I can’t quite believe that this post is the last one about living fulltime in our van! Where did those nine months go?! We made the absolute most of our last week by cramming in all of our favourite things – sea, mountains, quaint towns […]
Wine tasting, mattress purchasing and very rude neighbours all make it in to this weeks blog. From Nazaré, we continued up the coast, making our way towards Porto. After a short overnight there, we headed east into the Douro wine region where we spent the […]
After our lovely couple of months in Spain, we took a detour into Portugal. Starting in Lisbon, we travelled north, partially along the N2 before veering out to the west coast. So far, Portugal is up there as one of our favourite countries to visit. […]
Travelling and exploring the world is a favourite hobby for many. Visiting new places and experiencing new cultures is a glorious way to spend your free time. However, doing this with sight loss can be intimidating, overwhelming and nerve wrecking. There are so many unknowns, […]
Its been a while – and a lot has happened since we left Tarragona. Firstly, the travel reviews and itineraries have been given a name change! Secondly, we had a wonderful Christmas in Benalmadena, followed by a visit to the monkeys in Gibraltar and New […]
Seeing as its New Years Eve and all, I thought it would be the perfect time to reflect on the most and least accessible places we’ve visited so far. We left Ireland in May and have completed 7 of our 11 month European road trip […]
Right, so full disclosure, I’m a bit behind on these posts. Between meeting family, driving around, Christmas festivities and some other bits and pieces, I’ve not had the time to sit down and write. I’m writing this from 2023, even though it will be published […]
It’s been a quiet and relaxing few weeks here in Vanessa the van. Our previous few weeks were quite busy with pet sitting and lots of driving so we needed a while just to stop and enjoy our surroundings. Our hopes of visiting Andorra were […]
I’m thrilled, honoured and incredibly humbled to have been shortlisted for an NCBI Vision Award 2022! The Vision Awards are annual awards established in 2021 to recognise individuals and organisations for their leadership and example in helping to establish a more inclusive society for people […]
We crammed some more alpacas into the last two weeks, and even added a dog, 2 cats and 4 chickens to the mix. They are unfortunately not literally crammed into the van with us. Instead we spent 5 days with them on their farm in […]
The packed title of this post is pretty representative of the last couple of weeks! Its only now that I’m reflecting on it that I realise how much we squeezed in. From an old watermill, to a cloudy mountain hike and even some alpacas (THEY’RE […]
Heavy hearted and sad is how I will leave The Netherlands. What a place! We did a good bit of travelling around to see as much as we could in the 5 weeks we’ve been here. Combine that with some dog and house sitting, we’ve […]
As human beings, we all have a set of assumptions or pre-conceived ideas about people, society or life in general. We’re human after all! However, there are times when these are harmful or misrepresent a person or a group of people. Having a visual impairment […]
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an itinerary and review and we’ve been pretty buy since we left Marburg! This post is a bit of a mixture of a few things – my first music festival, some show jumping, crossing country borders over 17 […]
Marburg – a stunning town this was, from the architecture to the accessibility to the people. I didn’t want to leave and I’ll forever want to go back. Marburg is known as a “blindenstadt” which is a town built to make life as easy as […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
Happy International Albinism Awareness Day! Since 2015, the United Nations has recognised this day as a global event, occurring on June 13th every year. This years theme is “United in making our voices heard” so this blog post and associated ramblings on Instagram will be how I’ll add my voice.
As a test run before we drove off into the European sunset, we explored the beautiful South West of Ireland. We drove around the Ring of Kerry, starting in Killarney, and then moved Glenbeg and Glenross.
As we travel around Europe and review campsites and experiences (such as tours, theme parks etc), I thought an easy way to discuss their accessibility aspects is to use a 5 point scale, 5 being the highest score a site or place can get. The […]
Eek this is my first post! I am easing myself into the world of blogging by discussing the top 5 things I have learnt from my visual impairment. It has definitely given me more, than it has taken away.
