00:31 S1
This is Studio 1 on Vision Australia Radio.
00:37 S2
Hello, I'm Sam...
00:38 S3
And I'm Lizzie.
00:39 S2
And this is Studio 1, your weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view - here on Vision Australia Radio.
00:44 S3
On this week's show...
00:45 S2
Ever wanted to travel overseas but were afraid to travel alone?
00:48 S3
We speak to Omar Latif, the founder of Traveleyes.
00:52 S2
As we always say at this point, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered on this week's episode of Studio 1, or if you think there's something we should be talking about, you never know - your story and insight may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.
01:06 S3
You can contact us via email at studio1@visionaustralia.org - that's studio number one at Vision Australia dot org. Or perhaps you can drop us a note on our Facebook. Just go to facebook.com slash VA Radio Network.
01:21 S2
If you were to be able to look outside your window right now, what would you be seeing?
01:26 S4
I'd be seeing grey, foggy skies. Chill in the air. It's cold. And I've been thinking, I wish I was with my friends Down Under.
S2
Whereabouts are you at the moment?
S4
So I'm in Yorkshire... in, particularly in a city called Leeds, which is 2.5 hours north of London and about an hour... to the east of Manchester. So, yeah, in the middle of the country, from north to south kind of thing.
01:57 S2
Right. So you grew up in Glasgow though, so you're a little bit away from home.
02:01 S4
I know I took the wrong train one day and ended up in Leeds. Yeah. No, I... graduated from University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and I got my first graduate job here in Leeds. I won't tell you how many years ago that was, but that's why I'm here.
02:18 S3
Fantastic.
02:19 S2
So we'll just ask a questions about some of your like your vision loss, or experience with vision loss. So you were told at the age of four that you were going to go blind. Is that correct?
02:30 S4
That's right. The doctors broke the news to my parents that by my mid to late teens I would become incurably blind. And you know, now that I'm older, I just imagine, like what that kind of news is like for, for parents, you know, to hear. And at that time, I didn't think about it because I didn't know anything about it until I started to not be able to see as I was growing up. But yeah, it was quite a shock for them.
02:59 S2
When did you start to notice?
03:01 S4
So when I was in year four, my desk was moved to the front of the class. So back in the days we used to have blackboards so I could still see them. And then I used to in the PE classes, in the gym classes. I used to crash into hurdles, you know, not seeing them last minute. I missed the rugby ball, so I guess I was losing my sight gradually at that point. But at the age of 16 and 17, I was still riding my bike and having a few mishaps. My mum was reluctant to, you know, for me to go out riding and, you know, one of the last times I rode was when I was out on a Sunday morning. The roads are a bit quiet.
I had tunnel vision so I could just see a little bit in front of me, but not too much peripheral. And I just went full speed into this skip, which is like a rubbish dump thing and somersaulted and landed inside it, you know. Oh, and as I was somersaulting, as I was somersaulting, I was thinking, Oh, I think this could be the end of my cycling career. Oh dear.
04:08 S2
So how did your family take the news that you were going to go blind over time? And how did that impact them?
04:15 S4
I guess they only explained to us later on as we were growing up, that, you know, that we were obviously losing our sight and that they knew about it when we were young, but it wasn't really discussed until I was an adult that they had that conversation. They dealt with it in different ways. My Mum was very supportive, you know, very loving. You know, I was like, Mum, I've got a sore stomach. Oh, son, you don't need to go to school, you know? So we got that support and love from her. And I think I have five kids. I must say, at this point, three of us are blind. We're like the three blind mice. Yeah.
04:53 S2
So I was going to ask that. I mean, you've got retinal pigmentosa. So that is a hereditary condition.
04:57 S4
That's right. Exactly... and so not not to be confused with their... you know, the posh English speech, what's it called? Renowned pronunciation. Yeah... yeah. So, I mean, my Dad, on the other hand, was... a little bit different. He was like, No, son, you've got to get out there. If you get injured, lions get injured. Just pick yourself up. And so we together, Mum and Dad were like a great duo, you know, great package. And yeah, it must be really difficult for a parent with three kids that are blind. But we got so much love and support, so it set us on the right path.
05:36 S2
How much easier was it to actually have siblings going through it?
05:41 S4
Something similar, was going to say, Oh, it was great. You know, whether it was good enough for them or not. Like we'd come back from school and I'd be like, Oh, do you know what? I hugged a lamppost today. And me sis would say, Oh, I apologised to Ben today. I crashed into and thought, Oops, it was a person. And it was. It was kind of like, it didn't feel real. It was like we were in this magical world. We used to get a taxi to school, which was half an hour away from our house. It was a mainstream school with a special VI unit. Oh, the teachers would be you.
