Selma Blair on Touring With MS, Accessibility, and Inclusive Journey Experiences

If anybody is aware of the transformative energy of a superb journey, it is actor Selma Blair. 

As Blair just lately defined whereas on stage at Journey + Leisure‘s 2025 World’s Greatest Summit, she was formally recognized with a number of sclerosis in 2018, although she doubtless lived with it undiagnosed for 25 to 30 years, together with as a toddler residing with optical neuritis. However all through all of it, she’s maintained her signature grace, mild, and humor. 

“The one factor that received me by way of childhood was nice holidays,” Blair stated with fun. “Everybody simply feels higher on a trip. So whilst a sickly baby, that was all the time the beacon, the north star for me.”

Now, Blair defined, she’s residing relapse-free and again to touring the world, albeit in a really completely different style along with her sidekick, Scout. “Fortunately, inns are actually canine pleasant, which is a plus and minus,” she stated. “As a result of I do permit my service canine to be fairly pleasant to folks. He thinks my job, now that I am quite a bit higher, is to exit and be a service canine for anybody else that desires him. And he is proud of that. And he nonetheless does his job for me.” 

Blair famous that due to Scout, she travels with one fairly uncommon however useful merchandise in her carry-on: a squeegee. “I do carry a squeegee to get the canine hair off the bottom,” she defined, so she’s all the time prepared to scrub up any fur from the ground of an Uber or a airplane. 

As for the duo’s must-have for any journey, Blair defined she merely will need to have an exquisite room, ideally one with a view. “I [do] be sure you have a room with a view,” she stated, explaining that whereas she could not have the ability to discover like she used to, she will nonetheless get pleasure from new locations this manner. ” I all the time be sure that I’ve an exquisite room.” 

She additionally famous that inns might higher serve their shoppers with accessibility wants by guaranteeing they, too, get an important view.

“It will be pretty if there’s room and also you see somebody with a incapacity coming, and ask your self, ‘Is there a view, is there a option to make this slightly extra satisfying?’ As a result of this is likely to be their trip,” she stated. 

Blair was additionally fast to reward inns that get it proper in the case of accessibility. “I used to be in a lodge in Washington, D.C. that had probably the most unbelievable ADA room,” she defined, noting that it had added touches like high-end railings within the showers that had been removed from the typical, low-budget chrome railings in most inns. “Disabled folks like slightly stylish too.” 

She additionally emphasised the impression of small touches like flowers, blackout curtains, and even a easy deck of playing cards, which she all the time has in her bag in case the lodge would not present them. “Easy issues that may be accomplished for a visitor to make them really feel seen and never like they’re an issue that nobody is aware of the right way to cope with.”

Regardless of the added work that comes with seeing the world with a incapacity, Blair retains touring, and encourages others to do the identical, noting it is key to “hit a milestone of one thing you did not suppose you might do.” 

And whereas, certain, Blair, like the remainder of us, loves slightly high-end second, however for her, journey just isn’t about luxurious for luxurious’s sake. It’s about each survival and pleasure. “Journey to me symbolized vibrance and hope and journey,” she stated. “That’s value quite a bit.”