India with a Disability: Get a Great Tour Company

[Anna York]

Get a Great Tour Company, Not Necessarily an Expensive One!

If you have a disability, you need to get a great tour company that will fulfill you special needs, no matter how challenging they are and how exotic your destinations.

Your initial investigations to find a tour company will yield some very expensive options, which are tempting when you feel uncertain about your ability to navigate strange places with a disability. My main goal was just to be sure someone would take good care of me and my needs, and I thought we would have to pay a high price. Fortunately, friends in India suggested Tamarind, an Indian tour company that gave us fantastic service and was half as expensive as British and American counterparts. Tamarind is a huge Indian company that contracts with many smaller ones, providing a pool of excellent guides, drivers and cars. Since they are probably providing service for the foreign companies as well, you might as well get the lower rate. I corresponded by e-mail with a tour company in Pune and worked everything out quite well. Above, our fabulous Delhi guide, Anil, was up to any task, even breaking up a traffic jam in Old Delhi.

Be very clear and detailed about your needs. Letting your agent know what you require will help assure a safe travel experience. Since the quality of hotels varies widely, it is a good idea to insist on five-star hotels and to ask for accessible rooms. Four-star hotels and older hotels may not have safety features such as grab bars.

Allow extra time for every attraction. We found that two nights was better than the usual one night in each city. Touring in India can create an exhausting sensory overload from the large numbers of people and the wild, congested traffic. It’s better to have time to really enjoy what you do see rather than pack too much in and not enjoy anything. In some places, such as the large cities of Delhi and Mumbai, there is so much to see that you may want to put down roots for a few days, take it easy, and enjoy a few sights each day with some shopping excursions to spice things up. At the end of the day it’s great to have the comfort of a good hotel, good food, and reliable service. Of course slowing it down can significantly increase your expenses, so you have to strike a balance that is good for you. Some cities, such as Agra, are not tourist towns and are not worth staying except to see the main attractions.

 Your tour company agent will be able to offer a lot of good advice, but ultimately it will be up to you to make final decisions about what you want to do and actually can do. Thus, it is necessary, even with the best agents, to probe and meticulously check all details.

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