06:17 S2
And so going through, you went through a similar experience to me. I mean... that was my school experiences. I was brought up in Darwin and yeah, we had a special unit at Tiwi Primary there. So yeah, pretty much the same thing. We sort of started out, spending most of our time in the special unit and then were slowly integrated in. So by about the final year of school, it was full time in the normal classroom. So, I mean, was that similar for yourself?
06:43 S4
Yeah. Oh, so you guys do that as well? Yeah, absolutely similar here. Except we didn't have crocodiles running around. I mean, when I... was out in Darwin last time, you got crocodiles. I mean... how do you guys manage dodging crocodiles, or is that just a prejudice that us ignorant English people...?
07:01 S2
It's probably why there's a lack of viewers in Darwin. Because they've all been eaten.
07:05 S4
Oh.
07:06 S2
My philosophy has always been, What you can't see can't hurt you. So that makes you pretty much invincible.
07:12 S4
I like that.
07:12 S2
So fast forward on a bit. And we were I was reading that there was a time when you were 18 and suddenly the penny dropped all the way and you actually couldn't see.
07:25 S4
Yes. It was... sometime when I was 18. I woke up one morning and I had this poster at the end of my bed. Normally I think it was Madonna, the singer. And I just couldn't see it. And it was all white cloud that I could see. So the tunnel that I had was just blocked. At that time I didn't know what it was, so I closed my eyes and just thought it was a bit of morning fuzz and then opened them again. And I looked around in the room and I couldn't see my desk, my chair, my bookshelves, anything. And then I remember getting up and, you know, walking towards the door. I bumped into it and I could hear voices downstairs, and I put my arms out and reached forward for the banister and worked my way down.
And I remember in my Mum and Dad were in the kitchen and I said, like, Mum and Dad, you know, I can't see anything. And I think it was then that it dawned on me that, Oh my God, I think this is it, that I'm now blind.
08:32 S2
That must have been a really scary experience. And I was going to ask how that impacted, like your mental health.
08:38 S4
It was scary. And, you know, for me, at that time, that day, I remember it so vividly. And, you know, the months afterwards, it was I felt like a prisoner in my house and in my head, my Mum would say, No, you can't leave the house unaccompanied. And your brother and sister, who can see, they'll drive you there, they'll do this, they'll do that. I felt like that my world had just closed, and, you know, it was.... an exciting time of, you know, the age of 18, you go out, you date, you go to the cinema and you drive. So yeah, it was... hard.
09:21 S2
Apart from your siblings, did you have... much knowledge or experience with other blind people?
09:28 S4
So in the mainstream school that we went to, there was a few other visually impaired people, but we were all visually impaired. We weren't blind, you know, we never used a cane. So it was I had no experience of blindness at all, and I didn't want to use my cane. You know, when they said, OK, you're blind now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you get that as well?
09:51 S2
We all like to travel incognito, if we can. I can still get away with it.
09:55 S4
I can't, can you? Oh, you're so lucky.
09:57 S2
What's that? Sorry, I can't, I'm totally blind. I rely on my seeing eye dog, so, you know, it's pretty obvious, but...
10:04 S4
Yeah, I mean, one, once you once you are blind, it makes it easier. I think, you know, I was in that grey area where people think that you're a bit drunk.
10:14 S2
What happened that led you to Canada?
10:16 S4
So after I get my head around how I would study math, stats, and finance as a blind person, I, in the 90s know technology. So it was cassettes. Yeah. I then gained confidence and I thought, you know, I don't want to tiptoe through life and be wrapped up in cotton wool and live in a protective box because everybody was telling me that I couldn't do this and that. And I thought, right, I don't know how it's going to work, but I'm going to travel. And there was an opportunity to go to Canada. And so, against the wishes of my parents and lecturers, I headed up to Canada with just me and my new friend, blindness.
And it was just one of the most amazing experiences of my life and I loved it. I just arrived in Toronto, took a bus to a place called Kingston. As I was going to Queen's University and met by this lovely lady and it was just amazing, I just, you know, it was hard and ignorance is bliss, you know? The more times we think that, you know, shall I do that? No, I won't, because it'll be a problem. It cuts you off. But when you're young, you just do it. And it was just the best experience. I met so many international friends, and that's where my passion for travel was sparked. And that experience taught me so much about myself and about the world around me.
