Overview

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At Healism.com, we don’t just view travel as a luxury; we consider it a right.  If you want to see the Great Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower, or the Amazon wilderness, it’s not for us or anyone else to stop you.  This is especially true if you plan to combine your travels with much needed medical attention.  There’s no reason why you should be locked into domestic healthcare systems that provide you with inadequate or unaffordable care. 

Unfortunately, traveling with a disability can sometimes limit your options when you go abroad.  Many parts of India are completely inaccessible by wheelchair.  Using a seeing-eye dog in Bangkok is risky, given the sheer number of wild “soi dogs.”  And those who suffer from hearing loss have little use for pen and paper in countries that use different alphabets (can you write "where is the bathroom" in Chinese? 哪里是浴室). 

The landscape is changing, however.  Taking cues from the United States, many medical tourism countries are becoming more sensitive to the needs of the disabled.  This, of course, only makes sense given the very nature of the industry.  A growing percentage of medical tourists require mobility, visual, or hearing assistance.  And this number will only increase as baby boomers begin retiring in larger numbers. 

Even with this changing trend, careful preparation and consideration are necessary.  Travelers who suffer from limited mobility, vision impairment, hearing impairment, or debilitating medical conditions should read through the following pages carefully before setting up a medical tourism vacation.  Fortunately, there exists a growing body of free and easily accessible literature surrounding disabled travel.  We have included relevant Web sites in the following sections to assist you and your loved ones with the planning stages of your upcoming medical tourism vacation.  We have also selected several useful books and guides that focus on tourism for disabled travelers.  If you’d like to jump ahead to see these guides, simply click here.