I can’t quite believe that this post is the last one about living fulltime in our van! Where did those nine months go?! We made the absolute most of our last week by cramming in all of our favourite things – sea, mountains, quaint towns […]
Wine tasting, mattress purchasing and very rude neighbours all make it in to this weeks blog. From Nazaré, we continued up the coast, making our way towards Porto. After a short overnight there, we headed east into the Douro wine region where we spent the […]
After our lovely couple of months in Spain, we took a detour into Portugal. Starting in Lisbon, we travelled north, partially along the N2 before veering out to the west coast. So far, Portugal is up there as one of our favourite countries to visit. […]
Travelling and exploring the world is a favourite hobby for many. Visiting new places and experiencing new cultures is a glorious way to spend your free time. However, doing this with sight loss can be intimidating, overwhelming and nerve wrecking. There are so many unknowns, […]
Its been a while – and a lot has happened since we left Tarragona. Firstly, the travel reviews and itineraries have been given a name change! Secondly, we had a wonderful Christmas in Benalmadena, followed by a visit to the monkeys in Gibraltar and New […]
Seeing as its New Years Eve and all, I thought it would be the perfect time to reflect on the most and least accessible places we’ve visited so far. We left Ireland in May and have completed 7 of our 11 month European road trip […]
Right, so full disclosure, I’m a bit behind on these posts. Between meeting family, driving around, Christmas festivities and some other bits and pieces, I’ve not had the time to sit down and write. I’m writing this from 2023, even though it will be published […]
It’s been a quiet and relaxing few weeks here in Vanessa the van. Our previous few weeks were quite busy with pet sitting and lots of driving so we needed a while just to stop and enjoy our surroundings. Our hopes of visiting Andorra were […]
I’m thrilled, honoured and incredibly humbled to have been shortlisted for an NCBI Vision Award 2022! The Vision Awards are annual awards established in 2021 to recognise individuals and organisations for their leadership and example in helping to establish a more inclusive society for people […]
We crammed some more alpacas into the last two weeks, and even added a dog, 2 cats and 4 chickens to the mix. They are unfortunately not literally crammed into the van with us. Instead we spent 5 days with them on their farm in […]
The packed title of this post is pretty representative of the last couple of weeks! Its only now that I’m reflecting on it that I realise how much we squeezed in. From an old watermill, to a cloudy mountain hike and even some alpacas (THEY’RE […]
Heavy hearted and sad is how I will leave The Netherlands. What a place! We did a good bit of travelling around to see as much as we could in the 5 weeks we’ve been here. Combine that with some dog and house sitting, we’ve […]
As human beings, we all have a set of assumptions or pre-conceived ideas about people, society or life in general. We’re human after all! However, there are times when these are harmful or misrepresent a person or a group of people. Having a visual impairment […]
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an itinerary and review and we’ve been pretty buy since we left Marburg! This post is a bit of a mixture of a few things – my first music festival, some show jumping, crossing country borders over 17 […]
Marburg – a stunning town this was, from the architecture to the accessibility to the people. I didn’t want to leave and I’ll forever want to go back. Marburg is known as a “blindenstadt” which is a town built to make life as easy as […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
Happy International Albinism Awareness Day! Since 2015, the United Nations has recognised this day as a global event, occurring on June 13th every year. This years theme is “United in making our voices heard” so this blog post and associated ramblings on Instagram will be how I’ll add my voice.
As a test run before we drove off into the European sunset, we explored the beautiful South West of Ireland. We drove around the Ring of Kerry, starting in Killarney, and then moved Glenbeg and Glenross.
As we travel around Europe and review campsites and experiences (such as tours, theme parks etc), I thought an easy way to discuss their accessibility aspects is to use a 5 point scale, 5 being the highest score a site or place can get. The […]
Eek this is my first post! I am easing myself into the world of blogging by discussing the top 5 things I have learnt from my visual impairment. It has definitely given me more, than it has taken away.
Hello! Welcome to Life in the Blurry lane, the place to find a whole rake of information about #vanlife with a visual impairment.