Aaron Busch
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My name is Aaron Busch, I am a licensed Travel Agent through Guide Me Away with a supplemental specialty in accessible travel for individuals with mobility challenges.
Prior to becoming a Travel Agent, I booked my trips through reputable Travel Agencies in British Columbia. While the bulk of these Travel Agents claimed to be proficient in booking these itineraries, the repercussions from not making adequate inquiries resulted in (1) partial or irreparable damage to my wheelchair on multiple occasions or (2) the awkward disembarkation from the plane because they could not load the wheelchair into cargo. This primarily happens when the mobility device is too large to be enplaned and is a direct result of the booking party’s inadequate communication with the client and the Airline.
As time progressed, I became more self-sufficient in the travel planning process. I began to transition from booking through third parties upon recognizing that certain Travel Agents would book the itinerary but neglected to collect or relay any relevant information that might disrupt my travel plans. Concurrently, the Airline would be waiting on specific information relative to the specifications of my wheelchair (at the responsibility of such Travel Agents) which I had to rectify. This is a prerequisite in the stipulations of booking a traveler with a disability and the result of such carelessness can be catastrophic.
In 2019, I graduated from the Canadian Tourism College and joined the team at Guide Me Away as a licensed Travel Agent / Disability Travel Specialist, proudly accommodating travelers from all walks of life.
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Hi everybody. It's Gustavo, the host of the Enabled Disabled podcast. It is my great pleasure to have Aaron Busch with us today. Aaron is a licensed travel agent to guide me away. He has a lot of experience for helping travelers make sure that their experience is as easy and problem free as possible. Aaron has some mobility challenges himself and he is an expert at helping people make sure that their travel experience is as seamless as possible. Aaron is also an actor and he plays power soccer. So we're going to have a really interesting conversation with them and we have a lot to learn. A brief description of myself. I am a middle aged Latin American male. My hair is dark Brown and it's parted in the middle. And I'm wearing a black Polo shirt and I am in my living Zoom with some blinds and beige drapes behind me. Erin, welcome to the show. Can you give us a brief description of yourself, please?
Oh, boy. Where to start? Some of the things that you haven't covered. Yes, I am a certified travel agent. The technical term that I use is a certified accessible travel advocate. So it's basically a travel agent that assists travelers with disabilities. And my area of expertise that I perform very well on is how to fly without having your wheelchair broken, which is something that I've done quite a bit. And yes, I am at two. My hair is Brown combed over, and I have a white wall behind me.
Awesome. And you're wearing a white shirt and you've gotten some cool looking white headphones on.
Yes, I have a white shirt and my button is not done up, but awesome.
So let's get started. Obviously, I have a lot of travel questions, but before we dive into that, I'm curious about your acting background and how you got into that.
So I've pretty much been pursuing acting since I was in my teenage years. I started in Vancouver Island. I went to Spotlight Academy. One of the big names that you might recognize that agency is Adrian Huff, who I most recently saw on The Sabrina and Cameron Bright. I haven't seen them in a while, but I met him a couple of times in person. He came out of Spotlight Academy as well. And then I went to Red Room Studio where Andrew McIlroy has taught or teacher taught my grammar. And then it was a while before I started going. I pursued voiceover for a while and did a whole bunch of stuff on YouTube. And then what? Got back into the principal side of acting and graduated from Vancouver Film School with a diploma. Graduated from Vancouver Film School with a diploma. Went through, got an agent in film and television. What else that led to okay.
What got you interested in acting, though? Aaron, what was the initial poll for you to say? This is something I want to do professionally.
I think it was just the funniest thing to do in school. It was actors tell stories. And I like storytelling. I play games that are story driven. Everything that I watch or play or read or anything along those lines is all interesting if it's story driven. And at one point I'm just like, I want to do this, too. So how do I get into this? And that kind of one thing led to another. And now I am a representative actor for film, TV and auditioning quite frequently. And yeah, my fiance is also represented at the same agency. She has a disability as well, and we're just taking it one step at a time.
Do you have a favorite project that you've worked on so far?
Probably my YouTube series. I did a fan dub at one point for the Final Fantasy series. It was the Final Fantasy Nine fan dub, which hasn't been official, completely unofficial fan project, but went for a good ten years with some very dedicated actors that were made on board through most of it and has thousands of views.
