In search of adventure, Andrew Shelley rides a long-tail boat to an island in Phuket, Thailand.
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y age 29, Andrew Shelley had secured himself a solid education and a plum job as a systems engineer for an advanced technology corporation. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing in his life: adventure. Defying his degenerative muscular disease, his 90-pound body and the skepticism of his own family, Shelley clocked out of his occupation for good and set off to see the world, exploring New Zealand, Cambodia, Thailand, India and Dubai in a Frontier X5 all-terrain power wheelchair from Magic Mobility and Innovation in Motion. Now at age 31, Shelley is rolling his documentary film, Beyond the Chair, into the festival circuit. ABILITY’s David Radcliff met with Shelley along with filmmakers Dusty Duprel and Rachel Pandza to discuss their remarkable journey. David Radcliff: Drew, this film seems particularly epic in the sense that you were feeling frustrated with your own body and your limitations and just decided to pack up and travel the world. How did you even come to that decision? Andrew Shelley: I have muscular dystrophy, which is a progressive wasting away of the muscles. So I had gotten to a point where I couldn’t walk anymore and needed a power chair. I really didn’t want one, and I kept putting it off. But once I finally did get it, I realized, “Wow, I can go everywhere! This thing could really take me around the world!” Radcliff: That must’ve been pretty liberating.
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Shelley: Yeah. I was at a point at which I really wanted more out of my life. I was tired of doing the same thing every day, and I knew I wasn’t going where I wanted to, so I quit my job and said, “I’m gonna get out of here.” Radcliff: And you’re surprisingly non-chalant about that decision. In the film, your mom just says, “Andrew called me up and said he was going to travel around the world.” It was really that simple? Rachel Pandza: Well, I think his mom was pretty freaked out at first. Shelley: She and her friend had this crazy idea that they’d follow me and be in all the same cities that I’d be in, maybe meet up once a day or if I needed anything. But I thought, “no thanks.” Because the whole purpose of these things is to get away from your parents—to figure it out for yourself. Dusty Duprel: I was Drew’s roommate, so I think Drew’s parents had assumed we were going along with him to help him travel. They’d say, “I’m sure he’ll be fine because he’s with his crew.” But anytime we’d explain that we weren’t there to help Drew, just to observe, either they didn’t want to hear us or they pretended not to. Radcliff: And what was your feeling, Drew, about having a crew around? It’s not exactly as if you were going out there with strangers. These are friends of yours.