Category: Travel Diaries

Here, Donna J. Jodhan sets off in late May 2026 on a big trip to the UK and Europe: a week with friends in Birmingham and Liverpool, and then a two-week cruise with her dear friend Jilla through Scandinavia and the Baltic. From a cheeky seagull in Dunkirk and an organist practising in Haarlem’s Church of St. Bavo to Oslo, which she calls the city of flowers, she keeps a close ear on how accessible each place is.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan fulfils a long-held dream in June 2025, the Catholic Church’s Jubilee year, travelling to Lourdes with her dear friend Jilla. Along the way she spends time with her friend Angie in Birmingham, is amazed by the help she receives from staff and strangers alike on the trains to Liverpool, and reunites with old friends from her Christopher Grange days and with her cousins at the Royal Hotel in Waterloo.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan makes two lifelong dreams come true in the summer of 2024: visiting Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam and riding in a hot air balloon over the mountains of Switzerland. In between, she and her dear friend Jilla cruise down the Rhine aboard the Avalon Panorama, after a week in London with friends that includes a boat ride on the Thames and a walk through Fulham Palace and its walled garden.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan describes her October 2023 week at the Sonesta Maho Beach Resort in Saint Martin with her friend Stephie, a trip she calls paradise plus. After a rocky start with a troublesome iPhone, she settles into warm swims, planes roaring low over the beach, and mornings on her balcony listening to the birds, the doves, the ocean and the resort coming to life.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan fulfils her dream of a river boat cruise in July 2023, sailing with her dear friend Jilla down the Danube from Germany to Hungary, while keeping her mother in Trinidad close in her prayers. She explains why, for a vision-impaired passenger, a river boat wins hands down over an ocean cruise, and she takes readers from a sobering morning at the rally grounds in Nuremberg to Regensburg, Passau, Melk Abbey, a Viennese concert and Budapest’s Church in the Rock.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan travels to London in July 2022 to graduate from the University of London with her law degree, hearing Princess Anne, the university’s chancellor, congratulate her as she crosses the stage at Friends House. Before the ceremony, she is reunited over lunch with a friend she had not seen in thirty-three years and with the nun she first met as a teenager in England fifty years earlier.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan sets off for Portugal with her good friend Sue at the end of May 2022, on her first big trip since Covid, with one purpose close to her heart: a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima. She shares how she prepares as a blind traveller, from her travel insurance forms to the way she organizes her suitcase and her carry-on emergency kit, and she describes the Atlantic waves outside the Arribas Sintra Hotel.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan takes the train to Quebec City with her friend Sue at the end of October 2021, on a trip that went right from beginning to end despite the pandemic rules they had to follow. She explains why packing carefully and staying alert matter even more for a blind traveller, and she strolls the streets and the old stone gates of Old Quebec, a city rich in history and full of steps.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan remembers the February 2020 trip she took to Hawaii with her friend Sue, for a cruise around four of the islands aboard the Pride of America just before the pandemic closed down the world. She describes how she prepares as a seasoned traveller who is vision impaired, from printing her documents to packing every item in its own place, and she shares a morning on a hotel balcony at Waikiki as Sue describes Diamond Head and the view.

Here, Donna J. Jodhan begins her summer of 2019 by celebrating the day the Accessible Canada Act became law, and then heads to St. Lucia with her mother for their annual ten-day getaway. From their balcony, her mom describes the mountains, the yachts in the bay, the doves feeding on the lawn and a kiskadee disappearing into a palm tree, while Donna listens and records.