Awesome. We'll make sure to put a link to that on the blog. But I know for a fact that there are people listening to this who are huge Final Fantasy fans and love Final Fantasy Night. So I'm sure they're going to want to hear the duck.
Yes. I will not go into a debate about which Final Fantasy is the best in. My personal favorite is ten, but I'm not going to anger people by saying no.
Seven is the best. No, nine is the best. No, ten is the best.
That's very cool. So how have you noticed more roles opening up recently with the at least it seems like there are more actors and actresses with a disability who are getting some more prominent roles and a bit more stories coming out. Are you seeing that trend up there, too?
Who have I see that having some there was one character on Raising Dion or one actress on Raising Dion. Her name was I don't have her name offhand was Sammy Haney. She's in a Netflix series. So why is my camera doing this? There we go. Who else? Sparshaw. He's not an actor, but he's a singer rapper. There's another one from the middle. He doesn't use a wheelchair, but he has a lie. Atticus Schaefer.
Okay, well, are you yourself personally seeing more roles and more opportunities opening up?
There's more in the way of representation? It's better now than it was back in like the early two thousands when you had able body doctors playing a lot of disabled roles and now there's a lot more representation for people with disabilities playing roles that are meant for them.
Yeah, very cool. Hopefully that trend continues and hopefully in six months or three months or whatever it is when you land your major role, you'll come back on the show and remember us and keep talking to you. So what brought you into obviously, you use a wheelchair, and I know you've had a lot of experience traveling, but what got you into the travel business? As a business, how did that opportunity present itself?
I use a wheelchair for longer distances. Like, I can walk. If anybody saw a picture of me, they'd probably see that I do have, like, photos where I'm standing up and whatnot. So it's not like the term of a wheelchair user doesn't necessarily mean that the person is incapable of standing or walking. It just means that they have functioning mobility, functional mobility problems that limits their general mobility. Just sorry. Repeat the question one more time and I'll go for it with that.
Now, what got you interested in the travel space and how did that opportunity come about? Right. What got you interested and how did the opportunity come about?
So I've been mostly been handling travel for other, like, friends, family, colleagues for quite some time. It wasn't anything that I was doing professionally, and it wasn't something that I was doing from any sort of licensed perspective. That was more just a courtesy. I wasn't in the position where I could call an airline and say, hey, I have a client that's looking to travel to California. Can we look up this client's reservation and make some modifications? I can't exactly do that. If I'm not working at a travel agency. I can, but it's not legal. Eventually, as I grew more custom to booking packages or helping people with their vacation packages, I started realizing that I could probably get help more people if I was in a position where I am licensed to do this because people are spending money on this. You're not going to want to spend money if the person doesn't have any credentials to validate their experience. And then it wasn't until I went into the Osteogenesis to perfect the foundation conference in 20 16, 20 18 that I started seeing a lot of other people with power wheelchairs that had significantly arrived with, like, significant damage from their trip over and from their flight over.
And I'm just like, maybe I should get into this a little more professionally so that I can be a better advocate for people that are making these just rewinding. There some of these people that have flown in. I'd ask them, I see you sustained damage to your wheelchair. Did you report it? And they were like, no, nothing ever good comes with that. Anyway. So it put me in this position. People are sustaining damage to their wheelchairs. These Airlines are like, I know why it's happening. I know why a person is getting into these positions where they're having wheelchair damage and whatnot. And there's things that they can do to help with that. And either they're not acting on it before they travel or they aren't acting on it after they travel and it has repercussions if they don't act on it, and if I break my wheelchair, it's limiting, but it's not the end of the world. Whereas a person with muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy or total paralysis, if they break their wheelchair, they're going to be in bed or with a rental for who knows how long. So it's those situations that I'm in this mindset where I know how to help these people, and I wanted to pursue an endeavor where I could get certified to do that.
People can come to me and trust that I know what I'm talking about.
It's a huge problem. There's been some pretty prominent cases in the last I think a couple of years of one person who passed away because her wheelchair was damaged, and I guess the spare wheelchair or the replacement wheelchair that they gave her did not ended up injuring her body, and she unfortunately passed away. So it's a huge problem. I'm glad that you stepped up and are using your experience to help people. But let's talk about the why. So why why is this happening as frequently as it's happening and what let's start there, and then we'll get into some of the things that you advise people to do to minimize the probabilities of something like that happening.
