Link to...Travel and Leisure
Flynn Rigby has travel plans And people with disability are firmly in his travel sights.
F
ynn Rigby wants to make travelling in Australia easier for people with disability. Post-covid most of his trips have been with family to local places around his hometown of Cairns and the Gold Coast. Flynn and his mother Jennifer spoke to Link about the pluses and minuses when it comes to the accessibility of holiday locations. Flynn has always had a passion for travel and loves to look up hotel accommodation and sites such as Trivago and Agoda to search for various hotels. He likes to know where his friends go on holiday too and often looks up places they are visiting so he can see what they are like. He has also helped find accommodation online for several of his friends. This led to him thinking about a travel blog from his perspective of travelling
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June/July 2022
as a person with an invisible disability. His aim was to highlight what makes travel easier for him and how some places are doing so much to make travel accessible to all.
in the community and travel. He loves to read and can use maps and assistive technology, such as iPads to order room service, etc. which helps him to be more independent.
Flynn launched his travel blog ‘Everybody Deserves a Holiday’ in March, which has already caught the attention of Travengers, a NDIS registered, Australian based supported travel company, that contacted Flynn and asked him to be a part of an online conference for the Asia/Australia Pacific region on accessible travel. Flynn was more than happy to share his experiences and ideas and be an online speaker at the event that was held in May.
This 19-year-old is also a volunteer with the Salvation Army, does work experience/training part-time in a local café and has support workers helping him to build his skills to do more volunteer work and hopefully one day get paid employment.
Flynn has autism and an intellectual impairment and does need help with communication and support to get out
According to Jennifer the NDIS has assisted Flynn when it comes speech therapy, OT therapy and support work to do some volunteering in the community, but she said extra travel funding would be a great plus for him so he can take the opportunity to make trips and put the information on his blog.