*whew*

Gathering these things takes longer than you might imagine. But there will be lots more soon. Check the Pages for more accommodations with Tempur-Pedic beds in more places.

But in the meantime, here are ten California hotels, motels, and inns with Tempur-Pedic mattresses:

Park Tahoe Inn
530-544-6000
South Lake Tahoe, CA
$122.60-$150

All rooms have  Tempur-Pedic beds; some Superior King Rooms have ADA-compliant bathrooms.

Black Bear Inn
209-795-8999
Arnold, CA
$240-$300

All 5 guest rooms have king-sized Tempur-Pedic beds and spa bathtubs.

Coventry Motor Inn
San Francisco, CA
415-567-1200
$90-$187

Not sure how many rooms have Tempur-Pedic  beds; rumor has it that at least some of the King beds have the Tempur-Pedics. Call and ask specifically to be sure to get one. The good news: this is not a high-budget motel (especially for San Francisco), but it’s got good online ratings.

La Serena Inn
Morro Bay, CA
(800) 248-1511
(805) 772-5665
$100-$275/night

At least half the rooms at the La Serena have Tempur-Pedic beds; may all have them by now. But be sure to call for a reservation and ask for a Tempur-Pedic bed. (Can’t do this on the web reservation portal.)

Grass Valley Courtyard Suites
530-272-7696
Grass Valley, CA
$175-$310

All rooms and suites have Tempur-Pedic beds. This hotel also has a full-service day spa and an on-site personal trainer. (I love Grass Valley–Gold Country may be my favorite region in California. Oh, and the Flour Garden bakeries have the best cherry turnovers in the known universe.)

Wydown Hotel
707-963-5100
St. Helena, CA
$308-$375

Unconfirmed. Only info that claims this property has Tempur-Pedic beds comes from 3rd party website.

Stevenswood Spa Resort
800-421-2810
Little River, CA (Mendocino region)
$310-$550

About half the rooms have  King Tempur-Pedic beds; if you look at the individual room types you can figure out which rooms to reserve online, or call and ask for a room with a Tempur-Pedic. As the name implies, there’s an attached spa, which has lots of healing options on the menu.

Best Western Newport Beach Inn
800-523-5549
Newport Beach, CA
$187-$285

Some rooms have Tempur-Pedics; this isn’t emphasized and there’s no way to tell on the web site which these are–you’ve got to call for a room and ask for a Tempur-Pedic room. There’s at least one theoretically ADA compliant room that they seem to be very proud of. No idea if it’s got a Tempur-Pedic or not.

Pierpont Inn Hotel
805-643-6144
Ventura, CA
$111

Unconfirmed. Only info that claims this property has Tempur-Pedic beds comes from 3rd party website.

Tower23 Hotel
Pacific Beach, CA
858-274-2333

Hotel reservation sites claim that all  rooms have Tempur-Pedic beds, and this does seem to be the kind of chic urban resort hotel that can claim tip-top amenities.

Even with the wood block and the cotton strap, yoga poses look more comfortable than molded plastic airport chairs

This looks promising: SFO has opened up what they call a Yoga Room in Terminal 2, just post-security.

The press release claims it’s got low lighting (hooray!), a floating wall (sure why not), and will have felt rocks (say what now?) come spring of this year. What the press release doesn’t describe is what kind of actual yoga equipment is available in the room. A very brief description of the room in the Passenger Services Listing implies that they’ve got some rolls and mats in there.

I plan to check this room out next time I’m flying from Terminal 2. I like the idea of assuming Corpse Pose and meditating away my wait time before a flight, or even figuring out a supportive stretch-and-circulation-and-relaxation routine (asana? I’m no yogi) ahead of time. This seems like a good way to reduce the pain of air travel.

Watch this space for more info on the SFO Yoga Room when I get around to visiting it…

But meanwhile, here’s the number, which is toll-free in the United States: 1-855-787-2227

To get the serious help, you need to make the call at least 3 days before you plan to show up at the airport. If you do that, they’ll go so far as to make sure they’ve got specially trained agents present at security when you arrive to help you through screening.

