When spinal degeneration left Debbie North using a wheelchair, cut off from the British outdoors she loved, she channelled her rage and frustration into writing. A 2011 blog post gained attention and showed Debbie that travel writing could become a force for change.
In 2015, she and her husband Andy traversed England from St Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay, creating their own accessible version of legendary guidebook author Alan Wainwright’s Coast to Coast route, with Debbie travelling in a TerrainHopper all-terrain wheelchair. The journey resulted in her first book, In the Spirit of Wainwright, published by Sigma Press. Since then, Debbie has co-written Walks Without Stiles, written North Yorkshire Accessible Walks for All and, most recently, Access Adventure for Bloomsbury. She has written regularly for BBC Countryfile Magazine and reported on accessible travel much further afield, including wheelchair adventures in Berlin, Norway and Sri Lanka.
On today’s episode of the Travel Writing Podcast, Debbie shares the realities of travel as a wheelchair user, the power of travel writing to effect change, and gives an honest read on where the world is at right now on its journey to make travel accessible. Listen here or find the Travel Writing Podcast on Spotify or iTunes.
Learn more about Debbie at https://www.debbienorth.org, and her charity Access the Dales at https://access-the-dales.com
