.Ìý And that’s what I did.Ìý And it was fantastic because I think what really resonates with me is a little bit what Rosie said and that is that although I went with a spirit of independence and I went to go alone what it really taught me was how valuable actually other people and a certain amount of dependency can be.Ìý And what I mean by that is that trip would have failed had I not been so supported and welcomed by the Indian people that I met out there.

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White

So, what effect has that had on you since as a traveller, what have you taken into subsequent travelling where you’ve gone perhaps with other people?

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Naylor

I think a bit like you said, first of all, it is okay to ask, people are only too willing to help.Ìý They want to introduce their country to you, they want to introduce their culture and their family.Ìý And as a traveller, you, in a sense, as a blind traveller I think I got a greater insight into India and its people because of that intimacy that I almost needed to be helped and introduced to people and culture.Ìý And so, it gave me a greater insight.

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White

Now Rosie and Nigel have talked about travelling with partners, I know that you’ve travelled with your daughter, there’s a possibility you can turn your child into a visually impaired guide.Ìý I mean I can remember two of my kids, one saying to the other one, I’ve had him for 20 minutes, you have him now.Ìý I wonder how you dealt with that.

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Naylor

Well, I’ve just gone one step back and I also travelled with my husband and we did a tandem ride where we cycled from Bangkok, through Thailand, through Laos to Hanoi.Ìý I was on the back of the tandem but at one point he got such severe cramp in his legs that I ended up on the front of that tandem with him moaning on the back, shouting left, right, straight.Ìý Actually, it sort of turned the tables because, at that point, all I can say is he wouldn’t have got to the other side of Laos if I’d not been cycling.

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White

Right.Ìý But I know you travelled with your daughter, didn’t you, when she about 11, 12?

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Naylor

Well, I first travelled with Poppy, I took her to India when she was nine and then I’ve travelled later with her when I was on my own with Pops and it was tricky thinking how do I create a holiday, which is a real holiday, and she’s not just looking after mum?Ìý I joined up with some friends, actually, for that trip and that worked really well because she was able to feel – well mum’s got friends, mum can go off and do x, y and z, therefore she was free to do what she wanted to do.Ìý And within that journey, actually we went to America, and we took about five, six days just the two of us, getting a train and going down to New York.Ìý And then when we were in New York it was fascinating because she was able to then start to take on board the fact that actually she had to do the map reading.Ìý So, it was all very well me planning where we might go but the actual were we going to get on the right bus and could she navigate, I think it made her grow up and I think she’s a great traveller today as a result of that sort of experience.

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White

It’s actually quite interesting, this idea, you mentioned, sometimes having sighted friends who you travel with.Ìý We had an interesting email in fact on this issue of sharing the load on holiday.Ìý We had this from a couple, Geraint and Sue, and they say:

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Email – read

Once a year we attend the Keswick Convention and hire a self-catering house that sleeps 10 or 11.Ìý Another friend comes with her guide dog and the other seven or eight friends are sighted.Ìý Some of them are excellent cooks.Ìý Also, each year we take over a 40-bed hotel at Grange-Over-Sands for our group.Ìý We hire a coach for trips out and we have a free day for everyone to have an opportunity to do their own thing.Ìý On the free day, sighted people are on hand to help with transport and getting around, if needed.

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White

So, quite a good example from listeners about the idea of spreading the load.

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I suppose the point is, it’s not so much the burden idea, I mean, in a way, I’m sort of quite aware of this at the moment because I’ve just come back from holiday, but it’s things like driving which is a very arduous thing to do and if you have a long drive at the end of the day, and then you’re unpacking the car and I’m quite good at unpacking cars and packing cars but the trouble is it’s not easy to unpack a car in an environment that you’ve never been in before.Ìý So, it’s sometimes feels as if one thing that someone has to do is followed by another, if you’re not careful, you know you can get a long stream of things that the person with some sight just has to do because it’s the only way to do it.

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Fluskey

I think driving is definitely the one that has held me back from doing certain kinds of trips actually because obviously if we’re hopping on a train or a bus or a plane, we’re even stevens, if Carl has to do a long road trip, he will get more tired than me and my navigation skills, being visually impaired, can leave a lot to be a desired.Ìý And I think it is probably the closest we’ve ever come to divorce is arguing in the car.

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White

I want to bring in Nigel because I mean you rely quite a lot on Karen, don’t you, for driving?

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Garry

Oh, all the time Peter, I just sit back and thoroughly enjoy it.Ìý But, no, she is a star.Ìý And do you know what, Peter, we’ve had beneficiaries come from as far as Devon and Cornwall. But just to ease the pressure on the sighted or able-bodied persons we do a meet and greet service.Ìý I mean one of the vans it’s so, so high tech, we’ve got a touchscreen and digital extractor fan and I have made that for any totally blind person to be able to operate, not only the fan but the light as well.Ìý So, I remember one couple when I said to his wife, well you deserve a well-deserved break, you’re on holiday, so if your husband says I can’t get up and put the extractor fan on, tell him he’s lying because I’ve made it so he can.

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White

Sounds to me like we need about a dozen of those caravans, three isn’t enough.

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Can I just end by asking maybe just a couple of top tips?Ìý Nicola, what would you suggest?

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Naylor

Plan and organise.

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White

Very neat and very brief.Ìý And Rosie?

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Fluskey

As well as planning, email everybody, email everywhere you’re planning to go because you never know what they might be able to offer you, whether that’s a free carer or if you ask nicely maybe they’ll let you step a little bit closer to this piece of art, you just never know.

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White

Fantastic.Ìý And that is it for today.Ìý Do tell us your travellers’ tales.Ìý And next week more on the practicalities of travel, including the increasing cost of taking your guide dogs abroad and the erratic nature of announcements on public transport, especially trains.

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You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk, you can leave your voice messages on 0161 8361338.Ìý Many thanks to Nicola Naylor, to Nigel Garry and Rosie Fluskey for so many insights and a few rueful laughs.Ìý From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio managers Owain Williams and Carwyn Griffith, goodbye.

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