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In the '90s he built cranks for hand bikes and through that had his first real contact with people in wheelchairs. Thus he learned about the varied problems they face in life. The idea to found Planet-Wheelchair came only much later, after he'd met Thomas.
has lived with a physical disability since birth and uses a wheelchair. He can walk a few steps and therefore can be classified as
Carsten and Thomas first met while they were organising their move from Germany to Australia. Their first contact took place through an internet forum for emigrants. Incidentally, they both hail from Hannover and wanted to emigrate to the same area, the east coast of Australia. The timing for the moves matched as well and both families ended up sharing the shipping container.
In Australia, they regularly spend some weekends together, and they live "just" 600km apart. The various difficulties and things to plan for when preparing a weekend together gave Carsten the idea of developing a travel guide for wheelchair users. Thomas eventually was convinced, too, and so they started to take notes about each location they believe to be beautiful and interesting enough to be explored by others. The website went live on January 2009. Some volunteers have now enlisted; however, there are thousands of things to organise. Wives Jana and Nidhi are already involved in writing and translating some texts. We could also use the help of some additional proof readers. We are confident that this approach can work - we will see what happens!