And I guess that bold decision made me who I am today. And I learnt that, you know, if you dare to push your limits, you know your world becomes bigger and you know, that's as a blind person, you know, you guys know how hard it is just to get out the door so it doesn't have to be anything big, but it's just like, you know, when you want to do something and you get negative thoughts coming in your head, it's good to put them in neutral. Stop thinking about them and just do it.
12:19 S2
Was it good to actually get away from the family to some degree? What that, did it give you just a little bit more freedom?
12:25 S4
Absolutely. It did, you know, and I didn't realise it at the time. Moving away from the family meant that we could make our own mistakes and fall and pick ourselves up. Whereas family sometimes puts a fence and protects you too much. So it's good to get away and just, you know, find yourself and become strong. And I think, you know, since uni, the three blind mice are the ones that, you know, have escaped Glasgow and, you know, we all live on our own, whereas our sighted siblings live up in Glasgow. You know, my big brother and my mum lives with him and my sister just lives down the road. So yeah, it absolutely helped.
13:14 S2
Are you the only chronic overachiever in the family, or how are the other two going as far as their lives and careers?
13:19 S4
Oh, thank you for the compliment. I don't think so. You know, I think I'm okay... yeah. My little sister's an incredible person. Sam Latif, she works for Procter and Gamble, big international company. She's... really... senior and successful in there. She's doing well. My little brother, when he left uni, he set up a web accessibility company and then went on to work for Accenture, which is like a large consultancy company helping companies to run their businesses better. So he was blind, but he was helping sighted companies to to run their companies and to make improvements. So yeah, I guess I guess we ended up leaning into the blindness and going for it.
14:05 S2
There was a particular point that you made. I think it was in one in your Ted Talk. And this rang a bell for me because I've been in the job market on several different occasions, done several different jobs. And it was interesting to me that the first couple of times that you applied for work as an accountant, you weren't that successful.
14:25 S4
It wasn't. I got so many rejections, knockback after knockback, and I didn't know what was going on. My sighted friends were landing great jobs in the city with the great salary because we did a degree in maths, stats and finance. You know, it was hard and I must have got 15, 20 rejections, you know, from people that bothered writing to me and many more from who didn't. And then one of the top accountancy firms wrote to me and they explained why they hadn't given me the job, and they said that they didn't believe that it was possible for a blind person to be an [?avid] accountant, this came as a shock.
15:06 S2
That is so 1990s as well, because I think they'd be too polite now to say that nowadays.
15:13 S4
Exactly. And it was in the 1990s, you know - after I got over the disappointment, I used it as an impetus to do something about it and move my career forward. So my next interviews, I basically said, Look, do you mind if I take five minutes in which I'll explain to you how a bit about my blindness, about how as a blind person, I would actually do the job. And I'll give you some examples of successful blind role models. And when I did that, things started to change. I started to receive job offers, and I had so many job offers that I didn't know what to do with.
Because the thing is, it wasn't just that I explained it to them and reassured them. They saw this guy that took the bull by the horns and was so assertive, and that made me realise that obstacles in our lives don't always mean blocks in our paths. You know, they can be incredible opportunities, but as long as we have that right, positive mindset, you know, it's not always easy to have that positive mindset. And I know that as a blind person, you know, so I'm not always positive. But I just think that, you know, if we take that approach rather than complaining about things, I think we can actually do so much more.
16:29 S2
How do you do maths if you can't see the numbers?
16:32 S4
Yes. So I got the maths recorded onto cassettes, and I got my fellow classmates to record the notes on there and my textbooks. And it was quite difficult because in maths, when you've got a fraction, for example, and you have x plus y on the top part of the fraction, and I don't know, a plus b on the bottom part, it to know what's at the top and bottom you need to introduce brackets. But these equations were so long, you know, that we had to introduce different types of brackets, and we ran out of the types of brackets like curly and square, that we just brought in, like open bracket one, open bracket two, open bracket three x plus y close bracket three. Dot dot dot.
And some of those equations were so long that often one equation would take the entire side of a 60 minute cassette. And not only. And not only that, I'd like press play and fall asleep, you know, and wake up. Yeah.
17:28 S2
Yeah, it's the problem with the cassette. Yes. They keeps playing. So where did you leave off exactly? And how do you get back to that point?
17:39 S1
This is Studio 1 on Vision Australia Radio.
