“You Learn Pretty Fast Which Cities Actually Mean It” — A San Diego Mom’s Honest Take on Getting Around With Her Adult Son

We spoke with Diane, a 58-year-old San Diego resident and full-time caregiver for her 29-year-old son, who has cerebral palsy and uses a power wheelchair. Diane has been navigating San Diego’s accessibility landscape for nearly three decades and has the battle scars to prove it.

Diane, let’s just dive right in. You’ve been doing this a long time. What’s your overall read on San Diego as a city for families like yours?

San Diego is one of the better cities we have lived in, and I say that as someone who spent four years in a city in the Midwest that I will not name but where my son and I basically felt invisible every time we left the house. The infrastructure here is better, the weather means we can get outside year-round without me having to worry about what cold and wet does to his chair, and there is at least a cultural awareness here that people with disabilities exist and deserve to participate in public life.

But I want to be careful not to oversell it, because other parents in my situation will see right through that. It is not perfect. Not by a long shot. The difference between San Diego and a truly accessible city is still real, and some days you feel that gap more than others.

What was the learning curve like when you first got here?

Steep. And I say that as someone who had already been doing this for a long time and thought I knew what I was walking into. Every city has its own quirks and San Diego is no different. You figure out pretty fast which neighborhoods have good curb cuts and which ones are going to give you grief. You learn which venues are accessible and which ones have slapped an accessibility symbol on their website without really earning it. That took us probably a solid year to get dialed in.

The wheelchair transportation piece was the hardest nut to crack, honestly. My son has medical appointments, he has a day program, he has a life outside our house that he is entitled to, and coordinating all of that when you cannot just call a regular rideshare and be done with it is a part-time job on top of everything else caregiving involves.

Talk to me about the transportation piece because I imagine that is where a lot of parents feel the most lost.

It is where I felt the most lost and the most stressed for the longest time. And I think parents who are newer to this than I am really need to hear the honest version, not the version where everything works out fine if you just plan ahead.

Rideshare apps with wheelchair accessible vehicle options exist but they are unreliable in a way that can really leave you in a bind. I have had drivers cancel, I have had vehicles show up that were technically accessible but not set up to handle his chair safely, and I have had situations where we waited so long that we missed the appointment entirely. When you are dealing with medical care that cannot be rescheduled on a whim, that is not just an inconvenience. It is a real problem.

What changed things for us was finding a dedicated non-emergency medical transportation service that specializes in this. I know that sounds like a boring answer, but I am telling you this because I wish someone had told me sooner that this category of service exists and that the difference between it and a rideshare is night and day. The right provider has drivers who are properly trained, vehicles that are well-equipped rather than technically compliant, and a level of professionalism that treats my son like a person rather than a logistical complication. For a mom who has watched her son be made to feel like a complication in various settings over the years, that last part is not a small thing.

We use them for medical appointments when the timing is non-negotiable, and for anything where I need to know with certainty that someone is showing up on time in the right vehicle. Everything else we figure out as we go, but for the things that matter most, that is who we call and we have not looked back.

What about getting out and enjoying the city? What has worked for your son and for you?

This is the part I love talking about because after years of caregiving you need to be reminded that the goal is not just managing logistics, it is living a good life. And San Diego does give us real opportunities to do that.

The USS Midway Museum was a turning point for us early on. My son is a history person, always has been, and I was honestly nervous about taking him somewhere like that because old military vessels are not exactly known for their accessibility. But they have put real work into it. Elevators, ramps, video kiosks for the areas that cannot be fully accessed. He got to see restored aircraft up close on the flight deck and talked about it for weeks afterward. For a mom who sometimes wonders if her son gets to have experiences that feel special rather than just accommodated, that afternoon meant a lot.

Balboa Park is our most regular outing. The paths are wide and well-maintained, there is an accessible tram that covers the park so he does not have to cover every inch under his own power if he does not want to, and the sheer number of museums and gardens means we never run out of things to do. We have been going for years and I still find something new every time. The San Diego Museum of Art, the Natural History Museum, the Botanical Building, all of it in one place and all of it reachable.

The San Diego Zoo is wonderful from an accessibility standpoint and I do not say that lightly because I have taken my son to zoos that were a complete nightmare. The shuttle buses have lifts, the pathways are navigable, and enough of the exhibits are designed at a level where he gets a real view rather than looking at the backs of people standing in front of him. The Polar Bear Plunge area has a dedicated viewing platform. That kind of design tells you that someone thought about what the experience looks like from a seated position, and that matters more than most people realize until they need it to.

And then there are the beaches, which is where San Diego surprised me the most when we first got here. Nine beaches in the city offer free beach wheelchairs, power beach wheelchairs that can handle sand, at places like La Jolla Shores, Ocean Beach, Mission Bay, and Coronado. La Jolla Shores has accessible mats that go from the parking area toward the water. The first time my son was able to get close to the ocean rather than watching it from a distance, we both cried a little. I am not too proud to admit that. Call ahead and reserve because it gets busy in summer, but the fact that the service exists and is free is something this city deserves real credit for.

What are the things San Diego still gets wrong that you wish someone would fix?

The inconsistency is what gets me. You will have a stretch of sidewalk that is beautifully maintained and then hit a block that looks like nobody has given it a second thought in twenty years. Certain older neighborhoods, some of the hillier areas, random stretches where the curb cuts are in the wrong place or the pavement has heaved up and there is just no good line through it. It is exhausting in a way that is hard to explain to people who do not live it, because it is not one big problem you can solve, it is a thousand small problems that add up over the course of a day.

I also want to put this out there for any business owners or venue managers who might read this. There is a difference between being technically ADA compliant and being accessible in any meaningful sense. I have walked into places that checked every box on paper and still had my son unable to reach the bathroom, unable to sit comfortably at a table, unable to get close enough to something to engage with it. Compliance is the floor, not the ceiling, and a lot of places are still camping out on the floor.

Any advice for parents who are just starting to figure all of this out in San Diego, or thinking about relocating here?

Get plugged into the community first and foremost. There are parents in San Diego who have been navigating this longer than I have and the knowledge they carry around in their heads is worth more than any official resource guide the city puts out. Facebook groups, local disability organizations, forums where real caregivers talk to each other honestly. That is where you learn which accessibility ramps have broken lifts half the time and which venues are wonderful even if their website does not make them look it.

Sort out your transportation before anything else. I cannot say this strongly enough. Before you figure out where the good accessible restaurants are, before you map out the museums, before anything, know how you are getting your son or daughter from one place to another when the stakes are real. Look into dedicated non-emergency medical transportation services early, before you need them, before you have had a bad enough experience with something else to make you wish you had. Having a reliable provider in your phone before a crisis hits is one of those things that sounds obvious and somehow almost nobody does.

And then, when you have done the practical stuff, let yourself enjoy this city. It is beautiful. The weather is kind, the ocean is right there, and there are more things to do that my son can participate in here than anywhere else we have lived. Some days are hard. That is just the truth of caregiving. But San Diego gives us more good days than most places have managed to, and after nearly three decades of doing this, I do not take that for granted.