Meet the Team
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Callie Cheever
Co-Founder
Callie’s passion for advocating for people with disabilities began with her own story of navigating the educational world with Dyslexia and ADHD. She found that many people were very dismissive of her struggles because she was a high-achieving individual with an invisible disability. After obtaining a master’s degree in early childhood special education from the University of Virginia Curry School of Education, Callie went on to work in education and eventually landed a job as an accessibility coordinator for Metropolitan State University of Denver. It was here that Callie discovered that her love for advocacy paired very well with helping students access their education. Callie has also traveled to all seven continents on this planet and dreams of introducing the world to her young daughter. She wanted to help build this business to bring two great loves of hers together: Travel and Access. She believes that travel can be life-changing and that no one who wants to experience the world should be held back from their dreams because of a disability. Callie helps people with disabilities navigate the travel industry and desires to advocate for significant change in industry standards.
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Sheriff Rasheed
Co-Founder
Over the years, I have combined my global travels with my professional work in disability access to advocate for systems, spaces, and experiences that welcome everyone. Having a lived experience with disability has shaped the way I move through the world and deepened my understanding of what true accessibility requires. My educational background in special education continues to shape the way I understand learning, access, and human variation, and that early training has grown into an ongoing career supporting individuals with disabilities across higher education and community settings. I have served as a disability specialist, collaborated directly with individuals navigating barriers, and eventually led an office of disability services, where I worked to redesign policies, shift institutional culture, and expand what true inclusion can look like. EquiTravel reflects that full arc of experience: a platform built from lived insight, informed expertise, and a belief that the world becomes richer when more of us can explore it fully.
Who We Are
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We believe that to make a trip truly accessible, we need to understand the individual barriers each of our clients experiences and how they interact with trip components. For instance, if we have a client who struggles with social interaction and would like to travel as independently as possible, we are more likely to design a trip where our customer stays in boutique hotels with fewer other guests. The activities we choose would more likely be self-guided or require little interaction with guides. Every part of our process is customizable because every customer has their own unique circumstances. We learn as much as we can in our consultation with you to make sure your trip runs smoothly.
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Integrity, creativity, and empathy shape the way we work. These aren't just words—they’re the foundation of everything we build.
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Sheriff and Callie met while working together in a disability services office at a local University in Denver. It was immediately clear that, despite coming from dramatically different backgrounds, they both shared a love for providing access for people with disabilities. As their careers progressed in the field of access, they kept in touch. One day, while working for a nonprofit serving neurodivergent adults, Callie had an idea to help provide accessible travel experiences for people with a wide range of disabilities. Her inspiration came when hearing from her clients about group travel experiences for neurodivergent adults. She heard feedback from her clients that the trips that they had experienced could have been designed with a better eye for accessibility.
Callie had already done extensive travel throughout the world, and hearing these struggles got an idea. Why not start a travel agency run by people who know about travel and are experts in the field of accessibility? When Callie brought the idea to Sheriff, he was just as excited, having experienced his own accessibility challenges while traveling. Soon, EquiTravel was born.
