In Which The Heroine Continues To Search For A Place To Stay In Portland

 I have one more day to prep for the trip, and didn’t get nearly enough done today. So naturally, instead of doing any of that stuff, I’m writing! Perfect.  I wanted to update one more time (okay, maybe two) before I actually left.  There was so much more prep work for the trip, that the last post doesn’t really do the amount of work justice.  

The same night that I was researching Portland hostels, I was also perusing the Airbnb website.  I ran a search for wheelchair accessible listings, and came up with a mere 18. None of them had extensive information on exactly what the accessible features were, or detailed information on how close to public transportation they were.  I also have no frame of reference for any of the neighborhoods, so I needed to know more about the topographical features of the exact street each listing was on before I could make an informed decision about whether or not a listing was worth pursuing.  Even if a listing was perfectly accessible down to the last detail on the inside, if it’s up a big hill, the accessible amenities are wasted on me. As a manual wheelchair user, I can only push myself up blocks with relatively low-grade slopes. I found each listing to be lacking in the kind of information I needed, which meant I’d have had to contact the person who listed each place and ask a series of questions, which would make for a rather slow process.  And even then, I wouldn’t be guaranteed an accurate answer due to the inaccurate nature of self-reporting. In addition, all 18 listings were being offered at $70 a night and up. At that rate, I would be better off booking a room at a hotel, which would be guaranteed to offer standard accessible rooms that met ADA requirements.

That said, all of this made me wonder what the exact criteria a listing had to meet in order to be considered accessible. So I sent an email to the administrators of the site asking exactly that.  My fear was that the requirements would be vague or worse, nonexistent.  The site itself has a very Craigslisty vibe in that each listing is written by the person offering their home as a place to stay.  This type of self-reporting can be really troublesome when it comes to accessibility. In my experience, most people who do not deal with disability on an intimate level, either through work or their personal lives, tend to have a rather vague, misguided, and all too often inaccurate, understanding of what ADA accessibility standards actually are.  So unless Airbnb tightly regulates such claims, or I had the good luck to find the listing of someone whose access needs closely matched my own, or who was an architect etc., there was a good chance that these accessible listings would turn out to be only marginally equipped to handle a guest who is a wheelchair user.

My curiosity got the better of me, and I just couldn’t wait until the next day to find out exactly how these listings work.  I decided to do a little detective work on my own, and  begin to create a very basic listing for my apartment here in the Bay.  That way, I’d be able to see what options were available to those who had listed the places in Portland. Unfortunately, my suspicions were confirmed.  While creating my listing, I found out that minimal explanation is required of the person making the listing.  And worse still, there is minimal explanation offered by Airbnb as to which accessible features count towards making a unit accessible. There is only one section that allows a person to mark their listing as accessible.  At a certain point in the process of creating a listing, a menu titled “Amenities” gives the person making the listing a chance to highlight certain features of the home, including such things as washer/dryer, elevator, doorman, etc. One of the features listed is titled “Handicap Accessible.”  For starters, the word “handicap” is largely unused these days, both for political and semantic reasons…  But I digress.  Next to the term "handicap accessible", there is an info icon that clarifies what this particular feature means. I hovered over this icon and the phrase "The property is easily accessible.  Guests should communicate about individual needs."  pops up.  So there we have it. The phrase “easily accessible” is subject to many interpretations, and the onus is on the traveler to seek additional information from a person who may or may not have the best grasp of  ADA accessibility. Bummer.

Later in the week, I received a reply from Airbnb about my inquiry explaining what I’d already found out myself. And so the search for a place to stay continued a little while longer. 

Portlandtown, Let's Go!!!!

I am heading to Portland, Oregon this coming weekend! My friend Hollie had invited me to come visit her months ago, once she remembered that I have a week off for Spring Break every year. This invitation was followed shortly by three very dear friends of mine picking up and moving out of the Bay Area and up north.  I’ve taken all of this as a general sign that I should visit.

Here’s the catch: Hollie lives in a Victorian. Like much of the Bay Area, Portland seems to be teeming with either old Victorians or Craftsman style houses. So, while I am essentially going up there to visit her, I can’t and won’t be staying with her. And so, the search for accessible and affordable accommodations began.

Last summer, when I went to visit Portland, I opted to stay at the Motel 6 nearest her place.  That was manageable financially for a weekend, but I plan to spend the entire week there, so I needed something much more affordable.  I have lots of friends who travel as much as they can, but none of them have physical disabilities.  I realized that they might not be able to give the best advice about where to stay as a result, but I asked anyway, figuring it was as good a place as any to start.

I have discovered that my friends mainly stay with other friends when they travel. My friends are smart & frugal people, obviously.  Alas! This time that’s a no go for me. On the occasion that my traveling buddies can’t stay at a friend’s house, they use hostels, Kayak, Airbnb, and Couchsurfing.  I have first hand experience in “accessible” travel arrangements going wrong as a result of using the more popular trip booking sites- mainly because the hotel rooms available at steep discounts on those sites aren’t guaranteed to be a specific type of room, i.e. wheelchair accessible (which I MUST call bullshit on by the way, but that doesn’t mean that wasn’t the explanation I was handed at the time). I’ve had mixed success with the sites, and I’ve stopped using them as a result. I just can’t deal with the unpredictability…. or the discriminatory practices.

