I don’t share much about my personal life here.
Most people know me through Luxury Getaways, through VR Nation, or through my work in vacation rental management, hospitality standards, and the operational details that keep a property performing.
What most people don’t know is that the reason I care so deeply about hospitality began long before Luxury Getaways existed.
In 2006, our third son, Lucas, was born.
Within months, he was diagnosed with multiple severe, life-threatening food allergies. Less than a year later, we welcomed our fourth son, Carson. Suddenly we had four children under six and were learning to navigate a reality we hadn’t expected.
Travel changed. Vacations changed. Life changed.
Today, Lucas is 19 years old. He has never stayed in a hotel. He has eaten at one restaurant in his entire life. His first flight wasn’t until he was 12, because of concerns about airborne peanut exposure.
For nearly two decades, our family has vacationed differently. We stayed in short-term rentals where we could control the kitchen and the environment. We rented boats. We cooked our own meals. We had to built safety into every trip with care and precision.
And along the way, I started noticing something.
When your family navigates the world differently, you become aware of barriers that others can easily miss. Not just physical barriers. All barriers. You learn to see who gets included in an experience and who gets quietly excluded by design.
Around that same time, we were building a waterfront vacation home from the ground up.
Lucas was still a baby. The diagnosis was still raw. Our perspective on what a space should be, and for whom, had shifted permanently.
As we worked through the plans, I found myself thinking about other families facing their own version of what we were living. People with mobility limitations. People navigating the world in ways that most design simply doesn’t account for.
I kept coming back to one question: if we’re building this from scratch, why not build it for everyone?
So we did.
We designed the home to be accessible from the front door to the dock. Not because regulation required it. Not because it improved the cap rate. Because our family’s experience had taught us something we couldn’t unknow: accessibility isn’t about ramps and door widths.
It’s about belonging.
It’s about whether a person gets to be present for the fishing trip, the sunset, the family gathering, the quiet cup of coffee in the morning with water on every side of them.
Nearly twenty years later, that waterfront home remains one of the projects I’m most proud of, not because it’s waterfront, and not because it’s beautiful, but because it was built with the belief that the people who’ve had the hardest time getting to the table, deserve a seat at it.
Our family’s story started with food allergies. But the lesson applies to every barrier, in every space, at every table.
Everyone deserves access to the moments that bring families together.
What Accessibility Actually Looks Like in a Vacation Rental
When most people hear “accessible vacation rental,” they think of grab bars and wide doorways. That’s the minimum-compliance version of accommodation.
That’s not what we mean.
What we built at Luxury Getaways’ waterfront property is a home where no one has to ask for a workaround. Where the path from the parking area to the dock doesn’t require a plan B. Where the entry doesn’t require assistance. Where a person using a wheelchair, a walker, or simply a body that doesn’t move the way it used to can arrive, settle in, and simply be present.
That’s a different thing than compliance.
Our Accessible Properties
Luxury Getaways manages a small, carefully selected portfolio of handicap-accessible and accessible-friendly vacation rentals in the Mt. Baker corridor and beyond.
We vet these properties ourselves. We don’t list something as accessible because it has one wide doorway. We list it as accessible because we’ve walked it, assessed it, and can tell you specifically what features it offers and what it doesn’t — so you can make an informed decision for your group.
Browse handicap-accessible vacation rentals →
Contact our team with specific questions →
Who This Is For
This post is for families navigating travel with a member who has mobility limitations. It’s for adult children planning a trip for aging parents who still want to be included. It’s for anyone who has ever booked a vacation rental that claimed to be accessible and arrived to find a single grab bar and a prayer.
You deserve accurate information, honestly presented, by people who understand why it matters.
We’re those people.
360-599-9580 — Our Glacier office, staffed by humans who know these properties.