A Deaf Traveler Opens Up About Making Travel More Accessible

Marlene Valle, a young deaf Mexican-American travel content creator, wrote off her dreams of traveling the world after losing her hearing as a child. A Los Angeles native, she believed it would be financially demanding and otherwise an impossibility because she was deaf, Valle signed in a special video presentation at Skift Global Forum on Wednesday about what the travel industry needs to "build on the other side of this crisis." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNTcDHHaPHs Valle said she initially internalized the fears others passed on to her.  "How could I travel if I'm not going to hear everything? How am I going to navigate the airport or communicate with local people in different languages," Valle asked herself.   After doing some research on her own, Valle said she embarked on exploring travel adventures domestically, internationally.  She writes about her experiences and insights in traveling as a deaf person on her blog, Deafinitely Wanderlust, to de-stigmatize deaf t