Enjoying Nature - Camping with a Wheelchair

This article is presented by the magazin Paraplegiker with the permission of the MVS Medizinverlage Stuttgart.

Whether a distant target or a quick trip into the blue – camping offers a good rest, even for paraplegics in accordance with nature. Facts and impressions on camping in a wheelchair.

No camping without barbecue
© 110stefan/pixelio

Camping is an attitude towards life. The campfire romanticism with barbecue and fresh air feels like a unique, original experience - already in childhood. Hardly any other vacation transports temptations of nature as obviously into your feeling like camping. Whether by caravan, campervan or own car with tent - these holidays offer various charms. And campers with a wheelchair know about this.

A lot of space for travelling
wheelchair drivers © Ginover/pixelio

Staying where I want to

Bärbel Wilkes has preferred camping to hotel vacations for a long time. “I want to take everything I need it along the way and then on site decide where we like it”, says the 24 year old woman, who has been paraplegic since 1982. In her holidays she does camping with her husband.

After some summers in the South of France it now draws them increasingly to Croatia, extended week-ends are spent in Holland. The vast number of city travels can hardly be enumerated. Her result after 20 years of camper holidays: "I could fancy no nicer vacation, because one also sees many things on the way ".
She does the vacation planning spontaneously while travelling in the camper. "We only need to buy fresh food, put our clothes into the cupboards and then we can start immediately. This gives me a feeling of independence. I do not believe that I would have seen and experienced so many things without our camper."

What do I have? What can I do? What do I want to do?

One thing is clear: Personal needs should be supplied to be able to master travelling pleasantly and easily. What counts basically: Individuality is trumps. Every wheelchair driver has his very own claims and should furnish his carriage accordingly. However, high costs for travel-mobile and campers need to be cleverly planned. Rolf Bambeck owns an enterprise where vehicles are rebuilt individually. He suggests finding alternative ways to finance such rebuilding. Several people could buy a vehicle together. Or it could be let. He actually thinks it was more complicated and expensive to rebuild a vehicle than to build it individually right from the beginning.

Holidays at the beach
© ro18ger/pixelio

The cheaper variant camper has some advantages, too. Dieter Fuchs bought one which was rebuilt according to his wishes. He did not want any compromises concerning the disabled-friendly equipment. And he wanted a camper and no travel-mobile to keep his mobility with his car in the target area.

Short Trips, art of living and the classic tent

Rudi Weber sees and lives camping more pragmatically. “Camping means to leave the usual luxury of all-day life behind”, says the 45 year old wheelchair driver with muscular atrophy. 1980 he and his wife drove through the former Yugoslavia with car, tent and sleeping pad. “When it got dark and we could not find a place to sleep a farmer parted the straw for us. So we had a wonderful place under the firmament.”

Camping-sites – accessible for wheelchairs?

Many camping-sites are entitled to be accessible but Johann Kreiter, passionate wheelchair camper, sees it differently. He thinks that only a few sites are really disabled-friendly, “even if camping guides give them the symbol ‘handicapped accessible’. It takes more than accessible sanitary facilities to be a barrier free camping site”, explains Kreiter. “It does not help a wheelchair driver a lot if a restaurant is disabled-friendly but the way to it is a gravel path.” Everyone who wants to visit a camping-site with a wheelchair should ask about the local conditions of the camping-site beforehand.

© Jan-Henrik Schultz