Life in the Blurry Lane

How to Explore a New Place Alone with a Visual Impairment

Aoife is walking down a road with grsy fields on either ide. The sun in setting in the background causing a bright orange and pale blue sky. the dark outline of trees can also be seen in the background. Aoife is wearing a black jumper, grey trousers and white runners

Over the last few weeks, I’ve spent a bit of time exploring places on my own. I went into Zurich city, visited Wilhelma Zoo in Stuttgart and completed the Marburg800 Discovery Trail. At home in Ireland, I am very independent and regularly go it alone […]

Travel Itinerary and Reviews Part 5 – Cannobio, Italy and Zurich, Switzerland

A view over Lake Zurich of blue water, blue skies and mountains in the background. The tops of houses and buildings can be seen in the foreground

The time has come, I finally get to award an accessibility score of 5! I wondered if this day would ever come, and to my delight it has! This weeks blog post is about a couple of nights in Cannobio Italy and our 2.5 week […]

My Guide to Making your Devices Visual Impairment Friendly

A black and grey laptop is sitting on a wooden table with a black chair pushed in against it. The laptop screen is bright blue and is zoomed in to show a large start button and large icons. A white water bottle is sitting to the left and a pink mouse is to the right.

Technology and its advances have been a huge enabler for me. Everything from big fonts, to Google Maps to in built magnification has made my day to day life so much more accessible. In this post I talk through the accessibility settings I use on […]

How we built an accessible campervan

This image shows a small rectangular window in the side of the van. The window has a cream frame and the black out blind is pulled halfway down. Flowery bunting and small orb lights can be seen above

Converting a van into a camper is not an easy task, and is made a little bit more complicated when you have to consider any reasonable accommodations needed. We started our conversion journey in April 2021, when we bought Vanessa the Ford Transit Custom. The […]

Travel Itinerary and Reviews Part 4: Italy – Courmayeur, Varese, Carnate and Monza

A view out of the back doors of the van. The doors are wide open showing grey mountains and blue skies up close. There is a hanging potted plant in a macrame pot holder in the middle of the doors. A floral covered pillow is at the bottom of the picture

It is very nearly 2 months since we left Ireland and our apartment for 10 months in a van, which is incredibly hard to believe. Its like we’ve simultaneously been away for ages and for no time at all. Here are weeks 7 and 8 […]

Top 5 Essential Items for Living in a Van with a Visual Impairment

Aoife is hiking in the mountains. She is wearing black shorts, a pink long sleeved top, a navy cap, hiking boots and sunglasses. She is carrying a green hiking pole. She is standing on a narrow path overlooking a valley with tall mountains in the background and a blue sky above.

There are many, many items in our van that I could not live without. Our coffee pot, my nice shampoo, a comfy bed, good outdoor chairs – I could go on and on! All of these items make life a bit comfier, but don’t necessarily […]

Travel Itinerary and Reviews Part 3: France – Sisteron, Grenoble and Annecy

A blue river is running through the middle of this picture with a bright blue sky in the background. There are mountainside buildings on the right and mountains visible in the background

Weeks 5 and 6 of our France travel Itinerary and accessibility blog are here. Despite what my last post said, we are still in France and have no plans to go to Geneva just yet. We did make it to the French Alps which are […]

Reflecting on my first month of Life in the Blurry Lane

Aoife is standing side on to the camera wearing a blue denim dress and carrying a gold net bag with a baguette sticking out the top. The background shows a narrow road with Parisian buildings on both sides the Eifel tower is visible in the background under a bright blue sky

Its been 32 days since we left Ireland to begin our adventure of a lifetime, 56 days since I started @lifeintheblurrylane on Instagram and 27 days since I launched this blog. Its been a journey, both a literal one as we tour France and a philosophical one as I explore and share more about me, my albinism and my experiences of accessibility while travelling. It therefore feels timely to reflect on the first month or so of documenting vanlife with a visual impairment.

Travel Itinerary and Reviews Part 2: France – Beaune, Lyon, Cassis, Saint Raphael and Fréjus

An image looking over a harbour. There is a white sail boat in the mid ground. On the left, an outline of a cliff face can be seen. The water is dark blue, and the sky is a lighter blue. The picture is taken at dusk.

We’ve made it to weeks 3 and 4 of our tour in Europe, and we’re still in France. Since leaving Paris, we hit up Beaune, Lyon, Cassis, Saint Raphael and Fréjus, so we’ve been busy! Lets get straight to it. Highlights and lowlights Highlights We […]

Travel Itinerary and Reviews Part 1: France – Omaha Beach, Maisons-Laffitte, Paris and Disneyland Paris

A pale brown dirt road is flanked by green grass on both sides. The sky above is bright blue. Black bike handlebars with a bell can be seen in the bottom right

We have arrived! Our Grand European Tour has finally begun and this is the first travel itinerary and campsite accessibility review. I’m going to write these in two week blocks so I can give a good bit of detail without making the posts into a […]