Mobility impairment friendly places to visit in the US

[sqbr]

My partner and I are pondering a visit to the US for a holiday. I have chronic fatigue syndrome and fairly significant mobility issues: I can't walk very far, up more than a couple of stairs, or up steep hills, and will plausibly be hiring a mobility scooter.

Do people have recs (or anti-recs) for cities or sites that are likely to be interesting to two Australian geeks and are particularly amenable to these kinds of constraints?

Any good sf cons that are accessibility friendly and held in interesting cities? (My partner is alas not convinced that he would find Wiscon very interesting)

Our plans are very tentative at this stage, so any and all suggestions or ideas are welcome. Currently pondered locations include San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, New York, Las Vegas, Chicago and Boston.

Comments

[flourish]

Boston has lots of cobblestones, which may or may not be easy for a scooter, depending on the kind of scooter. I have heard complaints about wheelchairs not being very good over the cobble, but on the other hand, a motor scooter will be much easier. On the other hand, in Boston, you can also take tour buses that are very good and give you a very good idea of the city, and which don't require walking (they're water/land tour buses that also go out in the bay, very cool). On the OTHER other hand, many things in Boston that are historical (don't know if you care about US history, but if you do) are, well, historical, so they're kind of tiny and hard to get into, certainly not very accessible - places like Paul Revere's house, etc. On the OTHER other hand, there's also lots of other places that are accessible, like the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I'm not sure how well the Isabella Gardiner museum does but if you decide to go to Boston I live here and I'd look into it for you. It's a can't-miss if you're here. There are some cons here but I don't know about their accessibility.

Las Vegas is generally very accessible, IIRC.

Yosemite National Park is, IIRC, fairly accessible and extremely beautiful, but you may find it frustrating that some of the most beautiful views will be impossible for you (due to, well, you can't really hike up Bridal Veil Falls or what have you). That said, you can rent a scooter there and apparently get some kind of accessibility pass that will let you drive on some otherwise-private roads to get to more things. I'm not sure what kind of proof of disability you'd need to get that pass, if your disability is invisible, but I'm sure it's possible. If you go to the Yosemite website there's an accessibility guide and I bet it would help a lot if you get to that stage of the planning.

Good luck!

[sqbr]

Thankyou! As far as I can tell the less-beautiful-but-accessible parts of Yosemite are still pretty beautiful, so I think I'll be ok :) (My ablebodied but lazy husband went pretty quickly from "You won't mind if I go see some of these waterfalls without you will you?" to "Wait SEVEN HOUR WALK? D:", heh)