Independent Travel for Visually Impaired

By

A new commercial air operator has launched, offering those with impaired sight the possibility of independent world travel.

Set up by Amar Latif, Traveleyes aims to provide blind people the experience of world travel by offering trips to both sighted and visually impaired individuals. The visually impaired and sighted travellers’ journey together in a mutual independence, with the sighted traveller acting as the ‘eyes’ for the blind traveller.

The company was established in 2005 and offers holidays in Cuba, Canada, Italy, Spain, America, Africa and Asia. Activities can include sky diving, hiking and kayaking, cookery courses. Latif is also working on a ‘walking with lions’ safari in South Africa for 2008.

Traveleyes also exclusively offers its blind travellers the world’s first accessible electronic versions of the Lonely Planet travel guides.

Latif, who has only 5% of his sight remaining and is registered blind due to an inherited eye condition, has always enjoyed independent world travel. By the age of 20, he had decided he would never let this deter him from living the fullest and most ambitious of lives.

“From an early age I always suspected there was a stunningly beautiful, diverse, fragrant and musical world waiting out there that’s just aching to be touched, tasted, tried, tested, plunged into and explored,” says Latif.

“At Traveleyes we have a determination to make a difference, to break through boundaries, remove restrictions and indeed to ‘Open Skies’ especially for people for whom skies and opportunities were often closed.”

Amar wants to create Traveleyes programmes for Corporations asking them to sponsor and support their employees to become involved with Traveleyes holidays groups as ‘eyes’ for the blind travellers.