An untapped niche: Accessible vacation rentals

Did you know if you filter an Airbnb search for all accessibility features, you can count the house results in the entire United States on one hand?

- Jerrica Mah

Or if you filter only by stepfree and wide entrances, you're still left with less than 100 entire homes to rent? In the entire United States!

When we set out to build an accessible short-term vacation rental, we didn't know this. We didn't know how great the need was for accessible options. We only knew that we wanted to honor someone very dear to us.

After years of planning and construction, we opened Varonica's View near Yosemite National Park and Bass Lake in March of this year. It's a four-bedroom house designed to be ADA-friendly, with wide doors, no steps, an ADA bathroom with a roll-in shower, a hydraulic patient lift, easily reachable dishes and more. We designed all of this with Varonica in mind.

Varonica Priest was the daughter of the property owner, Stephanie Norgard and my best friend. Varonica was born with mobility and strength disabilities and often relied on a wheelchair and walker, especially when she travelled.