Yeah. When I was putting together a petition package for my US green card, I was doing a lot of research just how many cases there are on a yearly basis for wheelchair travelers. And some of the names that came up weren't just like you were saying, Gracie and Figueroa, who passed away, Nicole John Morris, Tim Rose, Ballington DUTYOn, Lucy DUTYOn, Maria McClellan, Lauren Barwick, Theodonnely Brisklys, Tammy Duckworth, who is the Senator of Illinois, Shane Burcock, Corey Lee Gabriel De Fiber, Matt Hugh Weatherby. These are just a few of the names that have come up, like in the last two, three years. And it's something that happens about when you look at the statistics, it's something that's happening about 29 times per day on average. So why it's happening is quite simple. Larger umbrella is that the Airlines are damaging wheelchairs. Now, there's things that are going on when that contribute to that. But the general consensus is that a person arrives at an airport, they either haven't planned their itinerary as well as they could have, or they haven't communicated the statistic. They haven't communicated how to handle their wheelchair properly, or they haven't communicated with the airline properly, or they have, and it was just the airline.
They got the wrong person at the airline and they're arriving at their destination with a broken wheelchair. That is the overall arc of it. Now, I haven't gotten into more specifics yet, but that's a short version of it.
Obviously, with these with Airlines, they're putting on as many flights as they can per day. So there's going to be some people who maybe they're in a time rush or they're careless or they're treating a wheelchair a piece of luggage instead of a critical mobility device, which it is right there's all these factors that go into play. But if you're going into the airport, let's start there. So you're a traveler, you're going into the airport, you're using your wheelchair user. What's the first thing that you do? Assuming they haven't booked through you? What's the first thing that they should do when they get there? Take us through the steps of what the best plan of attack is once they're at the airport.
The plan of attack would start before you get to the airport. But do you just want me to start at the airport at this point?
Let's say, Aaron, that they haven't booked through a travel agency. They haven't worked with you. Let's start there. So when they're booking their flight from there, what are the steps? Take us through the steps of what they should be doing.
The first thing you need to do is you need to look at the airplane that you're going to be on. There's a difference between flying on a Boeing 737 or a Max and an embryo or worse, a regional jet. A lot of the smaller airports use regional jets to fly into larger airports, and those are not going to be large enough to accommodate a wheelchair. The height of those cargo doors are about 32 inches. And if you take a measuring tape and take the headrest off your wheelchair, odds are it's going to be about 36, maybe 37 inches minimum. So the first thing. Yeah. Is making sure that you're not on one of those smaller aircraft because that will be your first major problem. Second is are they communicating with the airline? If you've booked through a company like Expedia Orbits or even some of these credit card companies that offer travel rewards for points, their agents don't tend to ask the questions that a recognized medical recognized agent with disability perspective would understand. So they're not going to ask you what are the dimensions of your wheelchair? What type of battery does it use?
They might book a service request, you tell them you're in a wheelchair, they might book a service request into the file. Or they might just make a remark which nobody will see because they have to go into the file to see that you're using a wheelchair. That's generally the first problem.
Can I just interrupt you real quick? Yeah. How is it different if you're booking directly through an airline?
If you're booking directly through an airline, again, it depends on the agent. If you're booking through central reservations, you might get an agent that's fairly familiar with booking a disability. You might get an agent who might be their first day on the job. And there's just so many people working through central reservations because we're in a pandemic and everybody wants to travel right now. Airlines are hiring. Maybe I call into American Airlines, I get an agent who's fairly familiar. They're going to ask me what are the dimensions in my wheelchair? What type of battery am I using? Do I have a service animal? Do I have anything else that I need to put on the file and that'll it's not normally central reservations that needs to answer these questions? It's the medical desk. Most Airlines have a medical desk. American Airlines has one. Delta Airlines has one. United has it. Air Canada has it. These departments are specifically trained to accommodate passengers with disabilities, and these are the people that you need to talk to when you're booking your itinerary. And sometimes the reason you give them the dimensions is because if the aircraft is too small, they're supposed to tell you that the size of your wheelchair is too big for that particular aircraft, and then they'll have to rebook you.
