TURISMO SENZA BARRIERE
This Italian accessible champion won third place in the category accessible accommodation.
The Accessible Travel Foundation raises awareness on the importance of accessible travel. Every other year the Awards of Excellence are given to companies, non-profits, travelers and others who stand out from the crowd when it comes to raising awareness or contributing to the world of accessible travel.
Located in Saonara, a small Italian town in the northeast, near the cities of Padua and Venice, this accommodation celebrates over 8 years of hospitality.
What is Insolito Posto?
L’Insolito Posto is an accommodation facility completely free of both physical and sensory barriers, managed in collaboration with young people with disabilities and/or disadvantages. L’Insolito Posto is one of many services provided by the social cooperative Il Glicine, which has been offering support services for people with disabilities since 1999.
All proceeds from L’Insolito Posto are reinvested in services for people with disabilities or those in need.
When did you start your work and why?
We started in 2023, and the idea was born out of a challenge: to prove that if you truly want to, you can. In fact, our cooperative had no prior experience in hospitality, but we had the strong desire to offer a completely accessible hotel. We wanted to show that it is human will alone that creates barriers.
Tell us a bit about your city and how do you experience it accessibility wise?
L’Insolito Posto is located in a small town of 10,000 inhabitants, just 7 km from the city of Padua.
Padua suffers from a shortage of accommodation and completely lacks accessible lodging facilities.
There is no map of accessible tourist sites — and even less so of accessible accommodations or places simply suited for shopping.
What is your favorite accessible destination?
The art cities (Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan).
If you could spend 1 million on improving accessibility in your country, what would you do?
I would invest in research aimed at creating a complete and detailed map providing all the information a traveler with disabilities might need: where to stay and where to eat, including price ranges and available services; where to shop; and how to get around.
What would you like to share with our followers?
The idea is that we don’t need “different” facilities, but facilities designed for everyone. Too often, an exclusive location ends up being exclusive in every sense.
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