Disabled Holidays Accessible Holidays Self Drive Tours

Have a look at the pre-planned tours to see if any are suitable. If not then e-mail us with your requirements through our Contact Us page. Please include:

Tour length in days
Your special Interest or Hobby
Any particular places that you would like to include
How many in your party
What standard of accommodation you would require
Details of any disability using the ‘National Access Scheme’ guide and any other relevant details that you think are appropriate – please remember that this is a confidential service.
Any other information that would aid building a suitable tour
Don’t forget to take a look at our Satnav offer

We will e-mail you back with a quote for the tour along with a brief outline of an itinerary, based on the information that you give us. If you require any changes then you can either e-mail or call for a chat and then, if you wish us to continue and produce the full details of the tour, just go to the ‘Secure Payment Page’ and complete the secure payment. We will then complete the Full Tour Itinerary and when completed e-mail you to give you access to download the tour from the secure area of our website.

How do we keep the cost down for you?

Well throughout the Britishtourplans website you will see links for Airlines, Travel Insurance, Car Rental, Hotels and even Satellite Navigation Units all of which offer you the best possible price and service that we are happy with. To tour here in Britain, you are going to book these services anyway and all we ask is that you book them through the links on the Britishtourplans website or through the links in the tour download pages.

Why? You get a good deal from booking online and it does not cost you any extra and each booking made through our link will earn us a tiny (and I do mean tiny!) commission. This is how we manage to offer you such high quality tour itineraries at such a low cost.

And YES, You can still book through us even if you are not buying one of our tours, just click on the link.

Disabled Holidays Accessible Holidays

British Tour Plans offer you, the independent traveller, self drive tours of England, Scotland and Wales in the form of a downloadable Tourplan which is sent to your computer in PDF format within minutes so that you can have all the information at your fingertips either in electronic form or just print off as many copies of the tour as you need.
Uniquely, British Tour Plans try to offer the same tour opportunities to people with disabilities and disabled people needing wheelchair access. We have a positive attitude to disabilities and disabled travel. To this end with disabilities, wheelchair access and disabled travel, it is the attention to detail that counts.

Every disabled traveller has different disabled travel needs. Our aim is to make your tour of Great Britain as comfortable and as easy as possible so that you make the most of your time over here.

Your Tourplan comes with full itinerary, turn by turn driving directions, maps and route planner. We give you a “virtual host” to make the most of your self drive tour of England, Scotland and Wales with full details of all the sightseeing along the way and at each destination. It’s just like a tour guide beside you on your tour, whether it’s the disabled person driving or a carer or companion.

Several years ago, legislation was introduced in the UK to ensure that disabled access improved dramatically and now all public buildings, shops, hotels and restaurants must have disabled access and facilities.

There is a standard system used to grade disabilities and accessibility and this is shown in the table below.
All our tours have a section describing the access at each of the attractions and places that the tour visits to give an indication of any difficulty that may be encountered. Most places are excellent and really do their best but ……. And there is always a but …. Quite a few of the sights that we visit are very very old and wheelchairs weren’t around when William the Conquerer invaded us in 1066 and he just didn’t have the foresight to put lifts into the castles that he built to provide better access 900 years later.

All accommodation must now have disabled access. Some places inevitably provide better and more comprehensive facilities than others. The basics would be rooms on the ground floor to avoid having to use stairs, widened doors for wheelchair access, handrails and some other specialised fittings for the bathroom and toilet. Other establishments will go far beyond the basics and provide roll-in / roll-out showers, lifting facilities and some will even provide carers and nurses.
If you require that level of care then we would suggest contacting the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation. (R.A.D.A.R.) – who produce a publication entitled “Where to stay – a guide to accessible hotels in the UK and Ireland” which gives fantastic detail on these matters. Their website is www.radar.org.uk . You may also find the publications “Easy Access Britain” and “Britain’s Accessible places to stay” to be very usefull. Both are published by VisitBritain and their website is at www.visitbritain.com .
We have a range of tours that vary in length from 3 to 12 days and each tour is easily extended – in fact one couple extended the 12 day tour to 6 weeks by doing things at a very relaxed pace, spending more time at each of the “overnight” stops and doing everything that we list to extend the tour if you have more time.

British Tour Plans have years of experience in self drive tours that we share with you to not only save you time doing the research yourself but to give you the confidence that as you travel through England, Scotland and Wales, you are not going to miss something along the way.

If you are concerned about driving here in the UK, we have produced a driving Guide which we include free with every Tourplan and if you click on the link on our “Home” page you will see just how our roundabouts work. Most car rental companies will provide basic hand controls for disabled drivers with advanced notice but of course it’s not always the disabled person that is going to drive anyway. The UK also runs a ‘Blue Badge’ parking scheme for disabled drivers and passengers and there is even a scheme in most cities to rent electric wheelchairs for the day whilst parking in the same place – the Shopmobility Scheme.

As a proud Englishman, I am passionate about Britain and I want to share my enthusiasm and experience of my country with you and offer support to ensure that you enjoy your self drive tour – when you go home, I want you to be as enthusiastic about England, Scotland and Wales as I am.
Subscribe now – it’s free – to our Newsletter and you can download the 3 Day Tourplan with my compliments … it is our shortest tour and will serve to illustrate just what you get when you buy the one that suits you best.

So, visit “The Tours” page and browse the tours that we offer. Some of the tours are themed with a ‘special interest’ , others are more general.

Choose a suitable tour, pay securely with your credit card and download the whole tourplan directly to your computer to save and printout as many copies as you need.

You can then book everything that you need on-line through our website – everything from travel insurance, hotels of all standards to suit your budget, car hire, even travel passes to get into attractions free … everything is here for your convenience…………… and what will your friends, colleagues and even family say when you tell them that you are going to tour the UK !!

National Accessible Scheme
Please check specific requirements at the time of booking

Typically suitable for a person with sufficient mobility to climb a flight of steps but would benefit from fixtures and fittings to aid balance.

Typically suitable for a person with restricted walking ability and for those that may need to use a wheelchair some of the time.

Typically suitable for a person who depends on the use of a wheelchair and transfers unaided to and from a wheelchair in a seated position.

Typically suitable for a person who depends on the use of a wheelchair and transfers to and from the wheelchair in a seated position. They also require personal / mechanical assistance to aid transfer eg. carer / host.

Let us know at Britishtourplans what your disabilities and wheelchair access needs are and we will do our best to take these into account. If it is possible to help organise your disabled vacation, then our answer will be YES.