Like every episode of Let’s Go Together, a podcast that celebrates diversity in travel, this week’s episode features special guests. The show has featured travelers of all shapes, sizes, skin tones and creeds, including Guro Antammo, a black female blogger who sees the world in her own way, and plus-size travelers who defy stereotypes when they travel.
This week, host Kelly Edwards, who told her own powerful story as a Black female pilot, explorer and TV host in a recent episode, welcomes Corey Lee and Hannah Gavios, travelers whose physical disabilities won’t stop them from maxing out the pages in their passports.
Cory Lee, who runs the wheelchair travel blog “Curb Free with Cory Lee,” was diagnosed with spinal muscular atrophy, a type of muscular dystrophy, at the age of 2. For him, knowing his physical abilities would eventually change as the disease progressed was what motivated him to now head out into the world.
“So that’s a big reason why I’m trying to do as much as I can now,” Lee told Edwards. “I’m more capable now than I was in 10 years. So I started traveling the world at a young age. My mom was a school teacher, and when I was little, we would use our summers to explore the United States.”
Lee began traveling internationally when he was 15 years old and hasn’t stopped traveling ever since – he has now traveled to all seven continents.
For Gavios, life with a disability began after a period of global travel. While working as a teacher in Southeast Asia, he fell 150 feet off a cliff in Thailand while fleeing an individual who was attempting to sexually assault him. After emergency spinal surgery, Gavios was diagnosed with an “incomplete spinal injury,” meaning he still has some movement below the waist.
“So when the doctor told me I’d be pretty much done recovering in six months, but not much after two years, I thought, ‘No, I’ll be fine in three or four months, I’ll be walking and running again,'” she told Edwards.
She did just that, and more: Since the accident, Gabios has run two marathons on crutches and continues to travel the world.
Throughout the episodes, Gavios and Lee talk about the realities of their situation as regular people and international travelers, from people’s misconceptions about their physical limitations to the challenges of navigating countries with different levels of accessibility.
To hear their amazing stories and powerful travel advice, listen to “Let’s Go Together” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.