What does your space feel like to someone who moves through it differently than you do?
I can help you find out. I move through your space the way a guest does, noticing the things that are easy to miss when you’re usually experiencinng it from the other side.
What I See (That Often Gets Missed)
Most spaces are close. Close isn’t the same as working.
What I notice isn’t usually dramatic. It’s the moment a guest has to stop and figure out how to make something work. The pause before they decide whether to ask for help. The quiet calculation about whether the effort is worth it.
Most of the time, nobody says anything. They just don’t come back. They don’t bring their family next time. They quietly recommend somewhere else.
How I Work
I’m not there to check a box or find something to cite. I’m there to find out whether a guest can move through the full experience on their own — arrival to exit — without having to stop, improvise, or ask for help. That’s where access either holds or doesn’t.
I move through your space the way a guest would. I pay attention to how the experience unfolds — where things work easily, where they require a workaround, where the friction is invisible until someone runs into it. Sometimes I ask questions. Sometimes I just watch how things function when nobody’s adjusting for me. It depends on what will give the clearest picture.
I move through spaces in a power wheelchair, which changes what I notice — and what I can’t help noticing. The entry that technically works but requires a detour nobody told you about. The restroom that passed inspection and still doesn’t function once you’re actually in it. The table that’s available but positioned so you’re eating next to the kitchen door while everyone you came with is across the room. I can’t turn this off. It’s just how I move through the world, and it turns out to be useful.
I work across wineries, tasting rooms, lodging, restaurants, shops, and local attractions throughout the Verde Valley and surrounding communities. I take on a limited number of in-person evaluations each year. The scope depends on the property — a single tasting room is a different conversation than a full resort.
Why This Matters
Your guests already know. You just haven’t heard it yet.
When something doesn’t work, guests rarely say so. It’s a pause. A decision made quietly on the way out about whether to come back, whether to bring people next time, whether to mention this place when someone asks for a recommendation.
Those moments are easy to miss. They’re also the ones people remember and talk about on the drive home.
People with disabilities spend nearly $50 billion on travel annually in the U.S. — over $100 billion when you include the people who travel with them. That number surprises most people when they hear it. It isn’t spent all at once. It is influenced by decisions: where to go, where to return, what to tell a friend. And most of those decisions are shaped by small moments that either hold or quietly don’t.
The Verde Valley runs on people wanting to come back. The guests who can’t fully participate won’t explain why they didn’t.
How to Work Together
In-Person Evaluation
I come to your space and move through it the way a guest would — arrivals, entries, restrooms, transitions, seating, flow. The full arc, not just the obvious checkpoints. I’m paying attention to what works and what requires effort a guest shouldn’t have to spend. The entry that technically functions but sends you the long way around. The restroom that passed inspection and still doesn’t work once you’re actually in it. The table that’s available but positioned so you’re eating next to the kitchen door while everyone you came with is across the room.
The physical space is where I start, but a guest’s experience doesn’t end there. I look at the full picture — including the moments that happen at the table, in the ordering process, and in how your team handles accommodation requests when they come up.
Sometimes I ask questions. Sometimes I just watch how things function when nobody’s adjusting for me. It depends on what will give the clearest picture.
After the visit, you get a written report — what’s working, what isn’t, where the friction lives, and specific recommendations for addressing it. Not a checklist. Not code language. Something you can actually hand to the person who needs to fix it.
Two things inform how I see: I’m an ICC-certified ADA architectural barriers specialist with formal training in assistive technology — and more than three decades of navigating spaces that technically work and practically don’t. Those two things together are what make this different from a standard compliance review.
In-person evaluations are limited each year, and the scope depends on the property. A single tasting room is a different conversation than a full resort.
Remote Review
Not every access barrier shows up in the physical space. Some of them live in the information a guest encounters before they ever arrive.
Does your website give someone with a disability what they need to decide whether to come? Does your booking process work the way it claims to? When a guest needs an accommodation, is there a moment in the reservation process where they can identify that — or are they arriving and hoping?
A remote review looks at the full picture of what a guest encounters before they walk through your door. I’m looking at whether the story you’re telling matches the experience you’re actually offering, and where the gaps are creating friction before the visit even begins.
You get a written report with specific findings and practical recommendations — the same standard as an in-person evaluation, applied to a different layer of the experience.
See What I See
The Cost of Almost Accessible
I’ve been paying attention to something for a long time. Exclusion rarely arrives dramatically. It doesn’t announce itself. More often it arrives wrapped in good intentions — a space that technically meets requirements but only works if you’re willing to ask for help, an accommodation that was approved and documented and still didn’t work when the moment arrived.
It’s almost always something that looks minor until it isn’t.
Start a Conversation
If you’re curious what this would look like for your space, we can start there.
