Disclaimer: Accessible Life in Google Earth uses a series of tools that Google makes available to all users (Google Earth web, Google Maps, Google Street View, Google My Maps, Google module, Google Spreadsheet, Google Photos). The project has not been created by Google, and Google has no responsibility for the content posted
You will surely have had the opportunity to read, from time to time, some posts titled Accessible Life. If you missed them, this link will help you find them, to better understand what the project is about
I’m volunteering also with Progetto Re-cycle, a non-profit association, and we created a specific area for the improvement of this project.
What is Accessible Life in Google Earth?
Accessible Life is a project created to help all people explore nature and public places no matter their mobility with the ability to share these accessible places on Google Earth.
The program is a kind of visual “search engine”, a funnel that allows users, through successive steps, to refine the search for an accessible (outdoor) place.
With Accessible Life we want to be able to offer information on those places that are accessible outdoors which, due to their nature, cannot be adequately managed through the accessibility information available in Google Maps
Working Together for an Accessible Life
Accessible Life in Google Earth is a collaborative work, in which maps of outdoor accessible places, created with Google My Maps, are inserted into a project in Google Earth.
Everyone can contribute by creating a My Maps of an accessible outdoor location. It will be possible to do it alone, or by working in a group (e.g. in an Accessibility Meet-up).
Obviously there are specifics to follow, which will be passed on to anyone who wishes to contribute.
For more details you will have to wait a few days, when Accessible Life will be launched publicly.
Later, upon request, Guides will be delivered with specifications and instructions on how to contribute.
Interested in collaborating?
Send me a message, to be introduced to the next step. A complete set of tools and guides has been developed for those who want to contribute. It will also be possible to organize meet-ups to deepen the details and points that may not be clear
Accessible life - the story
A long time has passed from the first post in mid 2017, when the discovery of an accessible path in the middle of the earthquake area in central Italy lighted a spark in my mind. I had never thought about this possibility before. The sight of that path in the middle of the mountains, accessible in a wheelchair, immediately made me think of my mother, who for some years could no longer ride a bicycle, and who had to use a walker to move around, even inside the house.
When disability, which I used to look at from the outside, suddenly entered our life, our point of view changed completely. I started looking for other accessible places in the middle of nature, and I found some, even close to home.
Then came the 2017 Summit, the meeting with Sasha and Alvaro, and with them the awareness that all this had to be told. Therefore, I started looking for a way.
“From path to path” was the first name I thought of for these tales of accessible places. However, how could I do so that these tales, that the information about these places, could reach others who needed it?
A website? There are hundreds of them, all with limited information, based on the personal experience of whoever made the site.
Google Maps? Maps’ accessibility program is wonderful, but of little use for large open spaces, where images and explanations must be associated with specific points, and not with the whole place.
Not having a solution, in the meantime I started documenting places, collecting images, writing, and I changed the name of my “idea”. I wanted to call it Accessible Life, because a “normal” life should always be accessible, and not “limited” to a few spaces. An accessible nature, the possibility of entering a park, or of reaching the seashore, should be allowed for everyone, it should be everyone’s right. Currently this is not the case, so knowing “where” to be able to go, knowing “what” one can contract, knowing “how big” is the place where we go, knowing “how” to get there, is extremely important for a disabled person, because it is a matter of a choice that must be made “before” deciding to visit a place.
After Connect Live 2018 my perspective changed completely. The enlightenment came from Google Earth: Connect Live attendees were invited to test out a new feature, which allowed users to create their own stories “In Google Earth”.
Therefore, I started from scratch. In the meantime I have prepared my “manifesto”, with which I have applied for Connect Live 2019, and I have transferred all the information in a list in Google Maps
Meanwhile, creating projects with Google Earth had become a public program, and the project was officially featured by Google Earth on social media.
A few months later we were in lockdown, unable to travel, to explore new places to add to the map.
But fortunately, not unable to think, even if totally unprepared to work remotely, and completely unable to understand and manage the situation caused by Covid.
While I was thinking about this, Covid caught me and my family …
It took me nearly two months to restart.
Are you ready for starting your own Accessible Life map, to insert in Accessible Life Project?
Stay tuned for more
already but can’t see them. I wish we had the zoom image option on Connect, I want to read everything. 
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In that moment I was thinking “damn dude it’s just a ramp, not the care for the hunger in the world, just put a solid ramp in that stairway!” It was so sad for me and absurd if I think in Sardinia there is a lot of accessible path and ramps in many of desolately beach around the island, not in a central plaza of one of the most visited city in the world… After this event my mind have change “weight” to do at the accessibility cause and now I’m more focus on that even when I use maps daily. So, after this long and boring “mappazzone” of words, I give you my availability for help on this project if you will need, buddy 
