A disabled mum and teacher from Greater Manchester has created a new travel accessibility platform after years of struggling to find the information she actually needed before booking a holiday.
Jacqueline Manning, founder of GoTripAble, was born with a dislocated right hip and had several procedures as a child, including frog leg plaster, open reduction and later a bone graft. She was left with a hypoplastic hip, an underdeveloped femur and a leg length difference. At 24, after going to university and qualifying as a teacher, she needed a total hip replacement.
Although the hip replacement helped, Jacqueline still has long-term difficulties with her gait, balance, pain and mobility. Her right leg is also still shorter than her left. For years, this made booking holidays much harder than simply choosing somewhere that looked nice online.
She said: “I love holidays, but I kept finding that the information I really needed was either vague, hidden away or missing completely. A place can look perfect on a booking site, but that does not tell you whether the pavements are uneven, whether the resort is on a hill, whether there are toilets nearby or whether getting around will leave you exhausted.”
The problem became even more complicated after Jacqueline became a mum. She now has to think about her own mobility and pain levels while also travelling with a six-year-old and a three-year-old.
She said: “Once I had children, holiday planning became even more of a puzzle. I was not just asking, ‘Can I manage this place?’ I was asking, ‘Can I manage this place with young children, a buggy, toilet stops, tired legs and all the normal chaos that comes with family travel?’ It felt like hunting for a needle in a haystack every time.”
Jacqueline created GoTripAble to bring more of this practical information together in one place. The platform looks at things such as terrain, walkability, heat, toilet access, local transport, family practicality and other details that can make a destination feel manageable or difficult.
She has also created GoTripAble Pro for travel agents and travel professionals who want to support clients with accessibility, mobility, health, sensory or family-related travel needs.
Jacqueline said: “This is not about telling people where they can or cannot go. It is about giving people better information before they spend hundreds or thousands of pounds. Accessibility is not one-size-fits-all. Someone who uses a wheelchair, someone with chronic pain, someone with IBS, someone who struggles with heat, a parent with a buggy and someone with balance issues may all need different information.”
She believes that many travellers are still expected to do too much of the difficult research themselves before booking.
She said: “Holiday websites are very good at showing pools, sunsets and breakfast buffets. They are not always good at telling you whether the pavements are broken, whether the resort is steep, whether public toilets are easy to find or whether the local area will be manageable after a long day travelling.
“For some people, those details are not minor extras. They are the difference between a holiday that feels exciting and one that becomes stressful before it has even started.”
GoTripAble has been built to help travellers and professionals find clearer, more practical destination information before a trip is booked.
Jacqueline added: “Disabled people, people with health conditions and families are often expected to do hours of detective work before booking a holiday. I wanted to build something that made that easier, because I was tired of having to piece it all together myself, or with the help of my husband who would then have to second guess my needs.”
