After breaking his neck, Shane is on a mission to change global travel

You’d be furious, wouldn’t you, if you boarded a cruise to find a suitable cabin wasn’t available, and you were turned away, with the cruise line refusing you a refund?

If you had a physical disability, you’d be angry but perhaps not surprised. This sort of customer service fail is common for people with mobility issues.

Shane Hryhorec boarding a flight to Japan. Travelling in a wheelchair is totally possible… but the travel industry just needs to get on board.

For those travellers (and 38 per cent of people over 65 identify as having some sort of disability), there are many barriers to getting around, but the most infuriating involve thoughtlessness, selfishness and bureaucratic laziness.

Shane Hryhorec is on a mission to raise awareness of what it’s like to travel with a disability – and to challenge airlines, cruise ships, hotels and other travellers to do better.

Seventeen years ago, Shane broke his neck in a swimming accident. Today, he’s an entrepreneur and disability advocate, and a finalist in the 2025 Australian of the Year Local Hero Awards. In 2016, he started the charity Accessible Beaches Australia, which increased the number of accessible beaches in the country from five to more than 60, with plans for many more.

He’s also the force behind the viral TikTok travel series Wheel Around the World, which has 242,000 followers and has reached more than 100 million views online. His video of travelling in a wheelchair on an MSC cruise had 40 million views. And then there’s his Instagram account, @wheelaroundtheworldwithshane, which has 35,000 followers.

Shane Hryhorec, pictured outside the Louvre Museum in Paris.

You could say he is influential. He’s also very, very funny. His brutal honesty and wry humour make him a must-follow. I’m addicted.

You can check the trailer for his latest adventure – “Can I get around the entire island of Taiwan in a wheelchair?” − on his YouTube channel.

Wheel Around the World is not just about travelling with a disability but travelling in general – the joys, frustrations and unexpected challenges of being out of our comfort zones, which we all experience at one time or another.

But the things that someone in a wheelchair needs to confront on any ordinary day – things we take for granted – are sometimes beyond comprehension. Shane’s exploits are more watchable than an episode of Survivor, unfortunately.

The Wheel Around the World creator hits the beach in Queensland.

Each episode is full of unexpected, wince-inducing frustrations. Ticket windows that are up a step. “Accessible” ramps that are dangerously steep. Cottages accessed by gravel pathways that wheelchairs can’t navigate. An airline in South Korea confiscates his battery so he can’t power his wheelchair. Another forgets to put his service dog into the booking.

And then there are the things that take the patience of a saint. On the MSC cruise, his supposedly accessible cabin is so narrow that he can’t wheel himself into it; on a Disney cruise he can’t get up the step into the bathroom. For anyone trying to live independently, this is deeply humiliating.

What really makes Shane angry is the lack of interest he often strikes with hotel management. Even though he specifies an accessible room when booking a hotel, it’s not uncommon to arrive and find there are none available because the message didn’t reach reception.

He’s made progress, however, with booking.com, which has brought in new systems to ensure the messages are received.

But the one thing that really shocks me, and something that confronts disabled travellers regularly, is the number of able-bodied people who book accessible rooms because they know these rooms are more spacious. When there is only about 2 per cent of the inventory set aside as accessible, that leaves disabled people out in the cold, sometimes literally.

What Shane would really love to see is a TV travel program featuring a presenter with a disability. At present, these programs are sadly lacking in inclusive content – and vision. “I’d love it if someone came along and said, ‘Hey, we want you on our TV, and here’s the budget to go travel and create the content.’ That would be a dream.”

Some 70 per cent of Shane’s audience are people who don’t have disabilities. “People in the world are just fascinated by what it’s like for other people,” he says. “That’s good because that’s what breaks down stigma and creates awareness. It’s people’s openness to learn and experience, and that’s kind of been my ethos behind what I do.

“If you’re an older person, and you don’t travel much, and you may have a limp or whatever, if you see me in a wheelchair, travelling, jumping on a horse, riding the top of Mount Fuji. Oh, f--- it [you think]. ‘I’m going to do it too’.”