It could be about time to start planning that long overdue holiday and whether you prefer to stay in the UK or go abroad, we have three experienced visually impaired travellers on hand to share their advice of making the most of a holiday.

The North Wales Accessible Holidays for Blind and Visually Impaired is a charity run by Nigel Garry and his wife, Karen. They can offer free fully adapted accessible caravan holidays. Nigel tells us about his charity and his own preferences to holiday within the UK.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: a close-up shot of two mature women disembarking an airplane. The woman on the left is visually impaired and is holding her folded up cane in her right hand. Both women are wearing casual clothing.

Self-confidence can be impacted by many factors when you have a visual impairment or when gradually losing your sight. We look into confidence through the lens of beauty and self-care products and psychology.

Procter & Gamble own many household name brands, within beauty, haircare and personal grooming. Their Accessibility Leader, Sam Latif is blind and she has introduced features to some of their big-name products to make them more accessible to people who are blind or have low vision. We talk to her about these and how the wider beauty industry needs to become more accessible. But of course, self-confidence expands far wider than just self-care and beauty products and so we talk to humanistic counsellor, David Best about the kinds issues surrounding confidence that he hears about from his visually impaired clients.

Presenter: Fern Lulham

Website image description: On a desk is a variety of beauty products. From the left is a make-up brush with a green handle, two bottles of skincare products stand behind it and a white bottle of soap with a pump behind those. In the background and blurred is a pink lipstick with a black and gold handle. In the centre of the image is an iPad or tablet with a person's hand reaching town to touch the screen. The image represents how technology can sometimes be helpful to people's beauty and self-care routines.

In recent years, charity Guide Dogs have published research that found 75% of guide dog owners had experienced some form of refusal of entry. Unfortunately, guide dog refusals are still very common and so we look into what steps you can take if it happens at an indoor establishment, for example: restaurants, shops, garden centres etc. We speak to a guide dog owner about his recent experience when being refused entry into a restaurant and to Clive Wood, the Lead Regional Policy and Campaigns Manager at Guide Dogs.

If you're a savvy smartphone user, you may have heard of NaviLens. It is an app that enables visually impaired people to detect and scan special QR codes from a distance. On detecting the code, the app then makes the information contained within it accessible. It can dictate what you are facing toward, read signage at busy train stations and its also attached to many beauty and food products, enabling you to hear the ingredients. The RNIB's Marc Powell explains how it could be a potentially useful tool for blind or low vision smartphone users.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: pictured is a golden Labrador guide dog helping a man descend some stairs. The image is blurred in places, representing how the legalities surrounding guide dog refusals are sometimes confused and misunderstood.

The Elections Bill passed the final reading stages in the House of Lords and will soon receive Royal Assent to be passed into law. We discuss the amendments which were approved in the House of Lords and were proposed by visually impaired Life Peer, Lord Holmes of Richmond. The amendments aim to provide blind and partially sighted people the right to vote at polling stations independently and in secret. We speak to Lord Holmes about what these amendments mean for you in future elections.

The Graeae Theatre Company are currently touring the UK with an opera about an 18th Century blind woman composer called Maria Theresia von Paradis. The opera is called The Paradis files and it has disability access at its core; with integrated audio description, signing and an all disabled cast and artistic team. We speak to Selina Mills, who co-wrote the libretto and to the star of the show, Bethan Langford who sings the role of Maria Theresia.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: pictured are five cast members of The Paradis Files on stage. Bethan Langford stands in the middle, inside of a large gilded frame with red curtains on either side. All of the cast members have their right hand raised and are smiling. In the foreground in front of Bethan, are two 18th century style chairs with dark brown wood and embellished with tactile markings. Photographer Patrick Baldwin captured the image.

We revisit the topic of how the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine is impacting its visually impaired citizens. We speak to married couple Denys and Olga Petrov who evacuated to Poland soon after the war began. They tell us about how they got across the border with a small child, a pregnancy and... seven animals.

A few weeks ago, we spoke to Olga Mahler about how she travelled nearly 10,000 miles across the world from Australia to help visually impaired refugees with food and accommodation once they have crossed the border into Poland. Olga attended a boarding school for the blind in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. We caught up with her to see how her blind parents, who refused to leave their home in Ukraine, are getting along and how her aid efforts have developed.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: pictured is two young women; one is guiding a visually impaired woman with a white cane across the border from Ukraine into Poland. Photograph taken at the Medyka border crossing in eastern Poland, on March 9, 2022. They are both wearing winter coats, hats and scarves and small snowflakes are falling around them.

Breathe in...and out. Namaste. With the global mental wellness market reaching around $120 billion in recent years, here lies the truth that in the West, many are finding the daily incorporation of mindfulness techniques highly beneficial to reduce stress and to become more present in daily life. With its ever growing popularity, we wanted to hear from visually impaired people who are making a living within this industry. We speak to yoga instructor, Claire Miller, we put Peter into the healing hands of Nick Mulryan who performs a reiki session on him and we speak to Marc Norton who demonstrates his work in the area of sound healing. We also explore how viable the wellness industry is as a career for people with visual impairments.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: pictured is Peter (on the left) and Nick Mulryan (on the right) in Nick's office at The No.1 Pain Relief Clinic in Buxton. Nick is holding an A4 piece of paper that details the 7 major chakras of the body. On the wall behind Peter to the left, hangs two images of the human skeleton with various labels branching off. Behind the pair are two shelves with towels and various boxes on. To the right of Nick there is a desk and a small shelf with two medical models of the human foot, which show the bones and muscles inside.

