On a typical workday, Wheel the World CEO Alvaro Silberstein bounces between online meetings with coworkers around the globe from his office in Santiago, Chile. Behind him the snow-capped peaks of the central Andes tower over the city of 6 million people. The picturesque mountains are a bucket-list destination for many international travelers. For Silberstein, a 36-year-old C5-6 quadriplegic, the scenic backdrop is an ideal reminder of his goal: to transform travel for people with disabilities around the world.

The roots of that goal lie in a life-changing adventure to the mountainous Torres del Paine National Park in the Patagonia region of Chile. In 2017, Silberstein was getting his MBA at the University of California, Berkeley, when he heard that his childhood friend from Chile, Camilo Navarro, was planning a year-end trip to Torres del Paine.

Silberstein, always adventurous and confident, wanted to tag along. There was only one problem: Neither of the two friends knew exactly how to plan an accessible trip to such a remote region. Neither did travel planners in Patagonia. Undeterred, they decided to go for it and iron out the details with the few months they had.

As part of the UC Berkeley MBA program, Silberstein interned at wheelchair manufacturer WHILL. The internship sent him to the Abilities Expo in San Diego, where he discovered the Joëlette, a French one-wheeled chair designed for rugged terrain. “I said, ‘OK, this equipment might help us out to do the trip to Torres del Paine,’” he recalls. Again, there was a major problem. “It cost like $5,000 and we didn’t have the money.”

Silberstein and Navarro started crowdfunding for a Joëlette, with the twist that after the five-day trip, they would leave it at Torres del Paine for future adventurers with disabilities. They raised enough money for the Joëlette, and even convinced the outerwear company North Face to donate clothing and gear for the expedition. Then they recruited a team of 12 members, including mountaineers, a physical therapist, a videographer and a photographer. After Navarro bought plane tickets, he forwarded Silberstein the receipt and wrote in the subject line: Life is too short.

A few weeks later, they landed in Patagonia. The park rangers had never seen a wheelchair user at Torres del Paine. The team took turns pushing Silberstein through the mountains on the Joëlette – one person in front and one in back maneuvered the chair, and up to five more helped pull via harnesses on the steepest, rockiest sections. A small group of Silberstein’s close friends shared some attendant duties. Accommodations were inaccessible and rustic, bathrooms shared. They figured things out as they went, and made it through with great memories and a lot of photos.

After the trip, Navarro and Silberstein produced a short documentary called Wheel the World, which Silberstein used to garner media attention and international recognition. He started hearing from hotels that were interested in attracting more customers with disabilities. That’s when he decided to start an accessible travel business. The opportunity was there – he just needed a team and some funders.

By the Numbers: Wheel the World

Total customers so far: 2,500-plus
Percentage of customers from the United States: 75%
Fun fact: 40% of travelers are disabled, 60% are companions.
Trips booked: 428
Tours and sites offered: 500-plus
Average cost of experience: $3,000

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A Business Is Born

In 2018, Silberstein sought out more adventurers with disabilities for a second trip to test his model. He settled on another of Chile’s beautiful parks: Rapa Nui National Park on Easter Island. Silberstein established Wheel the World as a company and invited Navarro to be the chief operating officer. Easter Island proved as successful as their first trip, and showed there was interest in these one-of-a-kind travel experiences. “The first trip to Patagonia, I saw the impact on how much fun we had as friends,” Navarro says. “Then on the second trip to Rapa Nui … I saw the multiplication of that impact to four other people.”

The duo started fundraising from friends, family and some of Silberstein’s contacts in California to see how much further they could spread that impact. Wheel the World started with multiday adventures, including Patagonia, Easter Island and Machu Picchu. Silberstein understood that there was a huge shortage of accessibility information on the places they were visiting. So, in addition to customized trip planning for travelers with disabilities, Wheel the World filled the gap by rolling out a website with detailed information on the accessibility of hotels and activities.

Wheel the World uses crowdsourcing to gather accessibility information for hundreds of accommodations. They have over 400 mappers total and about 130 who are active. Mappers are paid between $30 and $80 per entry, while a small percentage volunteer or contribute for school credit. They download the Accessibility Mapping Service app, take photos of things like bed heights and showers, and collect information from hotel staff. “It’s very easy and you’re really helping expand the portfolio and giving more options to travelers,” says Veronica Gonzales Prado, who aggregates data from the freelance contributors as the mapper operations leader at Wheel the World. She notes that most mappers just visit hotels near their homes or map their hotels while on vacation.

The company has information on hundreds of hotels in 40 countries, with 50 more locations on the docket. Customers can create personal profiles with their accessibility needs, the type and size of their mobility equipment, and so on – and the website’s software matches them with hotels and activities to meet those needs. There are three main ways for customers to plan vacations. They can take one of Wheel the World’s preplanned multiday trips, which include rugged adventures or more accessible alternatives in places like New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area. Customers can also plan their own trips using the lodging and activities on the Wheel the World website. Finally, Wheel the World has a team of full-time trip planners that work one-on-one with customers to build custom itineraries.

