Drempelvrij.be is built up from hundreds of pages with practical accessibility information about Belgian locations, dining venues and routes. We write them with care, but the biggest leap in quality always comes from people who have actually been there. That is why, since last week, every location and dining page has a button at the bottom: "Visited this place in a wheelchair? Share your experience".
Below we explain how it works, what we do with your submission, and why a few sentences from you have a bigger impact than you might think.
How it works -- in 4 steps
- Visit the page of a location or venue you know -- for example the Atomium, Cafe Vlissinghe in Bruges or a station near you.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page, past the visit tips and the map. You will find an expandable button with a thank-you icon and the text "Visited this place in a wheelchair? Share your experience".
- Fill in the short form -- four questions that take about 2 minutes:
- Name (optional -- otherwise we put "A visitor")
- Date of visit
- Your experience (at least 100 characters -- a short paragraph is enough)
- Email (optional -- only if you would like us to be able to write back)
- Submit. You will get an immediate confirmation that we have received your visit.
What happens next?
Every submission is reviewed beforehand by someone from the team before it appears on the site. No auto-publishing, no unwanted clutter. In practice:
- Your submission arrives as a notification in our inbox
- We read it within 24 hours (often within a few hours)
- Approved visits appear in a separate section called "Visitor experiences" at the bottom of the location page, with your name (or "A visitor") and the date
- Submissions that are spam or abuse quietly disappear -- no noise on the site
We do not moderate to censor your opinion. An honest negative experience ("the promised accessible toilet did not actually exist") is exactly what a future visitor wants to know. We do moderate to keep out commercial messages, personal attacks and obvious abuse.
Why does your submission matter?
For each location, Drempelvrij.be has a few lines about the main aspects of accessibility: entrance, toilets, car park, paths. What we cannot know without you:
- How big is the staffing-hour difference between busy and quiet moments?
- Does the information about those "accessible tables" actually hold up in practice?
- What about the disabled parking spaces on a market day?
- Does the assistance bell really work on a Saturday evening?
- Is that ramp detail at the side entrance still up to date since the 2024 redevelopment?
A visitor with first-hand knowledge can do in 3 sentences what our entire 200-word description cannot: what holds up in practice, and what does not.
A good example: last week we got an email from Anne, a civil servant who pointed out that we had placed Restaurant De Vlasschaard in Asse by mistake -- whereas it is in Ostend. Within 30 minutes the page was corrected in all 4 languages. That kind of feedback makes the difference between a "reasonable" and a "reliable" reference work.
What is best to write?
There is no required structure, but a few things make your submission useful:
- Concrete details rather than general qualifications. "The side entrance has a ramp of about 6 metres, fairly steep but doable" says much more than "reasonably accessible".
- Time-specific info if relevant: "In June 2026 the lift to the first floor was under maintenance -- ask at the desk whether it is working again".
- What surprised you -- positively or negatively. Surprises are often the most shareable part of an experience.
- Recommendations for other visitors: favourable times, table spots you would suggest, car park tips.
Privacy aspects
We store your submission on our own server in Europe, with no resale to third parties. Your name only appears on the page if you fill it in. Your email address is never shown publicly; we only use it to write back if the editorial team has a clarification question. We keep your IP address for 30 days for anti-abuse purposes, after which it is deleted.
Would you like your submission removed after publication? Send a short email with the page and date and we will do it within 24 hours.
And if you have a whole list?
Some visitors keep a private list of places they have tested. Wonderful! You do not have to do everything through this form -- an email to the editorial team with multiple venues is just as welcome. We can then process the list in one go.
In closing
This project exists because one wheelchair user (Bjorn) was frustrated that no good Belgian accessibility guide existed. It has grown into 840+ locations and 365+ dining addresses in 4 languages -- but without the community it remains forever a one-person operation with blind spots. One visit a month from someone like you keeps the site alive, accurate and relevant for whoever is counting on it tomorrow.
Thank you for helping write a Belgian heritage that is truly barrier-free.
-- The Drempelvrij team