That is also hit or miss because not every agent will answer that question. The other thing is that most of these Airlines or most of these airplanes are meant to book travelers with disabilities into the bulkhead section. If you use a wheelchair, you can request the bulkhead seating. I know American Airlines has specific requirements that you have to have a fused Lake to sit in that section, but companies like United and Delta and Alaska tend to be a little more accommodating with the general seating location.
Is the medical desk for these Airlines something that when you're calling an airline directly, you should ask to speak to the medical desk? Or is it something that the person taking the reservation is supposed to communicate with the medical desk? What's the best proceed?
They're different. Some Airlines will ask that you book through central reservations first and then make the medical justifications make your medical justifications through with the medical desk. I guess the issue with that is that if you're booking through central reservations and the agent you get doesn't understand the perspective or you don't understand the perspective. Like, I have clients right now that are looking to travel and they didn't know that regional jets are too small for to accommodate a wheelchair. I had to educate them on the process that generally accidents happen, and those accidents. A lot of those accidents happen in the pre departure, in the pre planning process, and a lot of those accidents happen after arrival and departure at the airport.
Because I think this is interesting to highlight when somebody hires you to book their trip for them and to plan the details of it. If there's any special proprietary thing that you don't want to share, that's fine. But generally speaking, or as much as you can share, what do you do to make sure that the airline does its job in this pre planning phase?
So when somebody calls me and says, hey, I'm looking to travel to Seattle, there are questions to ask. What I need to know is what are the dimensions of your chair? What type of battery are you using? Because these are questions the Airlines can ask me, what are your travel dates? Are your travel dates flexible? Are you looking to travel economy, first class business? And then the more important question is, have you traveled before? Because if they have never traveled before, then there's going to be some education involved in the differences of somebody who's able bodied, who is traveling, and somebody who's traveling with a wheelchair. And the client needs to know the likely repercussions that will take place if they travel, if they travel without the awareness of these situations.
Okay, so then pivoting back here. So when you're booking with the Airlines, you're asking the questions needed, the dimensions of the chair, have any service animals and the battery. Once you do that and all that's taken care of appropriately, what do you do when you get to the airport or what do you do? Is there anything else that people need to be aware of or plan for before they're traveling, before the day that they're going to the airport?
I think the most important part in the planning process is making sure the airplane you're on the right size airplane. That's one of the biggest things to cover. And I'm sure there's one or two things I'm missing. But it's been a long day. Yeah. Making sure the airplane is the connections. Yes. Making sure that you have more than an hour. If your flight is not direct, then you need more than an hour at the airport that you're flying into because you may be the first person on the plane, but you're not going to be the first person on the plane. You're probably going to be the last person off the plane. And that could take anywhere between 20 minutes to 45 minutes because they need to unload everybody from the plane. And the ground crew needs to grab your wheelchair from underneath, bring it up, bring you or they're going to take it to the next plane. If you're in a hurry and you'll have to tell the flight crew, hey, I'm in a hurry, I got to catch my connection, and then you're going to have to if you're flying with the same airline, they may take it to the next airplane.
If you're flying with a different airline, then there's going to be a long process to get to your connecting flight. This is why you need more than an hour when transferring. The second thing is how many connections you're on. If you're on a direct flight, then the likelihood that you'll arrive at your final destination with damages is quite minimal. If you're on one connecting flight, that leads to opportunities for the airline to mishandle something, one at your connecting airport and one at your final destination. If you're on two connecting flights, that gives three opportunities, one at your first arrival airport, another at your second arrival airport, and a third at your final destination. Typically, you want to avoid having a flight that with two connections, if at all possible.
When you arrive at the airport and you're checking in, do they check in your chair before you go through security? Do they do it after you go through security? What's the process there?
