Candy Harrington

As a travel writer for over 20 years, Candy Harrington had an epiphany back in 1996. “I was tired of writing fluff,” she recalls. “After all who really cares about thread count anyway?” A friend suggested that she cover accessible travel — which was a truly underserved niche back then — and Candy took that suggestion and ran with it. To be honest, most of her colleagues thought she was a few fries short of a Happy Meal for making the change, but that didn’t stop Candy. Although she knew absolutely nothing about accessible travel or even disability in the beginning, as a journalist Candy knew how to research, interview and write, so that’s exactly what she did.

Shortly thereafter she founded Emerging Horizons — a travel resource for wheelchair-users and slow walkers — with her husband and photographer Charles Pannell. Today Harrington has thousands of accessible travel bylines to her credit, is the author of a sizable library of accessible travel titles, and continues to maintain the advertising-free Emerging Horizons website. Says Harrington, “We feel Emerging Horizons should offer unbiased accessible travel information, and we can’t very well do that if we take advertising dollars from cruise lines or tour operators who may not be accessible.”

Candy is also a frequent speaker about accessible travel issues, and maintains her popular Barrier-Free Travel Blog at www.barrierfreetravels.com. And when she and Charles aren’t on the road ferreting out new accessible travel finds, they both enjoy the peace and quiet of their mountain home in the Sierras.

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