kabarsula Becoming disabled didn’t stop Giselle Moor travelling the world. Here’s her message to the travel industry bandar SLOT INDONESIA

Like so many young people, Giselle Moor dreamed of travelling the world. But there was always something getting in the way: money, work, life. When a motorbike accident left her paralysed at 24, she could have abandoned that dream. Instead, she went on to backpack around the world in a wheelchair. Here, she shares her extraordinary journey and explains why adventure should be accessible to everyone.

I’m sitting on someone else’s motorbike in Vietnam. A 17-year-old takes me round all the twists and turns of the Ha Giang Loop as he points out his tiny hometown in the distance.

It’s so vast, so beautiful, I can’t catch my breath. I feel everything and nothing at the same time.

I can’t believe I’m here. In the middle of nowhere, on the back of a motorbike. I feel like I’ve conquered the world.

Because eight years ago, when I decided I wanted to travel, it did not look like this. It should not have looked like this.

But I am here.

To understand my story, I want you to meet another version of me. Because I haven’t always been disabled. I do look at what happened as a sliding door moment. Before and after. Pre and post Wheeley G.

Pre-Wheeley G. I was a riot. I loved to travel. Every single second of my annual leave was used abroad. Staying in hostels, seeing the night through to sunrise, and building connections over cheap drinks in a bar. I lived for it.

But I wanted more. Not some quick European fix. There was a deep desire to backpack and go to the edges of the world. Not a month or two, but for 365 days, a year away. That’s what I’d decided, and that was the dream.

But I was raised in a practical family. So when I said I wanted to travel, I was told to get a job instead. Save your money, get work experience, and maybe one day you’ll see the world. So I got the job, I moved to London, and the idea was sidelined for a while.

When you are young, single, and living in London, paychecks are not for plane tickets. They are for partying. So whilst I talked about the trip but did not have the budget or savings to make it happen.

Two years in, I was no closer to that dream.

I’d never understand the true cost of waiting — until it would reveal itself over the coming years.

On 18th August 2018, I fell off the back of my drag race motorbike and became disabled in the space of about 14 seconds.

Part two of my life starts.

Now, when I was in the hospital, I was told I could potentially make a full recovery. Meaning one, I thought I could walk again, and two, I had hope. This literally left me delulu about what disability meant for me.

I remember starting a blog, it was where I discovered I could write. And I named it How I Roll Round. Not for now — but because I thought it would work well when I went on my round-the-world trip. I’d been out of surgery for less than a month. Barely left the hospital. And I’m still planning to see the world. I was delusional on all fronts. It would be a blessing in disguise.

Now, when this happened, I was so resolute as a young woman. I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted. So I had a version of myself to keep coming back to. The old version of me was enough to work towards.

And I wanted to see the world. That alone was a pillar in the sand that I could keep sight of. So that when I got washed out to sea, learning how to deal with disability, I always knew where the shoreline was. And I knew where I was going back to, I was still there, and the dream was alive.

I think what is often overlooked, when it comes to acquiring a disability, is that the person didn’t change. I didn’t change.

My situation might have — but I was exactly the same person. With the same hopes, dreams, and hobbies. I still loved to travel, and I still lived for the night. I was fiercely independent, and that decade-long dream was still firmly in my sights.

That didn’t disappear because I became disabled.

In January 2022, enough was enough. I saw two very cheap flights to Peru and booked them, and we took off ten months later. Over 13 months, we travelled to 17 countries across two continents.

The trip of a lifetime.

Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and finally Australia.

This trip was everything — magical, romantic, painful. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. What I put my body through. The toll on how I thought and felt about my disability. Nervous system constantly in tension — fear, traffic, chaos. So much, all the time. But it was also beautiful, life-changing, and life-affirming.

But despite all of that, this trip wasn’t the vision I had for it. Because I waited too long.

It wasn’t supposed to be that hard. There weren’t supposed to be trade-offs. My trip wasn’t supposed to be oriented around access needs or trying to make things work. But there we were.

We are four months in. La Pampas, Bolivia.

A wetland savanna. Getting there is already an 18-hour coach through Death Road, a tuk-tuk to a car, to a boat not much bigger than a canoe. That’s our transport for three days.

