Accessibility Statement for https://thetraveltinker.com

Our commitment

We want The Travel Tinker to be usable by as many people as possible. That includes people using screen readers, keyboard-only navigation, magnification tools, or any other assistive technology. Travel planning is stressful enough without a website making it harder.

We’re a small team, not a large corporation with a dedicated accessibility department. But we take this seriously and we’re actively working to make the site better. Some of this is already in place. Some of it is ongoing. We’d rather be honest about where we are than pretend everything is perfect.

What we’re aiming for

We use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 as our benchmark. Our target is full conformance with Level A and Level AA, which covers things like colour contrast, keyboard navigation, alt text on images, readable fonts, and logical page structure. Where it’s practical, we also implement Level AAA criteria, though we’re not claiming full AAA conformance across the site (very few websites can).

We use Ally by Elementor as our primary accessibility tool. It runs across the site and helps us identify and fix common accessibility issues including missing alt text, contrast failures, and heading structure problems. It’s not a silver bullet (no automated tool catches everything) but it gives us a solid baseline and flags problems we might otherwise miss.

We’re not claiming perfect WCAG compliance across every single page right now. The site has hundreds of pages built over several years, and older content doesn’t always meet current standards. But every new page and every page rebuild follows these guidelines, and we’re working through the backlog.

What we’ve done so far

Here’s what’s currently in place across the site:

Text and readability: Body text uses a minimum font size of 16px with a line height of at least 1.6. We avoid light grey text on white backgrounds (a surprisingly common accessibility failure on travel sites). Colour contrast ratios meet or exceed the WCAG AA minimum of 4.5:1 for normal text.

Images: All editorial images include descriptive alt text. Decorative images (borders, spacers, background textures) are marked so screen readers skip them. Hero banner images use overlay treatments to make sure text remains readable regardless of the background photo. Ally by Elementor flags any images missing alt text so we can catch gaps quickly.

Navigation: The main menu is keyboard-accessible. You can tab through links and use Enter to activate them. The site has a logical heading structure (H1 through H4) so screen readers can jump between sections.

Links: We use descriptive link text rather than “click here” or “read more.” If a link opens in a new tab, we indicate that. Affiliate links are identified in context so you know where they lead before you click.

Page structure: Pages use semantic HTML (header, main, nav, footer elements) so assistive technologies can identify page regions correctly. Content follows a logical reading order.

Video and media: Where we use video content (hero backgrounds, embedded clips), we avoid autoplay with audio. Background videos are decorative and don’t contain essential information.

Known limitations

Being honest here. These are areas where we know the site falls short and we’re working on fixes:

Older content: Articles and pages published before 2025 may have inconsistent alt text, missing heading hierarchy, or colour contrast issues. We’re addressing these as part of our ongoing hub page rebuilds, but it takes time to get through everything.

Third-party embeds: Some embedded content from affiliate partners (booking widgets, map embeds, tour listings) is outside our direct control. These tools have their own accessibility standards, which vary. Where possible, we’ve replaced heavy third-party widgets with lightweight text links and CTA buttons that we can control.

PDF documents: If we link to any downloadable PDFs (packing lists, itinerary templates), these may not be fully screen-reader accessible. We’re working on providing HTML alternatives where feasible.

Mobile experience: While the site is responsive and works on mobile devices, some interactive elements (tabs, accordions, transport comparison cards) may not be equally smooth across all screen reader and mobile browser combinations. We test on VoiceOver (iOS) and TalkBack (Android) but can’t cover every setup.

What’s coming next

We’re not treating accessibility as a one-off checkbox. Here’s what’s on the roadmap:

Completing alt text and heading structure audits across all existing content. Adding skip-to-content links on every page. Improving focus indicator visibility for keyboard users (the default browser outline is often too subtle). Running automated accessibility scans using Ally by Elementor on an ongoing basis, supplemented by quarterly checks with tools like axe or WAVE. Testing key user journeys with screen readers at least twice a year.

The European Accessibility Act

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) came into effect in June 2025 and sets accessibility requirements for digital services available to EU consumers. As a travel content site with readers across Europe, we recognise our responsibility under this legislation and are working to meet its requirements. Our adoption of WCAG 2.1 AA as our target standard aligns with the EAA’s technical expectations.

Feedback and contact

This is genuinely important to us: if you hit a barrier on the site, we want to know about it.

Maybe a page doesn’t work properly with your screen reader. Maybe the contrast is off somewhere we haven’t spotted. Maybe a form is unusable with keyboard navigation. Whatever it is, please tell us. We can’t fix what we don’t know about.

You can reach us through our contact page or email us directly at [email protected] or via our Contact Us Page. We’ll do our best to respond within 5 working days and, where possible, fix the issue or provide an accessible alternative.

If you need content from the site in an alternative format (plain text, large print, a specific file type), let us know and we’ll see what we can do.

Statement made 02/04/2026