Interview: Bonnie Lewkowicz + Outdoor Access

Lifelong community advocate, Bonnie Lewkowicz of Access Northern California, was one of the first adaptive dancers and wheelchair travel agents. She pioneered adaptive sports and recreation programs. Perhaps most of all, Bonnie’s love for the great outdoors resulted in significant contributions to the creation of wheelchair accessible hiking trails, overlooks, landmarks, camping, and more at parks. She is a warrior on wheels, and in this interview, she shares how to create wheelchair access at parks along with tips on where to wheelchair travel.

More about Bonnie

Bonnie Lewkowicz has worked for over 40 years advocating for and educating about physical and programmatic access to outdoor recreation and tourism for people with disabilities. She is the founder of the non-profit organization, Access Northern California, which merged in 2017 with the Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program, where she authored several access guides to San Francisco, an accessible trail guidebook, and two websites that offer accessibility information.

She has created and conducted countless access surveys for a variety of venues and has led disability awareness trainings to a wide range of businesses and government agencies including, hotels, parks, museums, and Amtrak. Early in her accessibility career, she was trained by the state of CA to assist businesses in identifying access barriers. She is also a founding member of the AXIS Dance Company.