We finally arrive at our hostel on stilts. Wooden panel flooring. No guardrails. Just rope between us and the black water. This hostel has two pet caimans — a small female and Pepe. The six-foot caiman who rocks up for his meals.

I’ve got a few inches on either side of my wheels on this wood. I get to my room, to breakfast, to the boat, my wheelchair skills are the difference between life and being his breakfast at this point.

But to get to the hostel is a thin plank. Jamie carries me over every time we go in and out. Piranhas live there.

That was our three days.

Access would have been better, but second to that, I needed them to trust me, to let me on board.

that we knew best, and we would make it work.

Jamie and I are party people. That’s why we went travelling, and a lot of our experiences in mainstream hostels were that not everyone understood what accessible meant.

And it was often accessible at the cost of being on a budget — or worse, being outside the backpacker lifestyle entirely.

We wanted chaos and vibes and immersion in the experience. That meant often sacrificing my accessibility needs. We’d look through photos of where we wanted to stay and decide what we could cope with and what we couldn’t.

It was a constant conversation throughout the trip.

Any type of inaccessibility meant loss of independence for me. I lost my independence for almost all of this trip. And when I became dependent, that fell on my partner. What I couldn’t do, he would have to do for two. I was the brains. He was the body. We really did have to decide where we drew the line for the price of a party. That was a bit harder when it comes to bucket list experiences.

One thing we had written off was the Ha Giang Loop. Three nights in the vast Vietnamese countryside, riding motorbikes. Remember, I’m paralysed because of a motorbike, and I swore several times that I’d never get on one again.

We don’t do motorbikes anymore.

But the longer we travelled, the more people talked about it. Everyone’s highlight. We slowly realised that we couldn’t skip it. Which meant I had to be okay with getting back on a bike. We were backpacking. And we do what backpackers do. We don’t miss out on bucket list moments.

So we spent six months renting mopeds around Asia to build up my confidence. And then we booked the tour and just turned up.

Riding a motorbike does mean logistics. I was mentally prepared to leave my chair for three days and just use crutches, which would be incredibly physically taxing, but I’d had a crack. We were told no, it couldn’t come. But Jamie, being Jamie told them that if they could carry fridges and people, a wheelchair shouldn’t be too much of a problem. We won the point and off we went.

We would choose experience over access every time. And this would turn out to be the highlight of my trip. Riding around the hills, through villages where firewood is still collected and carried on villagers’ backs. Another world entirely, and yet somehow still on the same planet.

It was there that I felt that feeling. I was terrified. My body was shaking. But if I can climb back on the very thing that took my life as I knew it from me — and ride for three days straight, my entire trust in a 17-year-old stranger, my wheelchair out of sight with someone else — I can conquer the world.

Life is big. The world is so big. And I am so small.

And that feeling was what my trip was all about. That’s what you sell. And I’m not exempt from wanting that moment.

We were willing to be told no and find a different way to do it anyway. This dream was going to be my reality no matter what.

I succeeded despite the system. It was not set up for me at all.

The world is scared of disability. We can’t hurt the already hurt. Protected at all costs — which unfortunately often means no. Not because they can’t. Because we are stuck in the weeds of what could happen and the red tape.

Since being in Australia I haven’t been allowed to skydive with my family, because they didn’t have any trained instructors where I wanted to land. I missed out on Julian Rocks because they wouldn’t take me on the boat.

I still get triggered when I’m told no. And it takes a lot for me to advocate for myself. I might not get to do everything I want — but I get to do a lot.

So what happens if you’re someone like me — but without the stubbornness or sass? Someone who closes the computer tab.

The question isn’t whether disabled people want to travel. I think I’ve answered that.

I’m just a normal woman who wanted to see the world, and I managed to make it happen.

But it shouldn’t have been that hard.

And know there are plenty of people like me who have the same dream — and they’re still waiting. Because it wasn’t easy enough to begin.

A disabled life is a beautiful life. But it can be hard and difficult. Sometimes we just need someone to say — Let’s make this easy.

Giselle has already completed four marathons and is now setting her sights on a world record. She is raising $15,000 for a new wheelchair to help her attempt a sub-four-hour marathon at the 2027 Gold Coast Marathon, aiming to become the fastest woman to complete a marathon in a non-racing wheelchair. Find out more and support her journey HERE.