In theory, the operators answering the TSA Cares line are specially trained to answer questions and provide service for travelers with disabilities. I haven’t called them, so I can’t speak personally to the expertise of any of the operators. If you have the opportunity to chat with these folks, please comment here and let us know how your experience went?

The big in-the-bedroom spa tub in the Garden Room at the Arbor Guest House in Napa makes a perfect pain-minimizer for me

Really, this whole blog is about how to make travel easier and less painful for us travelers with chronic pain and hidden disabilities. But everybody loves a good roundup. And what I’m thinking here is specifically how I diminish physical pain caused by travel.

1. Take painkillers.
The road is not the place to try to bull through a pain flare without medication. I bring plenty of prescription and non-prescription painkillers when I travel. If I find myself starting to hurt, I try to medicate before the pain really gets its claws into me. It’s much, much harder to kill pain that’s ramped to a scream than it is to head it off early.

2. Lie down during the day.
Even when I’m on a business trip, I try to find a way to lie down for at least an hour in the afternoon. I don’t usually sleep–naps screw up my nighttime sleep cycle. So I read or watch tv or admire the view from my motel room window.

3. Eat regularly and healthfully.
However tempting it is to eat badly when I’m traveling, it’s not a good idea to give in to that temptation. I feel far less pain when I eat fruits and veggies every day, don’t overdo the red meat or the desserts, and eschew fast food.

4. Meditate and visualize.
This sort of thing works for me, and nowhere is it more necessary than on the road and in the air. When stuffed into a coach seat on a commercial jet, I close my eyes, control my breathing, and use my mind to control my pain.

5. Get into hot water.
Literally. Whether it’s a hot tub near the pool, a day spa’s upscale digs, or just a tub-shower combo in my motel room, a bath a day helps keep my pain at bay.

It's important to be comfy when you're sleeping away from home. Which apparently means burying yourself in pillows if you're my friend Daniel.

When I travel, I gotta sleep. There’s no way around it. No matter how many things I want to see, no matter what I want to do, if I don’t get plenty of sleep every single night I might as well stay home.

So I think about sleeping when I plan my trips. When? For how long? On what? Under what? Sleep is a many splendored thing–I need to be comfortable, which means I need to plan pretty carefully.

Dark and Quiet

I need moderate dark and reasonable quiet in order to sleep well.

For me, that means I try to get a room facing away from the street if I’m staying in a big city hotel or highway-facing motor inn.  That helps to keep the noise to a minimum. I also prefer to be about midway down the hallway from the elevator in multi-story accommodations. I like to be able to walk to my room easily, but I don’t love hearing the elevator clank and clang and beep all night.

I always wear earplugs when I sleep, so I don’t need absolute silence in my room.

Lightwise, I want to be able to draw curtains to shut out morning light. Whenever possible, I avoid east-facing rooms. Sunrise and I are not buddies. But I don’t love blackout curtains–they mess up my internal clock. If I get them in my motel room (and if I’m staying in Reno or Vegas, it’s nigh on impossible to avoid them), I make sure not to close them all the way.

Soft and Warm

Unless I’ve got no other choice, I prefer a room with some flavor of central heating rather than a portable space heater. One (often overly) warm spot in an ice-cold room does not work for  me, as I routinely get up more than once per night to use the bathroom.

“Soft” mostly means that I prefer a bed with a newer or specialized mattress. My preference is Tempur-Pedic(tm), but I can’t often afford the kind of room that boasts a top-end bed. Every now and again if I splurge I can afford something with a Sleep Number(tm), which is nice because my husband has different mattress preferences.

What doesn’t work so well for me are the slabs of plywood or concrete that masquerade as mattresses in down-rent Motel 6es and the like. So either I suck it up and budget for a nice enough room to guarantee a decent bed, or I drag my own mattress pad along. (Obviously this is a road-trip strategy.) I’ve got a queen-sized foam mattress pad that comes traveling with me when necessary.

