Glyn Evans has been on 30 trips with the same travel company, but he can still pinpoint the moment that stands out as his favorite.
During a trip to Las Vegas, he served as best man for a couple on the same tour who got married on a whim.
Yet unlike most weddings, the bride and groom were visually impaired, said Evans, who is based in Lincolnshire, U.K.
For 25 years, Evans has traveled with a tour company called Traveleyes, which organizes trips for blind and visually impaired people. Tours also include an equal number of travelers who can see. In exchange for discounts — sometimes as much as 40% — travelers like Evans help their companions by describing the details of the trip, from planned activities to assisting them in ordering food.
“We hired a chapel, and I helped the bride choose a wedding dress. It was just the best experience,” said Evans.
From volunteering to traveling
Trips on Traveleyes resemble those on any other travel website. Travelers can go white water rafting in Costa Rica, take a safari in Eswatini and hike up a volcano in Spain. Some trips include activities like bungee jumping, skydiving, skiing, snorkeling and pizza-making.
For Evans, who has long volunteered with blind people, traveling with them was a natural next step. He met the company’s founder, Amar Latif, through his work in the blind community, and he called it an obvious decision to join TravelEyes’ first tour as a sighted guest, he told CNBC Travel.
Latif went blind at the age of 18 as the result of a hereditary condition and founded Traveleyes in 2004, he said, when he was 36.
Evans and his partner, Caroline, now regularly join Traveleyes tours and have been to Canada, Sri Lanka and South Africa with the company, he said.
Latif and Evan, in San Francisco.
Source: Glyn Evans
Sometimes, trips come with sensory experiences that other travelers don’t normally have. Evans said he and his fellow Traveleyes travelers were allowed to feed lions on safari, an experience he said he’ll never forget.
Visually impaired travelers, or “VIPS” as they’re known at TravelEyes, can also touch relics from Incan artifacts in Peru to the Terracotta Warriors near Xi’an, China.
But Evans said his favorite part of a Traveleyes trip isn’t the activities or the discount — it’s the friendships made.
“The best part is in the evening, when we’re sitting around having a drink and chatting. You get to know people you’d never have a chance to meet in your daily life. It’s given me a lot of happiness,” he said.
Different levels of detail
Evans said he and Caroline keep in touch with many fellow travelers. They once threw a seven-course dinner party for 12 of their Traveleyes friends who traveled from all over the U.K. Evans and Caroline picked them up from the train station and they stayed the night, he said.
Evans now has a lot of experience in what it takes to guide blind travelers on vacation, whether it’s hiking through nature reserves or a day of big city sightseeing. He has learned that people want different things from their trips.
Visually impaired skiers often ski with a guide or helper and wear vests to alert other skiers of their condition.
Mikki Ansin | Archive Photos | Getty Images
“Some people want to know every single detail about where we are, and other people just really aren’t bothered about any details,” he said.
Some prefer to chat about the latest soccer match, said Evans.
“If we’re going around a church, I will say to the person, ‘Do you want more information, or less information – or do you just want to talk about Arsenal?'”
An equal relationship
Traveleyes founder Latif said he founded the company after he was turned away by conventional tour operators. They told him that he could only join with a caregiver, and even then he wouldn’t be able to participate in activities like cycling, skiing or hiking, despite being fit and independent, he said.
He said the relationship between his company’s travelers — those who can see and those who can’t — is based on equality.
“We’re all on an equal footing. We’re all having a great holiday,” he said. “The sighted folk are not to be carers. Yes, they will guide and be the eyes and describe things, and in return, they receive a discount, but they are also on holiday. It’s so important that our sighted travelers are enjoying it, because ultimately, if they’re not there, then we can’t offer a holiday to blind travelers.”
Evans helps a visually impaired traveler paraglide on a trip to Tunisia organized by TravelEyes.
Source: Glyn Evans
Traveleyes’ guests don’t need any previous experience with blind people, Latif said.
“There’s a video on YouTube that I’ve done about how to guide, and our tour managers do guide training as well,” he said. “But each VIP likes to be guided in a different way. It’s all about communication. It can be, initially, a bit nerve-wracking, but within half an hour, you forget about the blindness.”
Sighted travelers are expected to describe what they see, but they do not function as caregivers, said Latif. “Travelers that book on the trips are able to be independent — they’ve packed their bags, they can get dressed, and they can be responsible for themselves.”
Traveling with blind people also allows others to see the world in a different way, Latif said.
Latif and Evans take a mud bath during a trip to Turkey.
Source: Amar Latif
“We live in a world where people are always taking pictures and moving on. But when you’re in front of something amazing, you are having to engage with it, by bringing it to life to your VIP, so you actually end up with more meaningful and vivid memories of your holiday experiences,” he said.
The experience can also inspire people in their own lives and future trips, he said.
“Our sighted travelers also genuinely get really inspired because they see that the VIPs can’t see, but they’re halfway across the world without their friends and family, and it makes them see their life in a different way.”
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