Blind Adventurer: Amar Latif on being a blind walker, becoming president of the Ramblers and breaking down barriers

The 48-year-old, who lives in Leeds, hasn’t let sight loss be a barrier to walking outdoors and in his new voluntary role, he hopes to inspire others to push their own boundaries and get out in nature, whilst supporting the Ramblers’ mission to ensure that walking is accessible to everyone. “I’m really passionate about walking in the great outdoors and helping others to appreciate the benefit that it has on both your mindset and your physical wellbeing," he explains. “I’m really humbled and excited to take this role on. I love walking and, being blind, I’ve faced restrictions in getting out. To be the president of the Ramblers means I can help to encourage and inspire all kinds of people to get out there and appreciate the benefits of walking."

Glasgow-born Amar was four when his parents were told he had an incurable eye condition and would become blind in his teens. By the time he turned 18, he had lost 95 per cent of his sight. Crashing into furniture and doors had become commonplace and he could no longer see the faces of members of his family. “It suddenly dawned on me that I was now blind,” he recalls. “I remember thinking I don’t want to be blind…but the reality was my life was going to change forever…Those first few months I remember feeling depressed, in my room. In my mind I was a prisoner.”

People started to tell Amar that he could no longer do all the things he had wanted to. Maths wasn’t for blind people, he was told – but he graduated with a degree in the subject. And when members of the finance world said he couldn’t be an accountant, he proved them wrong, working in the industry for nearly a decade.

“When you get rejections, when you face negativity, you become very stubborn,” he says. “I was determined I wasn’t going to let negativity come in the way. I realised I had only had one life and this was it. I thought I’m going to start saying yes to things, I’m going to follow my dreams and my passions and not let anything come in my way…When I started the first few steps, things were hard. But with hard work and dedication things started to turn around and every time I had a little win, it boosted my confidence.”

Amar was offered the chance to study part of his maths and stats degree course abroad in Canada. Fuelled by a mix of wanderlust and teenage stubbornness, he boarded a plane with nothing but his newly acquired blindness and a suitcase full of thermals. It was a big learning curve that changed his life for the better. He realised in that year what he could still do, what the world still had to offer. As a young professional, he then had money to spend – and a desire to experience the world. But he struggled to do so, with mainstream travel companies telling him they were unable to accommodate an independent blind traveller. “I decided if you want something that doesn’t exist in this world, either you do without or you build it yourself,” he says.

So in 2004, Amar set up Traveleyes, determined to make the world more accessible for blind and visually impaired travellers. The international tour operator takes groups of both blind and fully sighted people all over the globe, and has given them the opportunity to walk with lions in Africa, sail the Ionian Sea and ski down Europe’s highest mountains. Amar continues to lead many of the explorations himself, uncovering the wonders that travel offers to the senses and showing people that sight-seeing isn’t just for the sighted.

"When you’re blind and you can’t see, it makes me curious - I want to chat to people, I touch things, I use a lot of senses,” he says. “Because I can’t see, it heightens my curiosity.” Several of Amar’s incredible travel adventures, including a jungle expedition across Nicaragua, and a journey through Australia’s outback, have also been televised, as he works to challenge ideas about what blind people can and cannot do.

He’ll continue to break down barriers in his role with the Ramblers, which is currently campaigning to expand the freedom to roam to give more people access to open landscapes including woodland, watersides and grassland. The organisation, which also preserves and improves thousands of miles of paths and trails across the country, says that people on lower incomes, from ethnic minority groups or living with disabilities are much less able to enjoy spending time in nature and expanding the freedom to roam would allow more people easier access the green spaces within a short walk from their front door.

"A lot of my life has been about challenging preconceptions and I want to show people that nature is for everyone, regardless of what you look like, irrespective of whether you have any disabilities,” Amar says. “This landscape belongs to all of us and I want people to feel excited to be out there and enjoying it.”

“When I look back at me, a young man aged 18, I get emotional,” he adds. “He was really worried, he was really scared but he didn’t need to be, it was going to be okay. To anybody, I would advise that irrespective of whether you have a disability or any challenge in your life…keep a positive mindset and just take one step in front of the other. Before long you’ll end up looking back and see how beautiful everything looks.”