Same goes for blankets–ultra-cheap motels often don’t have heavy enough covers for me, especially in winter. So I bring my own.

My Weary Head

BYO pillow if you want a good night’s sleep on the road. Accept no substitutes.

(I often sleep on hotel pillows so that I can bring their relative comfort to you, my readers. But not at cheap motels anymore. ‘Cause ow.)

Drugs and Other Sleep Aids

Are my friend. Whether I’m currently using melatonin or zolpidem, I bring a trip-long supply and use it regularly. On the road is not the time or place to decide that chemical sleep aids are evil and must be deleted from my repertoire.

Though I don’t use such things, same goes for music, sound generators, TV, aromatherapy, or whatever else you use to help you sleep at home. Bring it with you on your trip to make sure that your sleep environment is as close to what you’ve got at home as you can manage.

Long and Deep

I need to sleep at least 10 hours each night–12 is better when I’m traveling. Yeah, that’s a lot of sleep. That means I’ve either got to go to bed early and forgo whatever night life my destination has to offer, or I’ve got to sleep late in the mornings.

Because I am *ahem* not a morning person, I usually choose to sleep in. This means that I miss things. If you want to see Haleakala without a coating of dense fog, you pretty much have to see it at sunrise. So usually on each major trip I take, if there are cool things to do and see that must be done in the early morning, I’ll pick precisely one of them. I’ll choose one morning to get up early and play, and I’ll suck up the hit to my body and mind.

This can be a bummer sometimes. But if I try to push this limit and do two or three early mornings in one trip, the price I pay gets too high (like I won’t be able to function any more for the duration of the drip and for several days after getting home).

On the other hand, if I pack and plan well, stick to my boundaries, and get that good sleep, I often find that I’m able to do and see more than I might have imagined. Which is just so cool!

So without further ado–the Travels With Pain review of Pajama Jeans!

Material

The fabric of the Pajama Jeans really wasn’t what I was expecting. It’s stiff–more jeans-like and less pajamalike than I’d envisioned. I definitely couldn’t and wouldn’t sleep in these by choice. On the other hand, they’re soft and stretchy enough to wear on a plane trip or a road trip.

The box claims that the fabric is something new and special called Dormisoft(tm). The inner tag claims that Pajama Jeans are 95% cotton and 5% spandex. Whoopee.

Fit

I like the fit of the Pajama Jeans, for the most part. I bought a Small based on the size of my waist (which I am not publishing here–so there). They fit true to size, though I find them to be fairly tight through the thighs and rear. They definitely gave my behind a nice-looking lift, the way a good pair of women’s jeans is supposed to.

On the other hand, the waist is stretchy and does not dig in when I sit down and when I contort into funny positions to try to get them to dig.

Style

I’m not in love with the Pajama Jeans style. The stitching at the waist looks kinda funky–more like pajamas than like jeans. Which makes me hesitant to wear these pants to work or out and about on a travel day. I might wear them with a long sweater or tunic-style top, but not with any top I’d tuck in or as part of an outfit that would show off the funky-looking waistband.

Pajama Jeans don’t have front pockets. I know that this is a current fashion trend in women’s jeans, but it drives me up a tree. I need those pockets. Especially when I’m traveling–I put things in those pockets, darn it!

After an Hour

After an hour of wearing the Pajama Jeans, I was ready to shed them and get back into my yoga pants.

The Bottom Line

Pajama Jeans = Meh

I’ll wear them again, and I do think they’ll make decent travel pants. I probably won’t wear them to work. I certainly will not wear them to bed as jammies if I’ve got any other options. I probably won’t buy another pair until/unless they make some styling changes.

Photo (c) Pajama Jeans(tm)

This is what Kauai looks like in January, June, and November. Ya gotta love it.

As the temperatures in my hometown plummet to 32 F (0 C)–brrr!–I find myself thinking about different ways to keep warm when I travel. Yes, I’m from California and I get cold when it’s 62 F.

