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Glyn Evans has made 30 trips with the same travel company, but he can still point to the moment that stands out as his favourite.
During a trip to Las Vegas, he served as best man for a couple on the same tour who got married on a whim.
However, unlike most weddings, the bride and groom were visual, said Evans, who is based in Lincolnshire, UK.
For 25 years, Evans traveled with a travel company called Traveleyes, which organizes trips for the blind and visually impaired. The tours also include an equal number of sight-seeing travelers. In exchange for discounts — sometimes up to 40% — travelers like Evans help their fellow travelers by describing the details of the trip, from planned activities to help ordering food.
“We hired a chapel, and I helped the bride choose a wedding dress. It was just the best experience,” Evans said.
From volunteering to travel
Trips on Travel eyes it looks like those of any other travel website. Travelers can go white water rafting in Costa Rica, take a safari in Eswatini and hike a volcano in Spain. Some trips include activities such as bungee jumping, skydiving, skiing, snorkeling and pizza-making.
For Evans, who has long volunteered with the blind, traveling with them was a natural next step. He met the company’s founder, Amar Latif, through his work in the Czech community, and it called it an obvious decision to join TravelEyes’ first tour as a sighted guest, he said. CNBC Travel.
Latif went blind at age 18 due to a hereditary condition and founded Traveleyes in 2004, he said, when he was 36.
Evans and his partner, Caroline, regularly join Traveleyes tours and have been to Canada, Sri Lanka and South Africa with the company, he said.
Latif and Evan, in San Francisco.
Source: Glyn Evans
Sometimes trips come with sensory experiences that other travelers don’t normally have. Evans said he and fellow Traveleyes travelers were allowed to feed the lions on safari, an experience he said he will never forget.
Visual travelers, or “VIPS” as they are known at TravelEyes, can also touch relics of Inca artifacts in Peru at the Terracotta Warriors near Xi’an, China.
But Evans said his favorite part of a Traveleyes trip isn’t the activity or discount — it’s the friendships made.
“The best is in the evening, when we sit around drinking and chatting. You meet people you never had the opportunity to meet in your daily life. It gave me a lot of happiness,” he. he said.
Different levels of detail
Evans said he and Caroline keep in touch with many fellow travelers. They once threw a seven-course dinner for 12 of their Traveleyes friends who traveled from all over the UK Evans and Caroline picked them up from the train station and stayed the night, he said.
Evans now has a lot of experience in what it takes to guide blind travelers on vacation, whether it’s hiking through nature reserves or a day of sightseeing in the big city. He learned that people want different things from their travels.
Visual skiers often ski with a guide or assistant and wear jackets to alert other skiers of their condition.
Mickey Ansin | Archive Photos | Getty Images
“Some people want to know every detail of where we are, and other people don’t really care about any details,” he said.
Some prefer to talk about the last football game, Evans said.
“If we’re going around a church, I’ll say to the person: ‘Do you want more information, or less information – or do you just want to talk about Arsenal?’
An equal relationship
The founder of Traveleyes, Latif, said he founded the company after he was rejected by conventional tour operators. They told him he could only join with a caregiver, and even then he couldn’t participate in activities like cycling, skiing or hiking, despite being fit and independent, he said.
He said that the relationship between the travelers of his company – those who can see and those who cannot – is based on equality.
“We are all on equal footing. We all have a great party,” he said. “Visual people should not be carers. Yes, they drive and be the eyes and describe things, and in return, they receive a discount, but they are also on vacation. It is so important that our sighted travelers enjoy themselves. because ultimately, if they’re not here, then we can’t offer holidays to Czech travelers.”
Evans helps a visually impaired traveler to paraglide on a trip to Tunisia organized by TravelEyes.
Source: Glyn Evans
Traveleyes guests do not need previous experience with blinds, Latif said.
“There is one video on YouTube that I did on how to drive, and our tour managers do the driving training as well,” he said. “But every VIP likes to be driven in a different way. It’s all about communication. It can be, initially, a little nerve-wracking, but in half an hour, you forget about the blindness.”
Sighted travelers are expected to describe what they see, but do not function as caregivers, Latif said. “Travelers who book trips are able to be independent – they pack their bags, they can dress, and they can be responsible for themselves.”
Traveling with blind people also allows others to see the world in a different way, Latif said.
Latif and Evans take a mud bath during a trip to Turkey.
Source: Amar Latif
“We live in a world where people are always taking pictures and moving on. But when you are in front of something amazing, you have to engage with it, giving life to your VIP, so you really finish. more meaningful and vivid memories of your vacation experiences,” he said.
The experience can also inspire people in their own lives and future travels, he said.
“Our sighted travelers are also really inspired because they see that VIPs can’t see, but they’re halfway around the world without their friends and family, and it makes them see their lives in a different way.”