You tend to get to the checking counter and they'll take information about your chair. They should already have it on file. If you've done your job or if the travel agent has done their job, or if the airline has done their job. If they don't have the information there, then that could be a problem because you may be in a situation where you can't travel because the airline doesn't have the information on file. If everything has been relayed properly, then there's no problem. The only problem at the checking counter might be that, like I said, there may be something missing, or they've determined that your chair might be too big for the aircraft. If that's the case, then you may get rebooked. If everything's good, then they'll check in your chair. If there's information missing, they'll likely put it into the system and then they'll send you through the security. They'll tag your chair and sorry, the checking counter will tag your chair and they'll send you in through security. Security, you have two options. One, go through the general lineup. I've had one situation at one airport where they asked me to stand up out of my wheelchair and walk through the sensor.
It doesn't happen often. I can do that, but they shift. That's one of the more ridiculous that's more oblivious security agent that doesn't understand that not every disabled traveler can stand up and walk through the sensor gate. So the other option is a private screening. So you can either go off to the side or they'll take you into a private room where they will Pat you down and you can either have a male pattern or a female pattern. And then they'll take stuff out of your bag. They'll ask you to take anything off your chair that's removable, put it through the scanner, and then they'll give it back. Then from there, you go through customs. If you are traveling internationally, if you're going domestic, you don't have to go through customs. That's just basic information. Make sure that the place you're traveling to doesn't require negative COVID tests. Otherwise you may not be able to travel. Then from there you're in the secure area of the airport. From there, let's assume you're going straight to your flight. You're at the gate. You got to arrive with plenty of time at the gate. If you're arriving last minute, then that creates problems.
You arrive at the gate. The best thing to do there is to advise traveling with my power wheelchair is a sensitive piece of equipment. I need to speak with the ramp lead from down below. You have that right because somebody is going to be taking it and they need to know how to handle it. If they don't know how to handle it, then that's where problems are going to occur. So the best way to do is not to just grab anybody from down below. You want to ask for the ramp Lead is the person that's in charge of all the luggage handlers down below. And if somebody screws up, then at least it's his butt on the line. So the ramp leak comes up. You're going to explain to him, this is how you turn on the chair. This is how you turn off the chair. These are what these buttons do. This moves the you need to explain it to somebody who is very computer illiterate. Imagine somebody you're teaching Windows Ten to somebody who has never used a computer before. I'm literally dead serious. If I was teaching someone how to use a computer, I would have to show them where the start button is because it's to us to me, I know where the start button is.
It's in the bottom left corner of my computer. But to somebody who's never used a computer, they're going to say Where's the start button? So imagine that what to do if they want to tilt the chair, because some people are just going to grab the back and pull the chair to tilt the chair. They may not know that there's a button to do that because there are areas where there's clearance needed to get the chair onto the aircraft. There's going to be you need to explain where the release is to put the chair into manual, because if they need to move the chair without actually turning it on, then.
You need the freedom to move it manually so that you're not right. It's easier for them to manage it where they need to manage it inside the cargo hold.
Yeah. And there's a lot of different things where clearance may be needed to get the chair into the cargo. And that could involve reclining the back, taking the backrest off if it's easily detachable, tilting the chair or reclining the chair and making sure that they're not tipping the chair on its side or all these dangerous things that cause damage because there are Airlines that will remove parts, components of the chair and tip it on its side and in any which direction to get it onto the plane. And these are the main reasons that where a wheelchair damage comes into play.
Maybe I'm going too far, but have you heard of travelers who say your request to speak to the crew chief for the lead ramp Lead, like you say, should you record that on your phone? Is that maybe going too far? You're clearly explaining to the person what they should be doing, how to handle the chair and then just leaving it that it's not necessary.
Because if the airline damages the wheelchair while it's in their possession, then they're legally responsible for repairing it as long as it's reported at your final destination. If you leave the airport and then try and put in a report about it after, then that's where the airline come back and say, that's not our fault. So you have to do that when you're arriving at your final destination. If you're at a connecting airport, let's say you're flying American to your connecting airport and then United to your final destinations. If you are at a connecting airport, that's where things get a little Gray. That's why you need more time at your connecting airport as well. Because if damage has occurred, then you'll need to report that at your connecting airport. And then if damage has occurred with the second airline that would be reported at your final destination.
Do you always have the right to say you're on a connecting flight so you're traveling American, you get off American and then you're going on to a United flight. Do you have the right to inspect your chair in that midpoint? Are they supposed to bring you your chair and then you take your chair to the connecting flight?