But the real problem is that when I get cold, my pain gets worse. So I’ve got to stay warm when I’m on the road or things can go very bad for me.

Here’s how I stay warm when I travel:

Visit Warm Places

The easiest way to keep from getting cold on the road is to travel to places that aren’t cold. My own state, California, has some great moderate-temp destinations that rarely get down to freezing even in the depths of February. Granted, wintertime is not bikini-time, even in San Diego. But San Diego, Palm Springs, Death Valley, Disneyland, and even San Francisco don’t get truly cold at any time–no snow, no below-zero wind chill, never even a hard frost most years. Other U.S. states with warm winter weather are Arizona, New Mexico, parts of Texas, and ever-popular Florida.

I favor Hawaii and the isles of the South Pacific as warm winter destinations. Maui is gorgeous in March. The Caribbean hurricane season ends at the first of December, which makes the balmy chain of islands a wonderful  winter holiday destination. Cruise ships ply the Caribbean waters all winter long, making the most of the bathtub-temperature waters and sugar-sand beaches. Last February I went snorkeling in Cozumel wearing only a one-piece and a mask, and felt perfectly comfortable.

For travelers with more endurance for long flights and adventurous spirits when it comes to international destinations, other ways to keep warm include prowling the equatorial regions where the Earth stays warm year round, or swapping hemispheres for a season. While we’re snow-skiing North America from December through March, Australia and New Zealand are enjoying fine hot summers. And along the equator in South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa the tropical rain forests remain hot and damp even in the darkest months of winter.

Pack and Wear Layers

My cute husband doesn't have chronic pain. He can go out in below-freezing weather and stand in a snowbank wearing a windbreaker and no hat. Me, not so much.

Forget about packing ultra-light, baggage-free travel, and all that crap. If I’m going someplace cold, I’m darn well going to bring enough clothing to keep me warm day and night.

That means  turtlenecks, tank tops, long johns, and flannel jammies. Whatever pretty and warm sweaters, and attractive jeans and pants I want to wear over the sturdy under-layers. Plus sturdy fuzzy boots, long wool coat (or a ski jacket), wool scarf, warm hat, and warm gloves for time outdoors. Oh, and warm socks! Lots and lots of warm, comfy socks.

Use Heat Patches, Heat Pouches, & Heating Pads

These days, all sorts of heat patches and pouches are sold at my local Walgreens. So are electric heating pads, come to think of it. All of these work great on road trips–you can even get an adapter for your heating pad and plug it into your car. (When the car’s running–heating pads suck up tons of electricity, so don’t drain your car battery with your hot pad unless it’s really an emergency.)

While you can get the kind of heat pouches that have gel in them through airport security in the US by declaring them to be “medically necessary,” they may prove to be more trouble than they’re worth. And heating pads have wires in them, so I never bother trying to carry mine on board an airplane. That pretty much leaves the hot patches for plane flights. ThermaCare makes a nice one.

Turn Up the Heater

In the car and in my motel room, I turn the heater up to a temperature that truly keeps me comfortable. A trip in a cold winter environment is not the time nor the place to be parsimonious with the thermostat. If I’m feeling chilled when I get into my room, I will crank the temp up to 78 if I need to.

Drive Rather Than Taking Public Transit

It’s not green. It’s not PC. But it’s much, much warmer when I drive myself rather than taking public transit. Driving myself means no waiting outside in the cold at bus stations, light rail stations, or train stations. No standing on windswept corners trying to hail a cab. No sitting in an icy draft on a molded plastic seat. No long freezing hikes from the bus station to wherever it is I’m actually trying to go.

Of course, parking lots can be a long, long walk from the front door of my destination. But it’s more likely that I’ll have less walking to do if I drive rather than dealing with transit.

Take Lots of Hot Baths and Showers

Even the worst chills can be soaked away in a long hot bath. In-room spa tubs become even more important to me in the winter. For me, a shower works in a pinch but a deep tub that lets me submerge up to my neck works best. These days, many nice inns and hotels provide bath salts. But I can always bring a ziplock bag of my own blend of healing salts to throw in the water.

