By Paul Richoux

Road trips are cool. Fact. It could be I’m romanticising them a little in my head but they hold a huge appeal. Who among us hasn’t at some point entertained the notion of just heading off down the road, leaving regular life behind for while, and exploring new territory? Martyn Sibley certainly did, and what’s more he actually did it!

Quick reminder

Now you may recall an article that featured on bespoken about a year ago. Martyn was just setting off on what he called his Epic European Disability Road Trip. He has Spinal Muscular Atrophy meaning he is a wheelchair user and can’t lift anything substantially heavy by himself.  He set off with his PA, Filipe, for a unique journey across mainland Europe, hoping to show what a disabled person could do and hopefully inspire others.

So how did it go?

Martyn could not be happier with the way his road trip panned out. Starting out from Cambridge he covered the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Lithuania and then made a sharp U-turn to head back through, amongst others, the Czech Republic, Belgium and finally Northern France.

Along the way he had some pretty great times which he wrote about in his blog. A personal favourite of mine was playing music around the camp fire in Poland (this episode is merrily referred to in his blog as the “beer orchestra”). He made a point of meeting with several disability groups, and encountered some inspiring people in the process.

Martyn’s favourite moments

Martyn cites Krakow as one of his favourite stops during the road trip. On his blog he describes his admiration for the city’s “architecture, culture and beautiful people”. To add to the joys of Krakow, it was there that Martyn met up with an old friend of his whom he had met in Turkey whilst on a training course.

He also found it very moving to behold Vilnius for two reasons; firstly it was the home town of his grandfather. Secondly it was the last and furthest stop before the slow journey home. Martyn had this to say about the city “an enduring memory was looking over Vilnius and thinking, wow, we did it”.  

Another moment he remembers particularly fondly was his visit to the European Parliament in Brussels where, in his own words, they “gate crashed” and got interviews with the tourism board and European Disability Forum.

Looking back, looking forward

I asked Martyn what he feels resulted from his EEDR and the answer was this, “what I achieved was; encouraging disabled people to dream big and to educate more of society on the barriers we face”. He certainly did that.

Martyn is now in the process of writing a book about his journey and what he experienced along the way. In the mean time I urge you to read his blog (click here) where you can get a sample of what’s to come. The blog also contains martyn’s video diary as well as several video interviews he conducted along the way.

Not about to retire after just one adventure, Martyn is currently on yet another trek with his good friend Kasia, this time travelling over 1000 miles from John O’ Groats (northern most point of Scotland) to Land’s End (southern most point of England). He is travelling by wheelchair whilst Kasia is cycling alongside him. They are due to finish any day now. I guess you just can’t keep a good man down. It’s like his website says; “disability? What disability?”