For people with low vision, travel can be a feast for the other senses.
But why look at pictures of giraffes, Lemay thought, when the real thing is more indelible?
Do you think, even if you couldnt see, youd be able to enjoy a place like this?
For blind travelers, the world reveals itself in ways that go far beyond the visual.Credit:Illustration by Vicki Ling
I am constantly asked…what is the use of traveling to one who cannot see?
Holman wrote in his memoirs.
Mona Minkara, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Northeastern University, has been blind from childhood.
The videos offer a rare and visceral look at how a blind person travels independently.
Im a curious person, she told me.
I explore the world through my science, and I also do it by traveling.
Like Holman, Minkara sees her blindness as a motivator to engage more deeply with the places she visits.
We live in the age of Instagram, she said.
People are always snapping pictures, posting shots of a mountainbut what differentiates one mountain from another?
Honestly, its the stories.
My guide dog has been to thirteen countries, he told me, and hes been to around 30.
But he also revels in his other senses.
Ive touched millions of dollars worth of gold and silver, he said with pride.
Three-thousand-year-old currency; blocks of silver; beaver skin; everything anyone has ever paid with.
