The seventeen trips on this site are filed by how much notice they need, and four tier marks carry that filing across every page. A mark is two characters wide. What changes between tiers is the letter spacing inside those two characters, tightest for short-notice and widest for two-winters. That mark is decorative. Every trip also carries its tier written out in words directly beside it, in the same line, and the words are what the page means. No fact on this site is carried by the spacing alone, and nothing is carried by color alone either. If the marks were removed entirely, you would lose nothing but a small visual rhythm.
What has been built on purpose
- Keyboard
- Every link, field, and control can be reached and operated with a keyboard alone. Focus is visible as a solid outline with its own offset, and it is never suppressed. Tab order follows the reading order of the page.
- Heading order
- Each page has one h1 and descends without skipping a level. Section headings are real headings in the markup, not bold paragraph text sized to look like one.
- Contrast
- Measured off the actual rendered ground rather than the palette file. Body text sits at 12.4:1, small print at 7.9:1, and the underline on links carries a separate ratio of its own so a link is not identified by color.
- Alternative text
- Photographs of places carry text describing what a sighted reader gets from them. Decorative rules, tier marks, and the drawn icons in the request steps carry empty alt attributes so a screen reader passes them without comment.
- The four tier marks
- Two characters whose letter spacing widens tier by tier. Decorative, never a color, and always accompanied by the tier named in words. The spacing alone carries nothing.
- Arrival
- Blocks that appear as you scroll move a short distance into place. They never fade from transparent, because a fade leaves text unreadable mid transit. Under a reduce motion preference the shift is skipped and the block just stands where it lands.
- Zoom and reflow
- Usable at 400 percent on a 1280 pixel window with no sideways scrolling. Type is set in relative units, so the browser text size setting is respected instead of overridden.
- Fields
- Every input has a label that stays on screen once you type in it. Errors are named in words next to the field they belong to, not by a red border, and the message says what to change. Nothing on any form times out.
Where it is still weak
- Long tier tables
- The trip listing on the catalog page is a wide block, and a screen magnifier at high zoom has to travel to keep a row and its tier together. A narrower stacked view is planned and is not built yet.
- Price ranges spoken aloud
- Figures from $1,890 to $4,450 are written per person with the currency symbol. Some screen readers read the range dash as a pause rather than the word "to". We have not found a fix that does not damage the printed page.
- The written request form
- It is long, because arranging a reservation needs the detail. There is no way yet to save a partly finished form and return to it, so a session that is interrupted starts over.
- Documents sent by mail
- Written figures leave this office as plain email text rather than a tagged file. That suits most readers and suits none who need structured headings in a long document. Ask and it will be sent in whatever form works for you.
Telling us something is in the way
Write to overland@birchwaypoint.com and say what you were trying to do and where it stopped. A page address helps, and so does the browser or assistive software you were using, but neither is required and you will not be asked to prove anything. If it is easier to describe out loud, call (336) 680-4173 and somebody will write it down for you. picked up inside the working day.
If a page blocks you and you still want the trip, the barrier does not have to be cleared first. Say what you want and we will take the whole request by mail or by phone, and read every figure back to you in whatever order you ask for. Nothing on this site is a self-service step you are required to complete. This is a booking office: we take the request, arrange the reservation with the operating company, take no payment, and hold no card.
Release dates and caps, in writing, without a reason
Several trips in the two-winters and most-of-a-year tiers open their books once a year, and a few are capped at a fixed number of travelers by the company that operates them. That timing matters more to some people than to others. Somebody who needs to arrange assistance, book a companion's seat on the same departure, or plan around a treatment schedule cannot work from "sells out early."
So: ask, and the office states in writing the date a book is expected to open, the cap if there is one, how many places were still open the last time we checked, and when we checked. You do not have to say why you want it. Nobody here will ask what the reason is, and the answer does not change based on the answer you give. a written number follows inside two to four working days, and it names the day it was checked, because a number without a date is not much use to anybody planning eighteen months ahead.
The same holds for anything else on the page you need in another form. Larger type, a plain text version, the tier list read down the phone in order: ask for it plainly and it will be done.