If you have the time, you can always ask if you're flying two different Airlines, then, yeah, they're going to bring your chair up to the jet bridge. If you're flying with the same airline, then all the way through, then you have the right to either request your wheelchair or say bring it to the next aircraft. It's generally better if you're concerned that something. If you're sure that your chair is in good operating condition, it's generally better to get a professional service center to inspect your chair before you travel, even if it's a few days out. A couple of weeks out, call your local service center. I'm flying to Texas. I just need somebody to come by. I need them to do a full assessment on my chair. Sometimes this is paid for by insurance. I know here in Vancouver I can get the Ministry to do a full assessment on the chair once every once a year, I think, and then I just call my local service center and say, hey, I'm flying out in a couple of weeks. I know that these Airlines tend to damage my wheelchair. I know I have a history with you guys where this damage has occurred.
I just want you to come by, take that, or maybe I can bring my chair in because there's more tools in the shop and I need you guys to do a full inspection of my chair just to write it off, that everything's in good condition. Then if the airline comes back later and says it's not our fault, you've got paperwork that says I've got a full paperwork here from these guys that are certified in this field. And they said that this was operating in good condition, and now I've arrived here, my chair won't turn on. So that's not my fault, is there?
When you do arrive at your final destination, it's really important then to be super diligent about inspecting your chair before you leave the airport. Make sure obviously turning on is the key, but make sure that it's operating smoothly, that you have to be sensitive to. This wheel feels a little out of alignment or it's not responding the way it normally does. Besides physical damage, you can usually see pretty well. But I imagine it's like the more nuanced things that you know from using a chair. That's your chair. I know I wear a prosthesis. If there's something off with the prosthetic, I can feel it right away.
Yeah. If there is a problem when you arrive, there is one many years ago when I arrived at an airport and the seat felt a little crooked, it looks fine, but it didn't feel straight. I just felt a little bit slanted, like I was leaning just a little bit more to the left than I should have been and everything else. I was driving fine, the seating was fine and everything, and I didn't take a chance. I went to the baggage claim and I said something just feels a little bit off about this. I need to open a ticket. And they obliged. They started a baggage damaged baggage damaged baggage claim, and I got it inspected. And it turns out that there's like a main steel pole underneath that chair. It's like the primary thing that holds the seat up. And it turns out they broke that, which takes a lot of force. It's not like just taking a bottle cap and breaking it. It would have taken something very severe for that to happen, like falling off the ramp when it was Loading. I don't know what happened, but if I hadn't reported that, it wouldn't have gotten fixed.
Yeah. If your chair won't turn on when you arrive at the airport, it may just be the cable attached that the joystick plugs into has become disconnected. It may be that there's a fuse breaker at the back where the battery is, that they tend to turn off. They don't need to do that, but they will.
I wager there have been times where they've left it on, too, and the batteries just drained.
Yeah. I had a friend that flew with me at one point when I went on a cruise and his chair turned on mid flight and drove forward through the entire several hours and his Motors burnt out when we got to our arrival, it didn't drive into anything, but it was on full speed until we got there. And yeah, his Motors burnt out when we arrived. But there's things you can do as well, because when you fly out, you have the ability to talk to the ground crew when you're at your departing airport. But what you don't have the ability to do is you don't have the ability to talk to the team that's unloading your wheelchair. And that's where a lot of problems can occur. You can talk to the ground crew at your departing airport until you're blue in the face. You can talk to the ground crew at your connecting airport as well, but each airport doesn't talk to one another. Your airport flying out of Seattle won't talk to the airport in Denver. If you're connecting in Denver, you can talk to the team in Denver. And then maybe your final destination is in Miami, and the team in Denver won't talk to the team in Miami.
So the only way you can get the message through to those people is the best practice is to print off a list before you fly out. Tape it to your chair and big, bold letters. This is what you can do. This is where you take a picture of the thing that detaches your backrest if you need to. And this is how you handle this. This is where you can lift from. This is what this button does. This is how you move the chair. This is how you turn it on. Try and get as much onto a one page as possible and tape it to the back of your chair so that when your chair arrives, the people unloading it, know how to unload it and what they can and definitely cannot do to unload your chair.
