My husband Rob was injured in 1999 which resulted in him becoming paraplegic. He has a T11/12 complete break and is a fulltime, independent wheelchair user. He is ferociously independent, and this has sustained him through his years in a wheelchair. We love travel but find the planning of trips for disabled travellers, a real challenge.
We both lived abroad
Both Rob and I have lived abroad previously, and we were keen to move again. We have spent the last ten years searching for that forever home which has everything that we could both want and need. Having searched through France, Spain and Portugal on many excursions to find that ideal accessible location, we came across Javea in 2016. Initially we only found the Arenal beach area. We could see how flat the El Arenal Promenade and the surrounding area was. However, we dismissed it as our forever home. It is so important that if you visit Javea you must check out the port and the old town as well.
Javea- A forever home for a disabled traveller?
The following Christmas, we rented an accessible property available in Costa Nova, Javea and had the opportunity to spend more time in Javea. During that holiday, we used Rob’s trike and cycled around more; discovering the Javea Port and the old town of Javea as well. We fell in love. Having checked out some of the restaurants and bars and finding them to have good accessibility and disabled toilets and other facilities, we realised that we’d found it! After much searching, we knew that we had found out perfect place for us.
Javea or Xabia is relatively flat and with a good mix of Spanish and British, Dutch, German tourists or full-time residents, it has a truly positive vibe. Javea has far outstripped our expectations. Even though a large part of our time has been restricted by Covid 19, we have still found that Javea has everything that we are looking for and more. Having purchased a property, we are in now the process of having it adapted for Rob’s needs. We budgeted for the money that we would need to make the kitchen, bathrooms and spaces perfect for independent accessibility for Rob. Our Spanish builders, Miguel and Carlos are skilled, flexible and as excited as we are to make the changes required.
How can we help the accessible traveller to Javea?
Accessible accommodation is so important that it takes precedence over location in most cases. From experience, we know that the disabled traveller only checks accessibility of bars and restaurants on the resort or region once the accommodation is confirmed. We wanted to help where we could. Knowing about a destination with accessibility in mind can really make a difference to a holiday and we wanted to tell people about this great accessible holiday destination. It is the hope that this site is helpful to some of you and makes a difference.
Accessible Javea Blog
The blog is a collection of reviews and ideas with the disabled traveller in mind. When we visit somewhere, we check out facilities for ourselves any so why not tell other people about it too? WARNING: Please notes that we can only comment upon accessibility from an independent full-time wheelchair users point of view. I will endeavor to expand my reviews for other disabilities, the more experience I gain from this.
Hope you enjoy reading about Javea and please come and visit.
Linda Bishop