Hello Everyone,

Welcome to The Invisible Vision Project’s blog.

About two weeks ago, I went on a tour with my family to the United States of America, the planned trip went from July 23^rd to the 27^th. In this tour, we visited four cities: Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington D.C. It has been my first time experience traveling to another country, and on vacation in a long time! Generally, it went fairly well, the trip was well planned; and as a tourist, I was able to see and experience a lot. So, I enjoyed it very much.

However, despite that it was a fairly good travel experience for me, I had so much fun and also did a little shopping. But, there were also some problems, and one of them being that it was too tiring! In a total of 5 days, 4nights sightseeing 4 cities. We get up at 5am each day just so we could leave the hotel by 6; we’d be outside for about 12-14 hours touring 4-5 sightseeing spots. However, with the exception of the first and the last day because the majority of hours were spent on route.

Traveling is always nice and exciting, but it can also be stressful, sometimes. The stress of traveling for someone with a visual impairment is almost unavoidable: the discomfort of constantly being in unfamiliar places, crowded places, loud noises can create stress on any one. I remembered the first evening when arriving in Boston in Quincy Market, the environment was very crowded, with a lot of people, and also loud noises, people shouting, music playing, etc. Somehow, I wished that I could just go home instead. And, on the third day when we were in New York City, which has been a city that I always wanted to travel to and I even dreamt of living in. But in truth, I was kind of disappointed. New York City, especially Manhattan, was too crowded-way TOO MANY people! People in bigger cities, especially working-age people would often walk as if they are always in a hurry; they are less likely to care about their surroundings or of other people. Many times, I almost bumped into people. People don’t seem to notice me or even the fact that I have a White Cane, because they are too busy walking and getting on with their own lives.

Also, another incident happened that nearly made me lose my temper. I was in a crowded elevator, holding my cane in one hand, and my wheeled luggage in another. When it was time to get out of the elevator, there was a man with a slightly larger luggage, as I was walking out of the elevator, my luggage got stuck, and I was hoping the man could make some room for me to wheel out my luggage before the elevator door closes, but he didn’t! I was afraid the elevator door would close at any moment, so I lifted up my luggage a little higher so I could get it out, and I was already impatient, and there were many people in and out of the elevator, there was no one there lending me a helping hand. In the end, I stumped my way out.

However, despite the little ‘challenges’ that I faced during this trip, I’ve come to realize a few issues: One is that I am more suitable to stay in small cities or towns, because people in smaller cities are more considerate and caring for others. And two, letting people to pay attention to me because I am visually impaired is not wrong; but rather, the ignorant of people who are not considerate of others are the wrong ones.

To conclude, overall, I had a wonderful time in the US, and I wish I could have more vacations and travels like this. Just because I live with a visual impairment, it doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have vacation, or travel to explore new places. Everyone sees the world in a different and unique way.

Thank you for reading to the end!

By: The Invisible Vision Project