Driving Vacation Easy To Plan
Q. We will be taking our usual driving vacation this fall, and we have about run out of places on our must-see list. So we need ideas. We go from one to two weeks, with my mother-in-law along, and try to make the drive in easy stages. Do you know where to get specific trip routings covering some interesting places?
A. There are lots of ideas.
Fodor’s guidebooks include suggestions for driving tours out of various cities.
Some states have free literature that provides touring ideas (I like those for California and Arizona). For a free list of state tourism offices, send a self-addressed stamped envelope and request to Discover America, Travel Industry Association of America, 2 Lafayette Center, 1133 21st St. NW, Washington, DC 20036.
Most states have toll-free tourism numbers.
The Rand McNally Road Atlas maps “great regional drives” all over the country.
Michelin Green Guides are written for motorists and include a number of regional driving itineraries.
National Park Service properties include several scenic or historic drives, and offer brochures tracing each one. For a guide and map of the whole national park system, as well as brochures for individual parks, write U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service, PO Box 37127, Washington, DC 20013-7127, Room 1013, or call the park service’s Public Inquiries Office at (202) 208-6985.
Some organizations offer maps as promotions. For example, Historic Hotels of America offers six “historic driving tours” that link member historic hotels. One features Oregon and northern California, and another Southern California. To get these, send a self-addressed stamped business-size envelope for each booklet to Historic Hotels of America, 1785 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20036. For a 1997 listing of all 123 member hotels, send a $3 check or money order to the same address.
Check a public library or bookstore for other guidebooks that may include good suggested drives.
Q. I am a 77-year-old man with emphysema and two very bad knees that my doctors agree are too risky for surgery. I am able to walk short distances.
I want to travel to Europe (Italy mostly) with my wife. Driving is no problem.
If I obtain an electric scooter that can be disassembled and taken with me, will I be able to use it?
A. Italy? You’re likely to get run over the first time you try to cross a street in Naples. I truly think you should not tackle Europe as an independent tourist.
If you are as independent-minded as your letter sounds, you’re not going to like this advice: You are a good candidate for a group tour that’s geared to make travel pleasurable for physically challenged persons. For someone with shaky knees and breathing problems, Europe can be overwhelming.
Looking for confirmation, I called a tour operator that specializes in this kind of travel. Edna Cook of Flying Wheels Travel agreed, saying that Europe in general does not provide for handicapped people in ways required by our Americans with Disabilities Act. If you use an electric cart, don’t expect to find many curb cuts, ramp entries to buildings, lifts on buses and trolleys, elevators in public places, or public bathrooms and hotel rooms equipped for handicapped use.
Taking a tour designed for the physically challenged means traveling in a specially equipped bus, staying at hotels with facilities for handicapped persons, and other arrangements designed to ease the way.
If you don’t want to take a group tour but still want to see Italy, Cook suggested a cruise. Mediterranean cruises often call at Italian ports.
Flying Wheels does both foreign and domestic trips and limits tours to 15 or 20 persons. Travelers must provide their own carts or wheelchairs.
Flying Wheels Travel is at 143 W. Bridge St., Box 382, Owatonna, MN 55060; (800) 535-6790. For a list of agencies that run similar tours, contact the Society for the Advancement of Travel for the Handicapped (SATH) at 347 Fifth Ave., Suite 610, New York, NY 10016; (212) 447-7284.
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