I’ve never stayed at a hostel or arranged a place to stay through Couchsurfing or Airbnb.  I decided to look into them, since I had started planning this trip so late (according to my own standards at least) and needed to find something affordable, or face not making the trip at all. I had no idea that even trying to book a place to stay would become so complicated!!! I’m actually feeling slightly panicked just thinking about the past week and I haven’t even begun to write about it. Yikes.

So, about two weeks ago I started my search for a place to stay by checking out hostels in Portland. I searched the Hostelling International site for availability at the one hostel in SE Portland- HI Portland Hawthorne District. Great neighborhood with lots to do. It shows that they have availability, but the HI website is problematic as far as accessibility is concerned.  I could book a hostel bed, but there is no way to specifically book accessible accommodations. Nor is there any mention on the HI site of whether or not the hostel in question is even accessible. So I start to panic/wonder, and navigate over to the website for that specific hostel. And again, there is no mention of whether or not this place is accessible. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? Surely, I just haven’t found the information yet. I convince myself that I haven’t and proceed to peruse the entire site, to no avail. 

In a desperate move, I book a bed for the entire week, so that I have something  lined up that I can actually afford. It was after 10 p.m. at the time, so I had to wait until the morning to find out whether or not I would be able to stay there. I shoot them an email asking about their wheelchair accessible features, and go to bed. It was a fitful sleep, no doubt about it.

To their credit, they promptly get back to me the next morning. Unfortunately, it is to tell me that the hostel is not wheelchair accessible at this time.  I correspond back and forth with them asking about specific details of the layout- where the bathrooms are, where my bed would be, how many stairs the porch has, etc.  I also walk with braces and crutches, so I could in theory have stayed there. But there is a fine line for me between being active in my braces and crutches and overdoing it. Overdoing it tends to land me in the ER with incredibly painful lower back spasms.  And I tend to cross that line without realizing it. So, staying here could potentially come at a huge personal cost to me.  Also, if I were committing to climbing stairs every day, I might as well have stayed with Hollie and saved the money. None of this was an ideal solution. And so I continued to search for other options while holding my spot at the hostel. 

A Lonely Planet, Indeed

Lonely Planet guides leave me feeling quite alone when it comes to travel resources. Frommer’s fails me as well. And while Chowhound has great advice about where to eat, it tells me little about whether or not I can get into a particular restaurant, what the layout is like, and whether or not I will be able to use the restroom once I am there. It won’t tell me if I'll be able to navigate to the table in the corner, all the way in the back of the room. I am a wheelchair user. I am a wheelchair user who loves food, drink, live music, vibrant social scenes and travel.

I honestly cannot tell you how many times I have gone to a bar only to discover that I won’t be drinking anything at all there, because I won’t be able to use the restroom. I've lost count.  What I can tell you that I have gone to multiple bars in a row in the same night, and left almost immediately to hit the next one because the bathroom is not wheelchair accessible. In one particular instance, I hit a total of three bars within an hour before finding an environment that suited my access needs (a giant thank you to 21st Amendment in San Francisco!)  I've taken to checking bathrooms before I commit to staying just about anywhere for more than 30 minutes. Unfortunately, I've had to learn to do this the hard way. This nugget of wisdom was hard earned after leaping before looking one too many times.  I grew up in Los Angeles, where most buildings are new, and therefore comply with the ADA.  It took me a while to learn that the Bay Area generally just isn’t as accessible as I was used to a place being. Despite its history as the birthplace of the Disability Rights Movement, the Bay Area can be quite challenging when it comes to accessibility. But it took me a while to catch on. I’d go out to restaurants and bars, assuming that all was well, only to discover that all was not. Those were painful nights. The awful alternative is to abstain from all liquids, while everyone is drinking around me. The isolation and frustration I feel when I’m not able to partake in activities going on around me as a result of barriers is unfortunately a familiar sensation- doubly so when incredible food, drink or music is involved.

The consequences for my social life are undeniable at this point.  I’ve grown complacent, and even afraid of new places and experiences as a result of the barriers I’ve encountered during my time in the Bay. I’ve noticed in the past ten years or so how much of a creature of habit I’ve become. I go to the same restaurants, bars and concert venues simply because I know how to get there, and what to expect once I’ve arrived. While it spares me the headaches and heartaches that new adventures often bring with them, it’s incredibly limiting. I live in the Bay Area, a mecca of food and culture. Embarrassed as I am to admit it, I haven’t done nearly as much in my own corner of the States as the friends I met in college have. I haven’t traveled as widely as other people my age in general. And I’ve grown sick of it. This is my revolt. I am going out. 

Because of my access needs, traveling anywhere requires quite a bit of research and a number of phone calls that the average traveler just doesn’t have to make. These efforts save me from a lot of unnecessary headaches upon arrival. I need more than a basic map when I go somewhere, local or otherwise. I have to become familiar with the topography of a place in addition to its basic geography. This proves harder to do than one might expect, and is often accomplished as I go. I’ll be the first to admit that this is perhaps an extremely flawed approach. Of course, not all problems can be anticipated and addressed in advance. But it helps a whole hell of a lot. 

Nevertheless, I’ve compiled a list of places I want to see, and will start attacking the list one by one. I will feign bravery until I no longer have to fake it. I will get lost, and get stuck. I may even have the occasional victory in the form of a surprisingly easy journey with an array of amazing discoveries along the way. And I’m going to write all about it. None of the guides out there address my needs adequately. It’s time to stop bemoaning this fact. It’s time to be my own guide and create my own guidebook. Wish me luck, here we go!