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Sites Unseen: What’s Revealed by Traveling With the Blind

May 24, 2026 • 27m

Summary

⏱️ 9 min read

Overview

Andy Isaacson, a New York Times travel journalist and photographer, shares his transformative experience traveling through India with a group of blind and visually impaired travelers through a company called Travelize. The journey challenged his lifelong reliance on visual experience and revealed deeper, multi-sensory layers of travel through sound, touch, smell, and spatial awareness. By serving as a guide and descriptor for his blind companions while learning from their unique perspectives, Isaacson discovered that no single viewpoint captures the full picture of a place, much like the Hindu parable of the blind men and the elephant.

Andy Isaacson's Visual Journey and Career

Andy Isaacson built his career around a childhood dream of seeing the world, collecting National Geographic magazines and traveling to every continent on Earth. His professional life was driven by a desire to create a visual map of the world in his mind's eye, visiting remote places from the South Pole to Tristan da Cunha. However, a recurring question from a friend about what places smelled like made him realize his sight might be dominating his experience and causing him to miss deeper layers of understanding.

  • Isaacson described travel journalism as his dream job, driven by childhood fascination with National Geographic and world exploration
  • He has traveled to extreme destinations including the South and North Poles, Tajikistan, and the world's most remote inhabited island, Tristan da Cunha
  • A friend's repeated question about what places smell like made him realize he might be missing richer, deeper layers of experience by relying so heavily on sight
" I was the kid that collected National Geographic magazines and books about wildlife and world history. And I think once I got into journalism, a lot of my career was driven by a desire to see the world, to lay eyes on these places. "
" I wanted to go to these places, I wanted to see them with my eyes, and be able to visualize anywhere on Earth. "

Discovering Multi-Sensory Travel Experiences

Isaacson's exploration of non-visual travel began seventeen years ago at the world's first permanent dark restaurant in Zurich, staffed by blind people. The experience of eating in complete darkness was so profound that he still vividly remembers the sounds, tastes, and even stabbing his face with ravioli years later. This led him to discover Travelize, a company founded by Amar Lateef that pairs visually impaired and sighted travelers as equal companions, promising to deepen the experience for both groups.

  • At a dark restaurant in Zurich, Isaacson experienced how dimming dominant senses can open up and enrich an experience through sound, taste, and touch
  • Amar Lateef founded Travelize after mainstream travel companies rejected him for not having a caregiver, despite wanting independent travel experiences
  • Travelize pairs visually impaired and sighted travelers as equal companions, not as clients and helpers, creating a multi-sensory experience that benefits both groups
  • Isaacson reached a point where he was less interested in traveling to new places and more interested in traveling differently
" I still remember 17 years later the sound of the room. I remember the taste of the tomato sauce. I remember how it felt when I stabbed my face with the ravioli. "
" I wanted to have that independent experience when I didn't have to rely on my friends and family. "
" It offered the promise of a new, different, more immersive way of experiencing a travel destination. "

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