Vision impairment organisations have launched a new education framework called The Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (CFVI). Its main aim is to define and clarify how those between the ages of 0-25 are to receive specialist skill development, by whom and to recommend best practices across the board so that all visually impaired children have equal access to education. We speak to the RNIB's Head of Education, Caireen Sutherland about what this all really means.

The Disabled Student Allowance (or DSA), is a scheme that visually impaired students at university can apply for to help fund specialist equipment, apply for mobility support around campus and get help with services like note takers. But, in a report assembled by Life Peer Lord Chris Holmes, it was found that just 29% of the number of students with a known disability were actually receiving DSA support. Moreover, those students who have accessed it have reported that the process is extremely slow and convoluted. We speak two of those students, Ramneek Ahluwalia and Paul Goddard and to Lord Holmes about the recommendations he has put to Government to improve the scheme.

The DSA is administered by The Student Loans company who are soon to be releasing the final details of a procurement plan, set to also improve the overall service of the DSA. We ask David Wallace, the SLC's deputy CEO, about what this will entail.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: pictured is a young girl with pigtails and pink glasses. She is playing with some colourful braille blocks. The helping hand of an adult is directing her fingers along the braille markings.

Audio description is a form of narration that fills in the blanks in film, TV and theatre shows. It tells blind and partially sighted people what visual elements they could be missing on screen or the stage. Many believe that the current provision of audio description is too low, as some of the leading broadcasters and streaming platforms are only just going above the legally recommended requirement of 10%. Despite this, a project from The University of York is looking to improve the overall quality of audio description and they are calling it 'Enhanced Audio Description'. Its aim is to provide a more immersive experience for both visually impaired and sighted people.

We paid a visit to an exhibition that is aiming to be the most accessible in the UK for blind and partially sighted people. It is based in Liverpool and is called Strawberry Field. You've probably guessed by now that it is an exhibition about the legacy of The Beatles. It was once a Salvation Army children’s home where John went to play and escape, now it is now home to an interactive visitor exhibition, café, shop and gardens.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: pictured is the steinway piano that John Lennon composed his iconic song 'Imagine' on. It is stood in the middle of the Strawberry Field exhibition. On the wall behind the piano is a large image of John Lennon's face, his eyes just peeping over the top of the piano. His face is made up of hundreds of individual black and white photographs of people who have donated to the exhibition. Above the piano hangs a TV screen with words that read 'Strawberry Field, The Imagine Piano'.

The European Blind Union represent the interests of 30 million blind and partially sighted people across Europe and with the war in Ukraine still ongoing, we wanted to know how the EBU are helping visually impaired people in Ukraine and those who have evacuated to neighbouring countries. We put this question to the EBU's director, Lars Bossleman.

For some, no matter how skilfully you use a cane, guide dog or technology to navigate to a certain place, often locating the front door of your final destination can be the tricky bit - especially when there are many different entrances. what3words is a navigation system that has split the entire world (even the ocean!) into three by three metre squares and it can help blind or partially sighted people pin point that illusive door or share their exact location with others. It is by no means a new technology or even the perfect solution but The RNIB have recently praised what3words as being a helpful tool for independence for blind and partially sighted people - when it is used alongside other navigation systems, such as Google Maps. We speak to the co-founder and CEO of what3words, Chis Sheldrick about how it all works and the RNIB’s Senior Manager of Inclusive Design and Innovation, Robin Spinks about how this service can really benefit visually impaired people.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: a gentleman is sat on a bench in a built up area with his smart phone held up to his ear. He has his red and white cane folded up in his hand and resting on his lap. He is wearing a navy flat cap, sunglasses and a blue shirt. The image represents the use of technology in providing some independence for visually impaired people when travelling alone.

The Marrakesh Treaty, or more informally referred to as Book Share, is an international agreement that gives visually impaired people access to a world of accessible books - quite literally! Countries that have signed up to the Marrakesh Treaty are able to share their online libraries with other countries involved. But listener Jackie Brown raised the point that the UK's system sometimes doesn't work as efficiently as other countries' services do and that the RNIB's Book Share service should stretch further. We invited Jackie Brown onto the program to put this point to the RNIB's head of consumer and business services, Alison Long. We also invited Kevin Mulhern and Lina Kouzie to give us a wider, more international perspective.

The 2022 Winter Paralympic Games are underway in Beijing and Team GB's visually impaired athletes have already secured some fantastic wins, including gold, silver and bronze medals. Alpine skier Menna Fitzpatrick will bring home some of these medals. We spoke to Menna and her guide Gary Smith about her wins so far, how the business of guiding actually works and her upcoming races.

Presenter: Peter White

Website image description: pictured is Peter White inside one of the BBC's recording studios, interviewing Menna Fitzpatrick and Gary Smith. The two are on a computer monitor in front of Peter. They are wearing their blue Paralympic uniforms and white medical masks. Behind them is a white wall that is decorated with the British Paralympic Association's logo (a red lion).