Written by Julie Jones, HaveWheelchairWillTravel.net, April 22, 2025
If we’ve learned one thing through our travels in Australia and overseas, it’s that accessible accommodation varies greatly in accessibility and features. We’ve stayed in accessible accommodation that I’d give top marks for accessibility and others that would be marked as a total failure. Staying in so many accessible hotel rooms has taught us a thing or two that we’d like to share.
Tips on booking accessible accommodation
From youth hostels to luxury accommodation and glamping to holiday parks there is accessible accommodation to suit nearly every budget and need. It often takes research, planning and a good old dose of patience to find the one for you but once you check in and relax, it’s all worth it.
Quick tips
Define the features you need in a hotel room to best meet your needs.
Ask questions & communicate your needs.
Seek out recommendations from peers and others in your community with similar access requirements.
Use the local terminology when booking – it varies from country to country.
Understand what each country generally offers in accessibility.
Defining your needs
The first step in the planning process is to define your needs. If you are an old hand at travelling with a disability this will be second nature to you. But, if you are new to travelling with a disability or a wheelchair, perhaps make a check-list and prioritise that list. For example, if you are travelling with a hoist/hoyer lifter and require clearance under the bed to be able to transfer, pop this close to the top of your list.
When we travel as a family of four, including our son who is a wheelchair user, we look for step-free accommodation with enough room for four adults to circulate with ease.
The bathroom is also important and depending on the type of trip, we often priortise self-catering and having enough seating/lounge space so we can chill.
Communicate your needs
Remember to never expect someone else to know your needs, it is up to you to communicate them as no two travellers with a disability are the same.
Many travellers like to book online, and our family often does this but not without doing some research ahead of time.
We research using the hotel website to see if it lists accessible accommodation.
We love to see a video tour of a room if it is available (YouTube can be a good place to look) or even a floor plan gives us a better idea of the circulation space in a room.
We will phone the hotel and speak to staff to ask more detailed questions. If you are ringing a large chain hotel like Hilton or Sheraton, don’t ring their central reservations number, find the hotel’s direct phone number. A central reservations staff member won’t know the specifics of an individual hotel but hotel staff working at a property will. And if they don’t know, there is no excuse for them not finding out for you!
If you are booking a hotel in a regional/country area and you can’t find good information online, then a good place to start is the local visitors/information centre. Although they will not know everything about a property, they can tell you which ones have ground floor rooms or lifts to higher levels. Usually, the staff at these information centres will have done inspections of the local hotels. Some may have a list of wheelchair friendly properties. Anything that helps narrow down the process is helpful.
Know the terminology
It’s no surprise that facilities and terminology vary from country to country. To get the most accurate information it is important to use the local terminology.
In Australia, if I am ringing a property or searching online I would use the term “accessible accommodation”. The majority of hotels in Australia offering accessible accommodation will offer a roll-in shower and no bathtub.
In the USA, if you are looking for an accessible room with a roll-in shower, you need to specify “ADA roll-in shower room”.
Many hotels in the USA have ADA compliant rooms with a bath/tub with a bench seat over the top of it.
In Japan, we found the most common term was “barrier-free” or “universal design” room. And it is worth keeping in mind that baths are still the most popular inclusion in Japan. Some offer a height adjustable shower seat beside the bath with a hand-held shower wand to use.
In Europe accessible rooms tend to be a the smaller side and can offer quite small shower seats.
Family accessible accommodation
As a family, it can be trickier to find accessible accommodation. We look for two bedroom accessible accommodation with self-catering facilities.
For this reason we’ve found holiday parks work well for our family. Holiday parks often offer spacious accessible accommodation with multiple bedrooms, a kitchen and barbecue facilities.
Accessible accommodation with an interconnecting room can also work if you are travelling in a group.
Split beds
In Australia it is often possible to have a king bed split into two beds, just make this request at the time of booking.
In the US, often a room will have two queen size beds.
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Be aware
In the US we have found that beds are much higher than those in Australia. Sometimes around 75cm or 30 inches high. In Australia on average they are around 50-60cm or 20-24 inches in height.
Many beds have solid bases and therefore there is no room underneath to use a hoist/hoyer lifter.
Sometimes accessible rooms have been converted to be accessible and therefore not everything has been moved to an accessible height. If you are unsure, you could phone ahead and ask that glasses, plates etc are lowered before your arrival (yes, I know, you shouldn’t need to do this).
Hotels in Australia do not have to include pool access so not all hotels will have a pool seat or ramp access to the pool. If pool access is important to you, check before booking to see if this is available.
Lifts/elevators in European hotels are often tiny and historic in nature. We found it hard to fit two people and luggage. Make sure hotel lifts/elevators can accommodate the size of your wheelchair.
Good news
Australian hotels and resorts are catching up and we love seeing more accessible facilities becoming available.
Resorts, hotels and holiday parks are providing more accessible equipment and facilities including pool chairs, beach wheelchairs and pool hoists and seats.
Additional tips on booking wheelchair accessible accommodation
Some of our readers travel with yoga blocks or elephant feet so they can raise a bed to accommodate a hoist/hoyer lifter.
Ask hotel staff to remove any additional furniture if it is difficult to circulate in a room. Most hotels will accommodate this request.
One of our readers has advised that Holiday Inns & Premier Inns in the UK offer an interconnecting room for free for a companion/support worker or family member if the person with a disability needs assistance. She also reports that the hotels are not in tip top shape from her experience so I guess it is a matter of weighing up what is more important.
We write detailed accessible hotel reviews when we travel in the hope of better informing other travellers with access needs.
Here’s a few examples of hotels and holiday parks offering good accessible facilities.
Hamilton Island Reef View Hotel, Queensland
Lake Mac Holiday Park, Swansea, NSW
Hotel Verge, Launceston, Tasmania
RAC Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort, Western Australia
Clementine Hotel & Suites Anaheim, USA
If you’ve got tips on booking wheelchair accessible accommodation or just a good accessible room, we’d love to hear them.