That's a great idea. And hopefully either, I don't know, through more advocacy, education, training, the airports will start to communicate with each other. Or maybe there's another alternative. Maybe we can start building some technology into the chairs where there's a short little 32nd video that you have to watch before you touch it, something like that.
It would be handy. Yeah. Air travel right now is like the only mode of transportation where you can't actually bring wheelchair on boats, trains, cruises, busses, cars, vans, everything. Religion, anything is wheelchair accessible, but the major mode of transportation to fly from one destination to another? No. They're still treating our wheelchairs like luggage.
That really needs to change. We're really behind the times there. How do you when you're booking, let's say a hotel? I'm assuming that more hotels now are saying we have accessible rooms and giving some details when you call, but I'm sure there's still a lot of them that don't. What kind of advice do you give for people when they're booking a hotel or an Airbnb or someplace? What do they look for? What should they do to help make sure that they'll be accommodated?
What do you need for your accommodations? Basically, it depends on their disability. If they're using a wheelchair, they'll likely need an accessible room, which should have wider doorways. It should have wider hallways. The bathroom should be accessible. There are rules.
My question is more like, how do you know or find out that the hotel or the place you're staying in has those features if they don't advertise, basically calling and asking.
Yeah, you call them and ask them, do you have wheelchair accessible rooms. If they say yes, then you need to ask them what accessibility means to them, because accessibility might to them could be different than what I'm trying to ask them. Okay.
And I know you said and we've spoken previously that Disney is basically leading the charge in a lot of ways with accessible resorts and making travel and your experience a lot more inclusive. That's correct. They're pretty much doing a great job of that. From what you can see.
Disney is mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act because they're based in the United States and also they have especially in Florida. I'm not too familiar with the legal side of the business, but because I'm more of a travel specialist than a legal specialist, but I do know Florida has some special codes for accommodating people with disabilities.
I'm interested in asking you, is there anything that we missed in this segment about traveling and the Airlines and hotels that you think is important to talk about that? We didn't.
We've covered pre planning. We've covered a pre departure, post departure. Definitely what you need to do when you arrive at the airport, when you arrive at your connecting airport, when you arrive at your final destination, those are all the important steps. These are a lot of things that a lot of people don't tend to ask or that travelers may know 80, 90% of and are just missing that extra 10% to accommodate a smooth flight and a smooth experience. I've definitely have had travelers, clients that have booked that have booked their flights and didn't know that a regional jet was too small for travel. Yeah. And it just comes to providing proper education so that to these travelers so that they are aware that there are much more complex logistics that need to be premeditated before they travel.
I think we covered a lot, and I think it's really important information to share. Thank you for that. Before we wrap up here, I know that you are an avid power chair football player, and I would love to talk to you about that and learn more about it and how you got into it and what the scene up in Vancouver is like.
Yeah. So I guess we can start with started in Nimo, British Columbia. That was on Vancouver Island, and I mainly played goal. I moved to Vancouver, I think, when I was 26, 27. I joined the team in Surrey, eventually moved to Vancouver, started a team in Burnaby, New Westminster, and did a lot of tournaments. I played in yearly tournaments that involved a lot of fundraising, a lot of travel, and then it sort of died down a little bit over the years, at least to my knowledge. There's not really a team. I don't think there's a team in Surrey anymore. There's no more team in North Vancouver. There's no more team in Burnaby. It's definitely not as active as it is in the States. There's 60 some odd teams in the US and BC has one or two. I did play with the Vancouver team for several years, and they had helped them with their endeavors for international tournaments. And I did play goalie and a lot of those as well. So that's been my experience. Playing power stock.
You played it super competitive lead. What are some of the first is it a recognized Paralympic sport?
I don't think it's gotten to the Paralympic stage yet. Definitely. I know Canada, like the Vancouver team has played in Brazil, and where else there was one more Japan, I think Japan and Brazil, I believe. I didn't go to Japan or Brazil, but I practiced with them during their practice sessions quite a bit.
So what have you learned from playing power chair football? What have been some of the lessons or takeaways that you've gotten for participating in team sports?
In what regard?
Maybe personally, maybe is the main draw for you. Maybe it was a camaraderie with meeting new people. Maybe you just like to compete and see how good you can get at it. Like what's been the benefits for you of participating in team sport?