17:45 S4
After seven years in the corporate world as an accountant heading up commercial finance in British Telecom, I thought that something was missing in my life. And that something was the travel bug that I'd call all those years ago in Canada. But when I approached mainstream group tour operators, they refused me travel on a group holiday because they said that I needed to bring a carer with me. And I just thought, I'm young and, you know, I just want to go places and I don't want to rely on friends and family. And they said that even if I did bring somebody with me, that I wouldn't be able to do any of the fun, adventurous things, you know, like going walking holidays or sailing holidays or skiing. And these restrictions left me feeling powerless, and I started to actually feel blind again in myself.
But this time, this was met by a strong urge to build on what I had already achieved. So I realised that if you want something that doesn't exist, you have to build it yourself. And if I wanted travel to work for me, I had to change the way travel works. And in 2004 I was inspired to set up Traveleyes... and Traveleyes is if for people who don't know what it is, it's all one word travel e y e s. It's an international travel company that takes groups of adventurers all over the world on holiday, and we bring them back home to you.
19:14 S2
Don't just leave us wandering around somewhere.
19:16 S4
Yeah, exactly. But the big difference about Traveleyes is that half the group are visually impaired, or VIPs as they like to be called sometimes, and half the group are fully sighted. And most people that come on the trips don't know each other. For example, 80% of the sighted travellers never met a blind person before, and the vice often come on their own or with their partners and our sight travellers in return for guiding and describing the sights to our VIPs, get to travel for a reduction in price.
19:49 S2
That'd be quite an experience, really, and not only for the sighted guides, really. But I mean, it would be a bit of a culture shock really, for some people, if especially if they've never met a visually impaired person before.
20:02 S4
Absolutely. I mean, you know, it makes them reflect on their life. They get so much out of it because they look at, you know, in their eyes, they think, Oh my God, look at these VIPs. And they're halfway across the world and they can't see. But yet they're out here and they're not letting anything stop them. What's happening with me in my life? And it's kind of like to say the cliché inspires them, you know, it kind of moves them to doing things with their life. And they often say that being a sighted traveller with Traveleyes makes them see the world in a different way.
Because, you know, often sighted folk are travelling around with cameras, taking pictures. But when you're actually having to engage with what's in front of you to describe it to a visually impaired person, it brings it to life. You know, you're describing it and you're engaging with it, and then, you know, you're touching it. And so they get so much more vivid memories when they return.
21:03 S5
So what was some of the first tours that you did when you started travelling?
21:08 S4
So the first holiday that we did was in June 2005 to Andalucia, which is the southern region of Spain. And it's just it was just wonderful. We hired this farmhouse with a pool and surrounded by olive groves and sunflower and mountains, and we just had the most incredible time. We had chefs cooking for us. We went on tours to Granada, which is an amazing place, with the famous Alhambra Palace, and we go to a place called Cordoba and Seville Ronda... and lifetime friendships were formed, you know, because what we... do at Traveleyes is, we swap the partners each day. So as a V, you're not going to be stuck with one sighted person every day or they're not going to be stuck with you. So the great news is that you're with someone different each day.
22:04 S2
You might start losing guides if they're stuck with one person for the whole time. My experience on travelling overseas with sporting teams, I've found that situation where a guide runner might be great friends with an athlete to start out with, but by the end of the of the trip, no they're not.
22:23 S4
Exactly. And I think, I mean, I wouldn't wish myself on someone for seven days, you know. So yeah, it's brilliant because people come from different countries as well. So we have lots of Aussies that come with us... Americans, Europeans. And it's all in English. So it's like, one day you might be guided by someone from England and the next day someone from America. So it's like almost like a United Nations travel company. You know, all the... barriers of disability and nationalities come tumbling down and and people are from all walks of life. So you have like people that work on the railway, signalmen, you've got accountants and lawyers, you have students and the people that you wouldn't normally interact with. It's just it's incredible.
And, you know, sometimes I think when you face challenges in life, you know, beautiful things do come up. And this is one of those things, you know, rather than if you had sight, you go travelling by yourself. But that's boring. You know, travelling with people is so much more fun. Of course.
23:28 S2
Yes. One of the things that we find when blind people get together is you start to actually learn from each other. Is there anything you've learned from, say, your clients when you've been out and about?
23:41 S4
Absolutely. Oh my goodness. I realised they're like, so up on tech. So that always, I'm always getting my updates from, you know, my guests on the trips, you know, and also... we were in Cuba and offered the chance to the whole group, blind and sighted, to do skydiving, and only the [?vice] wanted to do it. And and I was a bit scared, you know, I didn't want to do it. I was like, OK, I'm working. You guys do it. And they're like, Come on, Amar, you got to do it. I was like, No, no, no, it's okay, I'm working. I'm making an excuse. And they made me do it as well, you know?