Fire Up the Fireplace

If my home away from home has a fireplace, I light it up and enjoy the warmth, the gentle light, and a good book.

So what do you do to keep warm when you travel? I’d love to gather up some more tips!

View of Half Moon Bay from the Ritz-Carlton, where I would one day like to be wealthy enough to patronize for my overnight getaways

Last week, my husband and I went and spent a night in the charming little seaside town of Half Moon Bay, California at the ocean-front Cypress Inn.

This little vacation is exactly the kind of trip I think is perfect for chronic pain patients who haven’t done a lot of traveling with their pain yet, who are celebrating the diminishing of a flare, or who feel like they might be doing well enough to travel. At the moment I’m in category 2.

If you’ve got chronic pain and you can physically get up out of bed and walk around your house, and you can tolerate a car trip of 15-60 minutes, you can take this kind of trip. It may not be pain-free. But if you want to have fun, you can create a lot of fun.

Here’s my step-by-step guide to finding the joy in a one-night near-home getaway:

1. Choose someplace near home.
   I love Half Moon Bay because it’s less than an hour’s drive from my house, yet it’s got a totally different atmosphere than the one I live in. It’s got a small town feel, complete with kitschy downtown, and it lies along the stunning Northern California coastline. Read here: Beach!I also like taking getaways to the woods, to the mountains, and to small towns with interesting history. I always try to pick someplace with points of interest, places to take slow pleasant walks, unusual or chic restaurants, and a nice inn that’s got comfortable rooms near to the places I want to visit.
2. Drive out in the mid-afternoon.
   Midafternoon is the perfect time to make my short drive up the freeway and over the mountains. Between 1pm and 3pm, traffic in my major metro area smooths out. Most every hotel, motel, and inn known to man has a check-in time between 3pm-4pm. I timed my drive to get to the Cypress Inn just at check-in time, so I could lie down if I felt tired or achy when I arrived.
3. Take a walk on the beach.
   I didn’t feel tired or achy, so my husband unloaded our bags into our room, we changed our shoes, and we headed out. The Cypress Inn sits just across the road from the beach. We took a long, shambling stroll. I collected a few shells, including some undamaged sand dollars. I breathed in the ocean air, stared out over the water, petted various dogs who’d taken their owners out for a romp on the sand, and just let myself feel the joy of being someplace beautiful…someplace different.
4. Rest.
   After beachcombing for an hour, I felt tired. So I laid down on the wide bed and read a book for an hour. My husband and I watched the sun set over the Pacific from the wide windows overlooking the water.
5. Go out for a nice dinner.
   Before we left home, I’d made reservations at Cetrella–a fancy California cuisine restaurant in downtown Half Moon Bay. I love dining out, especially when I’m traveling. Cetrella has a special $25 prix-fixe menu they serve Tues-Thurs. We took advantage of that discount and enjoyed a charming meal with a glass of wine. The restaurant is only 10-15 minutes from the Inn, so if I’d had physical trouble we could have gotten me back to the room quickly.Though it wasn’t strictly necessary, my husband and I dressed up some for dinner. I wore dress pants and boots rather than a dress and heels–walking in heels tends to cause me pain, and the cold weather would have added pain if I’d chosen a dress. But it’s still great fun to dress up, add some jewelry and makeup to my outfit. It makes the meal a special event, and that much more fun.
6. Take a bath.
   Especially in chilly weather, baths ease my aches and pains while relaxing my muscles and soothing my skin. Knowing this, my fabulous husband reserved us a room with an oversized spa tub. We made use of it. ‘Nuff said.
7. Enjoy the hotel room.
   All through our short stay, I enjoyed the amenities of the room at the Cypress Inn we’d saved up to be able to afford and of the Inn itself. The bathtub, of course, the comfy bed, the wide flat-screen TV with cable, the in-house Esalen-trained massage therapist, the wine and cheese in the evening, the room-service breakfast in the morning.
8. Sleep.
   I can’t do without lots of sleep each night. So I put in my earplugs, locked the door and put out the Do Not Disturb sign, pulled the drapes, and slept.
9. Eat breakfast in bed.
   The innkeeper delivers breakfast trays to guests who don’t want to appear in the dining room in the morning. So we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in bed.
10. Check out at the latest possible check-0ut time.
    No point in bolting out of the room at 7 am–this was a vacation! So we packed up, husband loaded the car, and we checked out at 11:30 am.
11. Shop downtown.
    I love shopping, and my husband gamely tolerates shopping. Shopping is another way to get in a stroll while seeing new things. Most downtown areas have benches if I need to sit down, there’s usually someplace that’s selling bottled water and coffee, and being a customer means the sales staff will let me use the restrooms.
12. Have a light lunch at a cute bakery.
    Eating’s important. So we did.
13. Drive home.
    In the early afternoon, we drove home. I have a tough time making it through a whole day without lying down to rest at least once in the afternoon. We went home so I could do that.
14. Rest.
    We got home and I laid down and rested.

