New York City resident Willie Werwaiss has been using rollators after a series of three back operations left him successively less able starting seven years ago.
“Before the operations, I was having a great deal of difficulty walking any distances,” he said. “I couldn’t go more than a block without resting.” But even after them, walking remained a challenge.
At the grocery store one day, he noticed that pushing the grocery cart greatly improved his mobility. Shortly after that, “I saw a rollator on the street and thought, I have to get one.”
Willie doesn’t just his rollator to get around the house and the neighborhood—he uses it to travel the globe.
Willie's Rollator Travel Gallery
“I have taken my rollator to Antarctica,” he said of his first Nitro rollator. “I’ve taken it all over the world. It’s been to France and Russia, Vietnam, Italy, and Portugal. I did seven miles in Rome on cobblestones one day. We are real travelers.”
Willie recently upgraded to the revamped Nitro Sprint rollatorand was immediately back on the move. “This one wasn’t here a day before it got on a train and went to Albany.”
The rollator’s slowdown break and curb assist features help Mr. Werwaiss get around locally as well.
“Believe it or not, in New York City, there are hills. I live by the East River. When I go to my church on Park Ave and 84th street, that is uphill and downhill, and in some places, it’s steep enough I use the slowdown [brake].”
His weekly walk to church is about a mile and a half; Willie walks almost every day, but shorter distances. He estimates that he walks several miles each week with the rollator walker.
Trips on public transportation are also easier. When taking the bus, Willie notes that, “With a kneeling bus, I don’t need a ramp to get on and off,” since he can use the curb-assist pedal to lift the rollator onto the bus. Since the bus doesn’t have to take the time to lower a ramp, “it makes it easier for me, and everyone else.”
How else does the new Nitro Sprint compare to the original? Willie says the Sprint is “a real, noticeable upgrade.”
[Read: Willie Reviews the New Nitro Sprint]
He added, “A rollator is so fundamental to my day-to-day living that I’ve got a spare one in the basement. I’ve got a competitor one in the basement. I did not like it anywhere near as well...it’s in the box. It didn’t have as sturdy a feeling. It’s important to me that [a rollator] feels solid.”
What’s next for Willie? There’s even more travel in his future, and he’ll be bringing his Nitro Sprint.
“We’re going to Hawaii in June, Burgundy in France on a Viking cruise in August. We’re thinking about Italy, but India is also an option. Definitely Egypt next year. We love to travel,” Willie says.
An added benefit of his rollator? “When you’ve got one of these, you go to the front of the line at immigration!”
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Rollator/Walker Travel Hack
When Willie takes it on a plane, he walks it right up to boarding and checks it in the cargo hold—but keeps an Apple AirTag attached to keep track of it.
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