Welcome to the Think Tank Team: Ashley Olson of WheelChairTraveling.com

HomeBoundResources is delighted to welcome Ashley Lyn Olson, founder of http://www.wheelchairtraveling.com/ to Tammy's Think Tank Team.  Accessibility is key to our mental and physical health and we applaud Ashley for establishing a website that helps us all get out and see more of the world.

It takes an impressive woman to produce such an impressive internet site.  Through her contributing articles, she's going to show us how to get around the world and back!  I think you'll enjoy her observations and advice whether or not you're in a wheelchair.  But, first, here's her personal story:

At age fourteen, I was paralyzed in a horrible car wreck that took the life of my father, crippled my mother and injured my younger sister. That one moment transformed my entire world, but it couldn’t damper my spirit. I love adventure and that passion will never die in me. After going through high school, I received a scholarship from USC where I graduated with a degree in Communications and Music Industry. I currently reside in northern California.

I believe the world offers so much to us in its contrasts of natural beauties and man-made masterpieces. It’s a place to be explored. I’ve also discovered that it’s not entirely accessible, but there are still lots of places a disabled traveler can go. Whether it be the big city or countryside, the beach or mountains, there’s opportunity everywhere.

Breaking away from our familiar boundaries and testing our limits, for a wheelchair traveler, can take courage sometimes I realize, but the journey can be intensely satisfying. That’s the main reason I created my wheelchairtraveling.com site. It’s become my mission to add as much information as I can about all the accessible destinations I know of around the world, including activities, lodging and transportation, and to seek out other wheelchair travelers who want to share these adventures with me.

Ever since my injury, my eyes have been opened to the beauty of life, from the grandest of scales to the tiniest parts. I welcome life now with open arms and remember that all journeys come from the heart. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Ashley Lyn Olson