Road Trip Ready Tip 1

The first installment of a four-part series designed to help CRT users plan a road trip

With summer coming to a close and back-to-school in full swing, many people are planning end-of-season road trips. From a cross-country trip to see family, a camping trip or a last-minute weekend getaway, a road trip offers fun, excitement and a break from the ordinary. 

But for complex rehabilitation technology (CRT) users, planning a successful road trip takes a little planning and forethought. For our Road Trip Ready series, we talked with a few CRT users who love to travel about the tips, tricks and advice they have for anyone planning to hit the road in coming days. 

For this series, we talked with a couple of frequent travelers who also happen to be CRT users as well as NSM assistive technology professional Brian Littlefield. 

Kerri Knudson: Originally from San Jose, California, Knudson now lives in Utah, which has been home for more than 15 years. She was born with arthrogryposis, a rare muscle disorder, which led her to find her adventures in a wheelchair. An avid traveler, Knudson shares her adventures on Instagram @get_a_grip_sis. 

Chad Waligura: Travel and the outdoors have been part of Chad Waligura’s life for as long as he can remember. Hunting, fishing and just enjoying nature have always been a part of his life, and that didn’t change after Waligura suffered a spinal cord injury when he was 17. Since then, he’s found ways to keep doing what he loves, including hunts across the U.S. as well as three different continents. He serves as one of the cohosts of “Able Outdoors,” a TV show devoted to helping people of all abilities hunt, fish and explore the outdoors. 

Brian Littlefield: Brian Littlefield is a certified assistive technology professional (ATP) and also holds the Certified Complex Rehabilitation Technology Supplier® (CRTS) designation. With more than 17 years of CRT industry experience, Littlefield has been with NSM for seven years, helping to develop mobility expansion branches in Maine. 

For our first installment, Kerri Knudson and Chad Waligura talked about the importance of planning ahead. 

Tip 1: Plan Your Stops. 

Spur-of-the-moment trips are great, but if you’re planning to stay in a hotel or need accessible rest stops along your route, it’s best to think ahead. That means making decisions about the vehicle you’ll take, where you’ll stay and when and where you’ll stop.

“[I approach a road trip] the same way I figured out how to fly somewhere alone: you carve it into steps and then do it,” says Chad Waligura, an avid outdoorsman and hunter who co-hosts “Able Outdoors,” a show that promotes enjoying the outdoors and hunting for people of all abilities. “If it’s a big trip, I plan to break it up into two days or more. And always get out of the vehicle for an hour for lunch.” 

Waligura knows the toll long hours in a vehicle can take on your skin, so he recommends always traveling with gel or memory foam cushion. 

Kerri Knudson, an NSM client and avid traveler, suggests doing a little research to find the best places to stop on your route before you leave. 

“I try to plan out my stops as best I can,” she says. “Where are the accessible bathrooms? If it’s a rest stop, not all rest stops have accessible bathrooms or they may be out of order. You want to make sure that you plan for stops that have multiple bathrooms so you’re not just counting on that one stall that may or may not be working.” 

It’s also important to plan ahead when it comes to hotels, Knudson and Waligura say. While Waligura enjoys living on the edge every once in a while—”Sometimes I see how far we get and then I’ll find a hotel an hour or so before we want to stop”—both say it’s helpful to make the decision about where you’re going to stay before you get to your destination. 

“I typically like to stay in places that are very central to what I want to see or do,” Knudson says. “That means looking for accessible rooms, but also calling multiple times to confirm and asking questions about needs you may have.”