When the family wasn’t using the home, they rented it out via short-term rental platforms to help cover the cost of construction and maintenance. I spend the summers and a lot of the year at the beach house, as much as I can, until my boys, my cats, or my husband say, ‘Hey, come home,’” Lorraine said. They named it A Place of No Worries.Īt first, Lorraine simply relished the experience of getting away and visiting the sandy beach and rushing waves. So, she decided to do something about it: She built her own vacation home with wide doors, zero thresholds, an elevator, hospital bed, and roll-in shower in the small town of Carolina Beach, North Carolina. “My oldest, Nathan, was graduating from high school, and I thought, I don’t want my boys not to vacation,” she recounted. Trying to keep Lorraine and the two boys safe also was hard on her husband, Robert.īut as the boys got older, Lorraine couldn’t keep living with the status quo. The family rarely traveled away from their home in Raleigh, North Carolina, because of the difficulty in finding accessible lodging. Lorraine Woodward and her two sons, Nathan, 26, and Alexander, 24, all have muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that causes progressive muscle degeneration and weakness. For the Woodward family and thousands like theirs, it was a matter of finding accommodations and destinations that were safe and wheelchair-accessible. That experience marked the beginning of many years without a family vacation.įor many families, going on vacation is a matter of finding room in the budget and on the calendar. My husband was at the corner, and he was freaking out, going, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and I said, ‘We’re okay, we’re okay stay calm.’ He wouldn’t walk with us until we got over to the other side.” “The boys each were in their scooters, and I was in my wheelchair, and we were crossing Times Square. “I remember a trip to New York City,” Lorraine Woodward said. For Lorraine Woodward, the barrier to taking a family vacation was finding a wheelchair accessible vacation rental.
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