Wheel the World is helping reshape the global travel industry by building the infrastructure that allows travelers with disabilities and seniors to explore the world with confidence. Through accessibility verification, technology, and destination partnerships, the company is transforming how accessibility information is collected, shared, and used across tourism.
Founded in 2018 by Álvaro Silberstein and Camilo Navarro, the company was created to solve one of the most persistent challenges in travel: the lack of reliable accessibility information.
Across the travel industry, accessibility details are often incomplete, inconsistent, or self-reported. Hotels may label themselves as accessible, but travelers often have no clear way to know whether doorways are wide enough, bathrooms include roll-in showers, or paths and transportation are navigable for wheelchair users or travelers with limited mobility.
Wheel the World addresses this problem by verifying accessibility data at hotels, attractions, restaurants, tours, and outdoor experiences. Using trained mappers, structured tools, and advanced scanning technology, the company collects more than 200 measurements at each location. These are transformed into listings with photos, accessibility features, filters, and compatibility scores matched to each traveler’s accessibility needs.
The platform allows travelers to discover and book accessible trips while helping tourism businesses reach one of the largest underserved travel markets in the world.
Today Wheel the World works with more than 150 destination marketing organizations and nearly 5,000 tourism businesses globally, alongside a community of more than 180,000 travelers seeking accessible experiences.
The Wheel The World Origin Story
The story of Wheel the World begins with the lived experience of its co-founder, Álvaro Silberstein.
At age eighteen, Álvaro sustained a spinal cord injury in a car accident that left him quadriplegic. Years later, he and his childhood friend Camilo Navarro set their sights on completing the W-Trek in Torres del Paine National Park, one of South America’s most iconic hiking routes.
The journey required careful planning. With a specially designed trekking wheelchair, support from local partners, and detailed mapping of accessible routes, they successfully completed the trek. Their expedition became the first known completion of the route by a wheelchair user.
When their story spread online, something unexpected happened. Travelers with disabilities from around the world began reaching out asking how they could experience the same destination.
At the same time, hotels and tourism operators began contacting them with a different question. Could Wheel the World help verify accessibility at their properties so travelers would know what to expect before booking?
What quickly became clear was that the greatest barrier to travel was often not infrastructure, but information.
Accessibility data across tourism was inconsistent, incomplete, and rarely verified. Travelers were often forced to take risks when planning trips, while hotels and destinations struggled to communicate their accessibility features clearly.
Wheel the World was created to close this gap by building a trusted system for measuring, verifying, and sharing accessibility information across the travel ecosystem.
How Wheel The World Is Making A Positive Impact
Wheel the World is helping make travel more inclusive by transforming accessibility from an uncertain promise into verified, actionable information.
The company verifies accessibility features at hotels, restaurants, attractions, tours, and outdoor experiences using more than 200 standardized measurements. These details provide travelers with the clarity they need to plan trips safely and confidently.
The platform also helps tourism businesses reach a large and rapidly growing market. Globally, more than 1.3 billion people live with disabilities, representing about 16 percent of the world’s population. When companions and family members are included, accessibility needs influence travel decisions for nearly one third of travelers.
Wheel the World’s work benefits both travelers and destinations.
For travelers with disabilities and seniors, verified accessibility data reduces uncertainty, improves safety, and expands the number of places they can explore.
For tourism businesses, accessibility verification opens the door to a growing travel segment while improving transparency and reducing the risk of misunderstandings that can lead to cancellations or negative experiences.
The company also works closely with destination marketing organizations to help identify accessibility gaps and opportunities for improvement. Through mapping programs, accessibility benchmarks, and training resources, Wheel the World helps destinations strengthen their long-term accessibility strategies.
Beyond infrastructure, the company is also helping shift the broader narrative around who travel is designed for. By highlighting accessible experiences and showcasing travelers with disabilities exploring the world, Wheel the World is helping expand how the industry thinks about inclusion.
Why the UnTours Foundation Invested in Wheel The World
The UnTours Foundation invested in Wheel the World because the company is addressing one of the most important and overlooked challenges in global tourism: accessibility.
This investment was made possible with the support of our funding partner Expedia Group, whose commitment to inclusive travel aligns closely with our belief that travel should be accessible to everyone.
Across the world, millions of travelers with disabilities still face barriers that limit their ability to explore destinations with confidence. One of the most significant challenges is the lack of reliable information about accessibility features at hotels, attractions, and tourism experiences.
Wheel the World is helping change that by building the data infrastructure that allows accessibility to be clearly measured, verified, and integrated into the broader travel ecosystem. Through its technology platform and partnerships with destinations and tourism businesses, the company is making it easier for travelers with disabilities to discover and book experiences that meet their needs.
At the same time, the platform helps tourism businesses become more welcoming and inclusive while opening the door to a large and growing segment of travelers that has historically been underserved.
Wheel the World also demonstrates how technology can create both social impact and economic opportunity. By connecting accessible travelers with destinations and businesses ready to serve them, the company is expanding access to travel while helping strengthen tourism economies.
How You Can Support Wheel The World
Travelers can support Wheel the World by choosing accessible travel experiences and booking trips through the platform. By doing so, they help expand the market for inclusive tourism and encourage more destinations and businesses to invest in accessibility. And tourism businesses and destinations can also partner with Wheel the World to verify accessibility features, improve transparency, and welcome a wider community of travelers.