Totally successful trip! Try it yourself when you get a chance.

Photo (c) radzfoto on flickr

Carousel, Slots, and Show Posters at McCarran International Airport Las Vegas, photo (c) kanamas on flickr

One of the busiest international airports in the Western United States, McCarran International Airport at Las Vegas (LAS) presents unique challenges and interesting diversions to travelers with pain. The big question is–how do you feel about slot machines? ‘Cause McCarran International has more than 1,300 of the jangling, flashing things inside its terminals.

I’ve flown in and out of McCarran a few times in the last few years. Here’s my take on the facilities and services of LAS.

The Basics

McCarran International is an immense sprawling tangle, composed of reasonably sized Terminal 2 and immense Terminal 1. Terminal 1 has four concourses and an esplanade. Trams take passengers from concourse to concourse in Terminal 1, as it’s too far to walk (and Concourse D is detached and heck’n'gone from the rest of the airport).

The whole thing is huge–big enough that it can get hellish to walk from gate to gate, ticketing to security to gate, gate to baggage claim, or baggage claim to parking and ground transport.

Driving In, Ride-In and Parking

McCarran is a good longish drive out from the Strip and central Las Vegas. The good news: because it’s out in BF Nowhere, there’s plenty of parking at and around the airport. The bad news: it can be a long, long walk to ticketing and security from both short-term and long-term parking.

Also, because McCarran is so busy, it can be a hassle to get dropped off by taxi at the departure area. At peak times, you may have to wait or to walk–not a great choice for travelers with pain. And it’s a big ol’ hassle to return a rental car and get to your terminal–the rental car return can be confusing to find if you’re unfamiliar with the airport. So allow extra time for hassles if your flight is at a peak travel time.*

Grade: C-

Wheelchair Service

I heartily recommend getting a wheelchair when flying into or out of McCarran, if you ever have enough pain or fatigue to require a wheelchair at an airport. Or if you’ve got a temporary acute pain condition, such as a broken leg, sprained ankle, or recent knee or hip surgery. It’s too big, too crowded, and too difficult to navigate to try to go it on foot.

My experience with wheelchair service at LAS has been pretty good. They’ve always gotten me a chair within 10-15 minutes of my requesting it, and chairs have been present when I disembark upon flying in.

Wheelchair service is provided free of charge by calling (702) 261-5475 or dialing 5475 on any white courtesy phone. C Gate passengers should call (702) 261-6376 from outside the airport or 6376 from any white courtesy phone.

Grade: B

Getting Through Security

I’ve found the security at McCarran to be pretty forgettable, which means that it’s actually quite good. It’s a big international airport, which means that lines can be nasty-long at peak periods. But even on air travel review sites, where any fault in an airline gets magnified, the LAS TSA gets surprisingly high marks.

