When my mother’s Parkinson’s disease began worsening a few years ago, I started looking at outdoor and public spaces through a completely different lens. Though I can easily hike up rough and rugged mountains and climb around rocky and uneven terrain, my mom could no longer access locations in the outdoors that couldn’t accommodate her walker, and then wheelchair. 

The good news is that for hikers with special needs, there are more and more local parks and nature centers that offer practical, easy-to-reach trails that anyone can enjoy. While there is still a very long way to go in terms of accessibility, these parks and nature centers are offering fun, creative, and interesting ways to engage with the outdoors. Here are some that really stand out.

Wisconsin

As a native Wisconsinite, I may be biased in my belief that it is one of the most beautiful states in the country. From its dense forests in the center of the state to its stunning sea caves in the north, the Dairy State has a wide variety of natural resources, and many of these resources are becoming increasingly accessible. 

Though I’ve been vegetarian for over 20 years, I grew up fishing with my grandfather, an activity that is still widely popular across Wisconsin. Not everybody can climb down into a boat or wheel down a too-narrow pier to fish. Mirror Lake State Park, known for its fishing and paddling near Wisconsin Dells, and Jenni & Kyle Preserve in capital city Madison have accessible fishing piers. Wheelchair users can roll onto these piers, where lower railings make casting off easier. 

Buckhorn State Park in central Wisconsin is known for boating and wetlands full of cattails, willows, turtles, and muskrats. While many state parks offer one or two accessibility offerings, the sheer number of accessible activities differentiates Buckhorn from the rest. Here, visitors have access to fully ADA-accessible cabins, an accessible fishing pier, and an accessible two-story wildlife observation blind. Travelers can move across land or water in an outdoor adaptive wheelchair, cross-country sit skis, an adaptive kayak, and a beach wheelchair.

Meanwhile in Milwaukee, Wehr Nature Center has a large “mobility corner” offering free wheelchairs, stools, walkers, and canes to use for strolling, birding, or attending educational programming. A few years ago, they also secured a motorized outdoor wheelchair. In addition to using it to traverse the wooded and prairie-like trails on the grounds, Wehr also allows visitors to borrow the wheelchair at no additional cost to use offsite.

Minnesota

Next door in Minnesota, the state park system rolled out an all-terrain track chair program in 2022. The fleet of motorized all-terrain wheelchairs can go “off road” onto more rugged trails, starting with five parks and expanding to 13 in 2023. Available maps show which trails are wide and flat enough for track chair use. The parks also have charging outlets near the trailhead so users can enjoy the chairs at their full capacity. 

Urban areas like Fort Snelling State Park in Minneapolis–St. Paul received chairs, as did more rural and remote areas in an effort to serve as many people as possible. Wheelchair users now have access to view the bison herd at Blue Mounds State Park in the southwest corner of the state, views of the lighthouse at Split Rock Lighthouse State Park along the north shore, and waterfront trails at McCarthy Beach State Park in northern Minnesota, which also offers adaptive beach chairs and mats for sandy beach access.

South Carolina

South Carolina has also been working on integrating accessibility features in state parks, such as at Hunting Island State Park, known for its beaches, saltwater lagoon, and forests. The park’s visitor center was recently renovated to make it more accessible. It also added a motorized all-terrain wheelchair visitors can check out for free, allowing access to the beach and trails like the Kerrigan Nature Trail and overlook. The park has paved beach access areas and Mobi-mats, which are rigid roll-out mats that allow wheelchairs, walkers, and strollers to roll onto sand more easily. Campers will also appreciate campsites with paved sidewalks, which provide access to a separate accessible bathroom and shower at the North Campground.

Even coastal parks, including all four beach state parks (Edisto Beach State Park, Myrtle Beach State Park, Huntington Beach State Park, and Hunting Island State Park) offer motorized track chairs that can navigate loose sand. Accessible beach access varies by park, but each coastal park has at least one wheelchair-friendly access point. Some also have mats and boardwalks that allow traditional wheelchairs to reach the water. 

At Table Rock State Park, wheelchairs can’t reach the main attraction: a strenuous (and very inaccessible) hike that affords stunning views of the mountains. So the park created virtual experiences using VR technology that would allow visitors to experience the top of the rock without actually having to climb it. The VR technology also allows visitors to climb Huntington Island State Park’s lighthouse and virtually kayak with spider lilies in Landsford Canal State Park.

New York

About an hour from Buffalo in Letchworth State Park, part of the main Gorge Trail is wheelchair accessible, offering unobstructed views of the “Grand Canyon of the East.” In 2021, the Empire State opened a new kind of accessible trail. America’s first Autism Nature Trail (ANT) within Letchworth State Park is a first-of-its-kind, interactive nature experience designed for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). 

Because people with autism often prefer sensory experiences and benefit from a quiet, secluded rest area when feeling overwhelmed, this trail was designed to meet the needs of neurodivergent travelers. Along an ADA-compliant one-mile looped main trail, there are eight stations spaced out offering various experiences. They range from quiet engagement, such as tactile processing using pinecones, fossils, and moss, to active exploration and adventures, like nature-inspired instruments and balance beams. 

In western New York’s Finger Lakes region, the Lime Hollow Nature Center recently introduced a complimentary all-terrain Action TrackChair so visitors with limited mobility can safely explore more rugged trails within the center’s 600 acres. While their Trail for All program is new, they plan to expand it to span over three miles of interconnected, accessible trails throughout the nature center, the city, and broader Cortland County. 

Georgia

Georgia has also introduced free all-terrain chairs (ATCs) in 12 of its state parks by partnering with All Terrain Georgia. The chairs can be used for hiking, hunting, fishing, and other outdoor recreation. The program even inspired Georgia’s Cumberland Island National Seashore to acquire an All Terrain Georgia track chair, and the seashore also provides a nonmotorized beach wheelchair. 

Finding thorough, helpful accessible information online can be challenging, because it often is incomplete, inaccurate, and exists in multiple places and requires a cross-check across multiple websites. As such, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources compiled a more comprehensive list of ADA-Accessible Amenities in Georgia. Visitors can quickly see which parks, marinas, recreation areas, campgrounds, and landings have accessible parking areas, bathrooms, and docks. 

One such site is the Charlie Elliot Wildlife Center, which is about an hour east of Atlanta. The center has ADA-accessible rooms in all of its lodge buildings and wheelchair-accessible bird-viewing areas and fishing platforms. The center has also partnered with All Terrain Georgia to secure an ATC that can be used on their six-mile multiuse loop trail.

Finding more accessible information

While there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to make the country accessible—both indoors and outdoors—many find it encouraging that so many parks and nature centers recognize this need and are working to meet it. There is currently no single website that lists all the accessible offerings across the country or even a single state, but a good start is the state’s Department of Natural Resources website. For instance, Colorado’s DNR website quickly recaps some of the state’s accessibility offerings and shares other websites where you can find more information. 

When planning your next accessible trip, do a search on the website of whatever park or attraction you’re interested in visiting for terms like “accessibility,” “disability,” or “handicap” to hit all the possible keywords. Also, call to verify that the information online is accurate. While it’s possible that some of the listed accessibility offerings are no longer available, it’s also possible that new accessible programming or amenities have been added that haven’t yet been listed on the site.