And it was just brilliant. You know, I love, it's such a fortunate position. I don't leave the trips much now, but it was such a beautiful part of my life where I got to meet so many amazing babies from all over the world. And, you know, it's like meeting your own. It's such a special thing. And I loved it. And I got to hear about how life is in their country. So I loved meeting their movies.
24:45 S5
Yeah, I was going to ask, so when you are organising these tours, do you find that the, like other tour operators in the countries that you are planning on travelling to are accommodating in assisting you with setting things up?
24:58 S4
Yes, I guess that comes from our experience, you know? We send them all the information because most of the times, 99% of the time, those ground handlers, they've never met a blind group before. So we work with them to create these incredible sensory experience holidays. You know, the pace of our trips as well is different. And, you know, we get to do things that mainstream tour companies don't do, you know? So our sighted travellers love it because they're getting something different.
For example, when we're going to Peru and we're in Lima, we go to this museum, they open up the glass cases and we feel these thousand year old Inca artifacts and China. You know, our groups get to feel the Terracotta Warriors. You know, we we bring out the sensory aspects in Italy will be cooking in traditional Tuscan farmhouses where feel so Italian and you can smell the basil and the tomatoes simply from the aromas in the air. And South Africa we go to Stellenbosch and do wine tasting, which is just incredible wine there. And then you forget what you've drunk.
And you discover things like, in Cape Town, they've got these Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens where a blind person can just walk by themselves holding on to this rope with, you know, signposts and Braille, and it's just incredible. And we seek out the... best tour guides ever to bring the place to life. You know, like, if you can't see Machu Picchu, how can you feel it? You know, how can you sense it? We just need amazing descriptions that send a chill down your spine. And so we... put a lot of work into making sure that our trips bring out so much of the world for our blind travellers and our sighted travellers benefit as well.
26:53 S2
Do your trips follow the seasons around? I mean, so I'm presuming that a lot of these tours would be dependent on the time of year. So do you offer experiences all year round, or is there a point where... I don't know, where things are off limits?
27:06 S4
I know we've got holidays all year round. For example, December, we've got Walking Trip Tenerife, which is one of the Canary Islands south of Spain. It's part of Spain, but it's... south of the mainland. We're going to Finland in January and where we're going to be up doing, you know, all the winter activities, which is fun. Then we're off to the Caribbean and Cuba in January as well. And I just absolutely love Cuba. You know, it's just wonderful. We then go to Turkey, Istanbul in February. New Year we're going to Portugal, and we do all sorts of trips as well, like, you know, from active holidays like walking and cycling. So we've got Loire Valley in April next year.
27:52 S2
Yeah, my friend's going to that one.
27:53 S4
Oh really? Oh my God. You could have a great time. So we have sighted pilots at the front obviously, and our guys at the back. And yeah, so we do discovery tours to places like we've got a trip going out on next week to Laos and Cambodia. We go to places like Eswatini, and Eswatini is in the southern Africa. And it's incredible. And, you know, you get to hear the mighty roar of a lion so close to you. And we do. Sunshine breaks to the places like the Canary Islands and Mexico and places like that. So it's a real mix. We've been lucky that we've been going to lots of different places. We've been bold. We've done challenging things as well, like places like Ghana where more many travel companies don't go in Africa.
And, you know, we often connect with, you know, VI groups in those countries, you know, maybe schools and we learn from each other as well as part of the tour. But yeah, we've been to so many different countries, and I guess because we're quite unique in what we do, we need to make sure that we offer everything, all kinds of travel experiences to our visitors. And that's why we offer such a range of holidays, because, you know, we are like the one stop global shop for for visually impaired travel. We also have, you know, over the last ten years worked with international schools.
So if you're an international school, this is a great experience for sighted students, you know, to to develop their confidence around disability so that when they go into future employment, it's not a shock when someone blind walks into their office for a job. And so we partnered two students with one VI adult. And it's just such an inspiring, incredible trip. And, you know, what I find is the students are so much more descriptive than, you know, sighted adults. It's amazing.
29:52 S2
If, distener, you are... liking what you hear and you want to get involved, yes, they... do take bookings from Australia, because we've known at least two people that are involved with it. So if we wanted to jump on one of your tours or get involved, what do we do from this corner of the world?