Grade: A

The Long Walk in McCarran International Airport Las Vegas, photo (c) stevendepolo on flickr

On the Concourses

It’s the concourses that comprise the nitty-gritty of an any airport. At McCarran, the defining characteristic of the concourses is the plethora of slot machines. For me, the endless parade of flashing, ringing, squalling machines has an up side and a down side. The up side–the cushy upholstered stools, often with backs to them, provide reasonably comfortable alternative seating when I’ve got a long wait, or when I need to stop and rest (if I’ve failed to follow my own advice about the wheelchair).

The down side: Slot machines are loud, the lights flash constantly, and they create mobility hazards in the form of crowds. Hardcore slots players tend not to be terribly courteous towards other human beings when they’re in the zone, which means they don’t move, even if a disabled person is trying to get past them. The slots create an anti-relaxing atmosphere throughout McCarran.

Getting Around

To get from concourse to concourse (or terminal to terminal), take the trams. Don’t think you can walk it–LAS is just too big. Also, Concourse D isn’t actually in Terminal 1–it’s way the heck out across the tarmac. Terminal 2 is out in yet another building (in the opposite direction).

Grade: C-

Seats and Slots at McCarran International Airport Las Vegas, photo (c) inazakira on flickr

Seating

Seating around the gates is US-airport standard, as far as I’ve ever experienced. Lots of molded plastic, some minor-league upholstery. With the stools at the slot machines, there’s more seating available on the concourses than usual.

Grade: C

Food

There’s plenty of food on the concourses in Terminal 1. The best dining is in the C concourse–lucky Southwest Airlines passengers catch a break! But you can grab a bite and a cup of coffee easily enough out at the gates of A, B, and D too. Terminal 2 is another story–if you’re not into Pizza Hut, Burger King, hot dogs, or ice cream you’re SOL.

Grade: C

Bathrooms

Are kinda dirty most of the time, and the distribution of bathrooms in some of the concourses is just weird. The worst concourse is A, which has only one set of bathrooms for all the gates. Best is C, which has bathrooms ranging all down its length.

McCarren has unisex restrooms for folks who need assistance, but they’re not numerous.

Grade: D

Other Amenities

There are “recharge stations” sprinkled conservatively throughout the concourses, but I didn’t see any seating with outlets easily available to plug in electronics.

McCarran has free wi-fi.

Grade: B

Baggage Claim

Baggage claim at McCarran involves many carousels, like any large international airport. It’s a long, long walk from most of the gates to baggage claim, so after one regrettably painful incident, I stick with wheelchair service from the gate after my flights.

Baggage claim at LAS seems organized enough, and I’ve not heard or read of any major complaints.

Grade: B-

Ground Transport

Ground transport after a flight into McCarran can be a total zoo. There’s no dedicated public transit system from McCarran into downtown Las Vegas or The Strip, which means visitors have a choice of shuttles, taxis, limos (this is Vegas, after all) or rental cars. Check before you go to see whether your casino, hotel, motel, or timeshare has a free (or pay) airport shuttle. Not all of them do. If you’re coming in on a Friday afternoon or evening, expect to spend at least 15 minutes in the taxi line.

Traffic on The Strip is insane. Expect to get caught in some sort of gawdawful traffic jam that extends your time from LAS to your hotel by at least 15 minutes, no matter what time of day you arrive, no matter what ground transport method you pick. It’s worst if you drive yourself, which I do not recommend for a traveler with pain.

Grade: D

The Bottom Line

I dislike flying into and out of LAS, and find its facilities to be mediocre at best. Here’s hoping that the new terminal they’re opening in 2013 has more bathrooms, better gate seating, better food, and shorter walks.

Grade: C

via Listening to the Impossibles.

Think you can’t travel because of your chronic pain, your hidden disability?

Read this post.

It describes, pretty succinctly, why people with chronic pain can travel if they really want to. Traveling with pain isn’t easy. Getting up the money, the courage, and the strength to do it is even harder.

But it’s worth it. Always.