It's just a fun recreational activity. I have friends that play power soccer. I have friends here. I have friends in California. I have a lot of respect for power soccer. And the only reason I dropped out was because at least the rule was in I took a break. I didn't drop out, but I took a break for a while because I was at one point told that to play in the tournaments I needed to be severely disabled. And it was determined that I wasn't disabled enough to play power soccer. And that's just because I have more mobility and I can turn my head, I can turn my body. And they said that's not disabled enough. To play in these tournaments. You have to go to the lower level. And I kind of hit a wall at that point because at least by Vancouver's policies, I wanted to keep playing but didn't let you. Yeah. And then at that point, tournaments, they slowly started subsiding. At least here they're still like crazy international and competitive across the US. Here we had these tournaments in a place called Penticton. Every year we'd raise money for that. We'd travel and there'd be tons of players that would stay in a hotel over a weekend.
We'd play over two days and we'd just have fun with it. And eventually that stopped happening. And the teams in another we had another one in Cloverdale. We did that one yearly, and I think that one it hasn't happened recently because of the Pandemic, but I think prior to the Pandemic, it was still a yearly thing. And I'm just like a few blocks away from where the Vancouver team plays when the Pandemic isn't in a state where it's calling off all these recreational events. I'm usually going up there on the weekends to take part.
Awesome. That sounds like fun. I'm going to research that more here in the States and see if we can bring some people on. But hopefully they let you play more competitively and participate and open that up because that seems I know Florida has a couple of teams.
There's one in Tampa.
Okay. It seems like a very cool sport. I definitely want to research that more. So thank you for sharing that. So, Erin, if I just to wrap things up, how can people connect to you and reach out to you? Book travel with you.
I have a Facebook page. Facebook.com. Aaronbush B-U-S-C-H-G-M-A like golf. Mike Alphaguidemeway.com is the website of the travel agency that I'm currently contracted with. My YouTube channel is Youtube.com M Onegaming, and I'm also on Twitch. Tvn. That's more of my gaming channel than travel. I do have a blog on the Way page, so I do write stuff from time to time. I send it to my travel lead and then she posts it on the travel blog and then sends out across social media. So those are definitely some of the ways that people can connect with me. Generally. I'm working with Canadians right now. Most of my client base is Canada based.
But yeah, I have a good amount of Canadian listeners, so that helps. And for people who don't know, I know what it is because I used to play more, but I'm a big video game fan. So what is Twitch. Tv and what is it that you're doing on Twitch?
I play video games on Twitch. It's just where you take something you like, play a lot of Hearthstone. I play a lot of Final Fantasy games and I have this program called Streamlabs. It records the gameplay and broadcasts it to a website called Twitch. And there people can jump in, they can watch what I'm doing. They can talk with me live. And there's a lot of big streamers that there's some pretty crazy big streamers that play a lot of games and they have a large community and I have a lot of friends that stream on Twitch. A lot of friends with disabilities that stream on Twitch. One of my closest friends and my fiance we both stream on Twitch. My fiance's channel is Amaku 173 and my other friend is Red Streak 23.
So the fans and the people who tune into the stream, do you get to play them too in games?
It depends what I'm playing. So if I'm playing I used to play World of Warcraft, taking a break from that. But yeah, if I'm playing something that multiplayer co op, then sometimes somebody can jump in and opt to join along. I used to play Fortnite quite a bit. And one of my friends that I played with quite frequently, we have two or three people in the lobby and then ask somebody from their community to join in among us was another one usually gets up to 1015 people in the lobby so yeah, really depends on the plan.
I know where stone is like a competitive card based strategy. It's pretty competitive. Have you thought about going to any other tournaments and competing?
I'm competitive but I'm not that good at it. I play battlegrounds a lot. I've got to about a 6000 score battlegrounds. Anybody who knows Hearthstone might understand that. I think the pros play somewhere like 9000 and I've never made it to Legends so I'm good but I'm not great.
Okay. It takes a lot of time. Those games are pretty intensive and require some luck and a lot of knowledge and strategy and you're a busy guy so it's cool that you're doing it though and sharing your passion with people and building a community. I like that so Aaron thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for all the very helpful, generous information and I really appreciate you having me on the show and I look forward to having you back down the road.
Thank you.
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