Accessible Glamping Pod in Callander
It’s always difficult to find someplace to stay when you need to be hoisted in and out of your wheelchair, especially when you want to book something super last minute and are limited by dates. So, when I found this accessible glamping pod located in Callander when searching through Euan’s Guide’s website, I was very excited. It only opened in July 2021 so there weren’t any reviews yet, but the photos showed the equipment well and it had a tracking hoist and profiling hospital bed which is what I was looking for.
There is only one accessible glamping pod but also three standard glamping pods located on the grounds of the Callander Hostel which is run by the Callander Youth Project. The accessible pod has a has a covered outdoor seating area, living room/dining/kitchen area, a bedroom and a massive en-suite shower room. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t the best, especially when we were hanging out in the pod, so we didn’t really get to enjoy much of the outdoor seating area, but the view was amazing. The pod looked over Bed Ledi and it was lovely just sitting listening to the birds and silence under the pod shelter. When the rain clouds cleared it was beautiful as you can see from the image below.
I have never been glamping before and do appreciate that there are probably glamping pods with more limited facilities available, but I was pleasantly surprised with what we had available. In the kitchen we had a fridge, microwave, an electric hob, a dishwasher and instant boiling water from our kitchen tap. We also had all the kitchen utensils you could think of and there was a little glass bottle waiting for us in the fridge. The only issue I would say is that there wasn’t much storage for food or drink that doesn’t need to be stored in the fridge, so we just sat our snacks on the worktop where the electric hob was. It was great to see that there was a space under the electric hob to allow wheelchair users to get under the worktop to use the hob, although it isn’t height adjustable.
There are three dining room chairs available around a little table that can be folded down against the wall. I of course always travel with my own chair, sorry little powerchair joke, so we ended up having one of the chairs in the bathroom and then used it to sit my laptop on it for me to use when I was in bed. It also meant that I could get into the dining room table as there was a space. I felt the table was at a great for me sitting in my powerchair and even though I took my tray with me, I was able to eat all my food on the table.
My carer slept in the lounge area of the pod during our stay on a fold out sofa bed, and there is also a Z bed available if more people are staying. We weren’t sure if I would be able to move around the pod whilst the sofa bed was out, so we left it until I was in bed on our first night. Although we were pleasantly surprised that there was plenty of space. In the lounge area there was shelf above the sofa bed and a little clothes rail underneath, but there were only four coat hangers that I used in my bedroom. Strangely enough there was a plug socket on the ceiling above the sofa bed which we didn’t think we’d use but it did come in handy when we were straightening our hair.
The bedroom that I slept in at the glamping pod was definitely my favourite room and that is because it had EVERYTHING I needed to have a great stay. Since about November last year I’ve had quite bad hip pain and I need to put the head of the bed up every time I lie on my side, so I was really happy to see they had a hospital bed which was the exact same one I use at home. I was also glad to see that there were plenty of plug sockets. Anytime I go somewhere new I always take a plug extension cord with me because I need to plug in my machines right beside my bed as well as my phone charger and my laptop if I use it. The main thing I was so happy to see though was a tracking hoist! If you followed me before my previous blog stopped working, you’ll know that finding accommodation with a tracking hoist is very rare.
The wall of the glamping pod is curved at one of the sides in the bedroom so the hoist doesn’t cover the whole of the bedroom and we had to move the bed to get my wheelchair in at the side then back again so my carer could get into each side of the bed. I think this was manageable. Another great thing about the tracking hoist was that it went into the Changing Place style shower room by connecting to another track. I didn’t use this though as I like to transfer straight from my bed to either a toilet seat or my wheelchair so I don’t have to hoist too long.
When I always think of glamping pod I imagine the toilets being quite small but was pleasantly surprised by the size of the Changing Place style shower room in the accessible glamping pod. To be honest I don’t feel the photos we took give the size of the room justice, especially because we couldn’t fit everything in one photo. There was a Changing Places bed to allow guests to lie down whilst having a shower, a shower seat mounted to the wall that folded up, a toilet that had remote that you could use to wash and dry yourself as well as being able to flush the toilet, a height adjustable sink and a heated towel rail. There wasn’t much storage for my medical supplies but we managed with a three tier wired trolley in the shower room and a table that sat next to my bed.
During our stay we didn’t realise that I could walk *roll* to Callander high street from the glamping pod as it looked like the pathway stopped after where we parked and there were stones I’d have to drive over. I didn’t notice though that a pathway went behind the standard glamping pods, through a little garden where it looked like they were growing some vegetables and past the hostel. I didn’t show doing this in my YouTube video as I stopped videoing my vlog on the Sunday night, although it’s a good excuse to go back and show the route next time.
I would really recommend visiting this glamping pod, even if you just want to stay in the pod the scenery is amazing. The only downside was that the WiFi that is provided didn’t work so we had to hotspot the data from our phones. I also found it a little cold when I went to bed, it was underfloor heating, but I think because we had the door open sometimes to listen to the nature outside it took a while to heat up. There is things to do around Callander though which I will speak about in my next blog post and if the weather was nicer I think I would have been able to enjoy some nice nature walks. I do look forward to visiting again in the future, you can find my more detailed review here on Euan’s Guide.
