I spoke at a Mobility International USA conference in Denver recently on all the topics i love to go on and on about; disability, travel, gender and mcGiver like techniques of making your wheelchair go where no man has gone. Interestingly, i realised one aspect of travel that is not often spoken of. Travel is a lonely hobby. We speak of encounters with people, places, things, monuments, cultures and religions, but they are just that: encounters. By and large, the prolific travelling population consists of loners; travellers are perpetual guests in other people lives. I believe particularly for travellers with disabilities, the experience of travel is an incredibly lonely process. And i believe it needs to be. Whether you are disabled or non-disabled, the point of travel is like any endurance sport, to push unthinkable limits and to survive completely by your own accord.
To skim the surface of countries and periodically drop into big abysses where you find yourself connecting on a profound level with different people, only to climb out again and revert to skimming, demands that you develop a self sustaining core irrespective of those around you. Its a remarkably difficult thing to do, to be this single entity moving through lives attaching and detaching.

At any rate, I'm finding it difficult at the moment to attach and involve myself in my community in northern California, after coming back home after graduating university. Finding it remarkably difficult to be directionless wanderer, ironic eh?