Accessibility guide

Planning a trip is always exciting, and traveling can bring wonderful experiences, but with people traveling with neurodiversity, physical limitations, or even small children, the unknown can easily become frustrating. This microsite aims to provide information on neuro and sensory-friendly activities along with a comprehensive digital guide to hotels, restaurants, and transportation to help plan for a pleasant and memorable visit to Chapel Hill and Orange County. 

Between May and December of 2022, visits were made to each hotel, restaurant, café, coffee shop, and brewery in operation at the time, and data pertinent to visitors with physical limits were collected, such as where the nearest handicap parking is, how heavy entry doors are, what the seating is like, the type of service, specifics of the restroom accommodations and if there’s a diaper changing table.

Follow up visits to every listing were conducted between May 2022 and January 2023, so phone numbers and website addresses have been included to make it easy for you to check hours of operation and make reservations or ask questions.

Chapel Hill narrows digital accessibility gap

The bureau’s website designer, Simpleview, has partnered with AudioEye, a leader in automated web accessibility and remediation. AudioEye allows you to explore your accessibility options for color, contrast, font size, animation, images, navigation and much more. Look for and click on the AudioEye icon which appears as a person in a circle in the bottom right corner of our homepage

“Digital accessibility is an essential part of our industry,” said Laurie Paolicelli, Director of the Chapel Hill/Orange County Bureau. “Visitors come in all shapes and sizes, including those who have disabilities. 1.3 billion people globally live with some type of disability, yet 97% of the internet is inaccessible to people with disabilities. That’s a huge gap.”