30:11 S4
OK, so basically if you just visit our website and sign up to our newsletter, we send two newsletters a month... and it's w-w-w dot travel eyes. So travel eyes and then hyphen international dot com. And you can sign up to the newsletters there. All our holidays are listed there as well. And you can see whether they have VI availability and site availability. And once you're on the newsletter, you know you'll be kept up to date. New holidays are being released all the time. And what I'd say is, you know, you don't need to worry at all to like you said, you know, you've got you've got your friends on on the Traveleyes holidays, we can either book your flights for you, or you can book your own flights and meet us at the destination.
And you know, if you've never travelled before, you know, like I hadn't when I went to Canada, you just book your assistance and you just all you have to do is make your way to the check-in desk of your airport, and then the airport guides you through, and they're pretty amazing. And you get to your destination. And when you're at the destination, we have everything covered to make sure that, you know, you're... in safe hands. And then each day you're with a sighted person - and I haven't mentioned, but in each group we have about 18 people, half [?by and behind], half sighted. And there's a tour manager with the group all the time, making sure that if you've got any concerns that they're there and so you don't need to worry about anything except having fun.
31:42 S2
So we get this a lot as blind people, especially if we do want to do a bit of travelling. So it'll be interesting to hear your answer... What is the point of travelling if you can't see?
31:53 S4
Oh yes. That's what everyone says, don't they? I would say that because I can't see, it heightens my curiosity about what the world looks like. And and I want to satisfy that itch. What does it look like? You know, I can't get it from the television and documentaries about places. So I want to go there and I want to use all my senses. So I want to be in the moment. I want to have things described to me. So I've got my visual idea, and that's really helpful with our sighted travellers.
But then I want to like, be in the moment... like I'm in Italy. I can hear the sounds of Italian people all around me. You [?] say buongiorno, comestai. And that just fills my heart with so much happiness. Then you got the smells, you know, of basil and pizza and and the textures. You walk through cobbled streets. You can feel the cobblestones. And, you know, when you're at a 3000 year old temple in Egypt and it's there, and then you take your hand and you touch it, I get this buzz from it like, Oh my God, someone put this 3000 years ago and you feel the hieroglyphics, that were like it's essentially like Braille for us. Like, you know, we can feel the textures and you get to meet the people in all these places, you know, that is so important.
You know, being to townships in Cape Town in South Africa and met people living there and connecting with humanity in Peru, Lake Titicaca, the, you know, on these floating islands. They've never met blind people before, but they built this model for us because they knew we were coming just so that we could feel it. It's just that love and humanity that you get meeting lots of different people. So there's so much and then, you know, go on and on and on. Like those experiences, you know, going skydiving, when you jump out of a plane and the wind and the element bombards your entire sensory system from all sides, and then the parachute opens and it becomes so peaceful and you feel so free, like a bird miles above the ground. Oh, there's just so many beautiful experiences.
You know, we've we've... been to elephant sanctuaries where we've touched baby elephants and fed them. And, you know, it's just so incredible. The experiences are just so, so magical. And I think I'll admit that when you don't travel, it can seem like a big, daunting thing for most people. And if you're blind, you've got that extra layer. But like I said, if you want to do something, if you want to excite yourself, if you want to make your world bigger, just go for it. Stop those negative thoughts in your head that say no, but what will... what if this happens? What if that happens? Stop them and just say Yes and go for it, and you'll see how it impacts your life in a positive way.
34:55 S2
Oh, Amar, you've made us want to travel ourselves. Now jump on, jump on the website. What was your website again?
35:02 S4
Travellers dash international dot com so.
S2
So... go onto that. Everything is taken care of. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us today. And... well, we'll hopefully hear from you sometime in the new year. We're travelling.
35:17 S4
Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure hearing your accents as well. You've been a ray of sunshine in this... dull, foggy day here in the UK.
35:28 S2
That's a wrap for this week. A big thank you to Amar. And, of course, thank you for listening.
35:33 S3
What are we doing next week, Sam?
35:35 S2
We're off to Techfest, Australia's only adaptive technology expo devoted to software and hardware for vision impairment and blindness.
35:43 S3
But between now and then, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience with any of the issues covered on this week's episode of Studio 1, or if you think there's something we should be talking about, you never know - your story and insight may help someone who is dealing with something similar.
35:59 S2
You can email us, studio1@visionaustralia.org - that's Studio and number one at Vision Australia dot org.
36:05 S3
Or of course you can reach out to us on our socials. That's Instagram, Facebook and at VA Radio Network - we want to hear from you. Bye for now!
36:13 S1
Vision Australia Radio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio 1.
