Michelina (paraplegic, Australia) tackled a huge personal challenge last year: travelling alone with her wheelchair and handbike for nine months in cities all over Europe. But why did she set off on this trip?

She is currently writing her autobiography. In order to work on it, this teacher of business administration decided to take a sabbatical year and spend nine months far from Sydney, her hometown, travelling around Europe and having a unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience to put down in her memoir.

Most of her family lives in London, Switzerland and Italy, but this was the first time Michelina had dared to travel to Continental Europe alone, without help. A personal challenge that has given her the chance to understand accessibility in Europe in depth and test her own limits.

In order to be as self-sufficient as possible on her trip, it was recommended that she use one of our handbikes. As soon as she tried one, she realised it would be a very useful tool for her purposes and for day-to-day life. As her departure date was imminent, she couldn't purchase her BATEC PURPLE handbike in Australia, so she waited until she got to Italy.

In the countries she visited before she purchased our electric powered add-on, including Berlin and Prague, she missed it on all the cobblestone streets. Nevertheless, she was pleasantly surprised by the level of accessibility in these two cities, and especially throughout Switzerland. One of her most amazing experiences along the way was the cruise she took with a friend. They went to: Volos (Greece), Khios (Greece), Nessebar (Bulgaria), Costanza (Romania), Istanbul (Turkey), Mykonos (Greece), Valletta (Malta), Messina (Italy), Naples (Italy), Palermo (Italy), Salerno (Italy), Rome (Italy), Florence (Italy), Genoa (Italy), Cannes (France) and Barcelona (Spain). Not bad!

During her trip, she spent most of her time in Italy and Switzerland with her family, which allowed her to do getaways to various cities where her Batec handbike was a great companion.

Back in Sydney, Michelina now uses her Batec handbike much more often. One of her favourite hobbies is to take getaways and day trips with her family, and as she has a wheelchair lift for her car, she can store the chair on the roof of her car leaving the boot free for the Batec... That way there's room in the car for everyone to go wherever they want!