Wheel the World’s staff has grown as rapidly as their capabilities. Starting as a two-person team in 2018, they now have 40 employees. Gonzales joined Wheel the World as an intern in 2020. She stayed on as an employee because she felt like they were really building something. “If I saw something that maybe could be done differently, or if I had a concern, I always felt very welcome to express it,” she says. “They made sure we were all treated at the same level.” That teamwork has been key to Wheel the World’s growth.

Happy Travelers

Kelly Narowski found out about Wheel the World via a Facebook video and booked a 10-day group trip to Chile in November 2022. Narowski, 49, is a professional speaker and disability rights advocate. A T6 paraplegic, she got the traveling bug after visiting Paris in 2004. Several countries later, she joined her husband, an Army officer, for a tour of duty in Germany in 2015. Taking advantage of Europe’s trains, she visited 34 countries in three years. Upon returning home, she set the goal of visiting 50 countries by age 50.

Visiting Chile last November with Wheel the World allowed her to check off her sixth continent and 49th country. “My favorite thing was the hot springs, the thermal waters,” she says. “It was really beautiful and relaxing.” The hot springs had a crane-style lift with a sling, and staff to assist anyone who needed it. Narowski appreciated the Wheel the World team’s management of the trip. When park rangers in Patagonia went on strike, the team filled the day with activities outside of the park. And when Narowski found a painting she loved while shopping in Santiago, they transported it back to the hotel and arranged for her to ship it home.

Still, Narowski’s favorite part of the trip was all the people she traveled with, from the other vacationers to the staff and tour guides. The other travelers were all active wheelchair users from the U.S., and Narowski quickly found common ground with everyone. “They are from all over the country, and they are well traveled, and they are interesting,” she says. Now that she’s home, she talks to five of her fellow travelers frequently. “I’m positive that I’ve made some lifelong friends.”

Leonard Shields Jr. is another one of the company’s happy customers. At 61, he uses a wheelchair due to a degenerative spinal condition, Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis. Shields was a regular traveler when he was ambulatory but transitioned to a wheelchair several years ago and since had only managed the occasional weekend vacation close to home.

This past summer Shields decided to drive from his home in Colorado to visit his brother in Orlando and explore Florida theme parks. “We had about 10 days before we wanted to leave,” he says, “and what I was looking for was somebody who could basically plan everything, especially accessibility-wise, so I didn’t have to mess around with trying to do it myself.”

Shields found Wheel the World online and a travel planner set everything up for him. “They were able to lay out the itinerary for us along the road,” he says, “and they were able to find the cities every so many hours that had a hotel that was appropriate for my needs. … I can’t even put into words how smooth and how wonderful an experience that was. It was the easiest travel that I ever did anywhere in my life before my disability or since my disability.”

Shields took three days to reach Orlando, had a great time in Florida — his favorite part was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando Resort — and was able to get a last-minute change to stretch the return trip to four days so it was less tiring. When he got home, a team from Wheel the World, including Silberstein, called to make sure that the trip went well. “My gosh,” Shields says, “they called me because they wanted to make sure that, number one, what they had done for me was the right stuff. They wanted to make sure they had covered all of my bases.”

Silberstein, who knows firsthand the importance of family and caregivers, also asked about Shields’ family, including his wife who does most of his care. “Alvaro was just as concerned with how that trip was for the people with me, as he was for me,” Shields says. The personal touch made a big difference: Shields doesn’t know when his next trip will be, but he knows he’ll use Wheel the World to make it happen.

Evolving and Growing

Silberstein is always innovating and checks in with all customers after their vacations for feedback and inspiration. Early trips were diligently planned to be as accessible as possible, but still included dirt trails and sometimes limited accessibility at lodging and restrooms. “At first, we started with a lot of adventure travel that might be super risky or scary for many people,” Silberstein says. The company has adapted to customer feedback since. “We have realized that the majority of people with disabilities — myself included — when we travel, we want accessibility and we want to be in a safe, accessible, comfortable situation.”

Citing the company’s inability to do anything about airlines damaging wheelchairs and equipment, he has recently put extra focus on trips that don’t involve flying. “[We decided to focus on] what was in our control, so we said let’s also design travel experiences that people can be interested in without the need of going inside a plane.” Additionally, Wheel the World is putting extra focus on expanding its options in the U.S., given the number of American travelers and exceptional accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Silberstein acknowledges that being the CEO of a 40-person company can be a heavy lift. Still, as a self-described workaholic who loves his job, it’s all worthwhile. He and Navarro have built a potentially game-changing company, and after three years of growth, secured a $2 million investment that allowed them to double their staff in 2021. Whether he’s guiding adventurers to the mountainous wonders just outside his office or helping travelers access the cultural experiences of a major city, the founder of Wheel the World remains as committed as when he started this journey. “We want to build the best service for people with disabilities,” says Silberstein, “so they can enjoy traveling wherever they want to go.”