Our Story

Pathfinder Vacations was registered in 2023 and is the creation of the Woods family from Preston, United Kingdom. Joanna, Terry and Tomas had quite a journey to that point so what led us to Fischer Texas.

Late 2019 Tomas then 11 years old got his first wheelchair and was very embarrassed about it but having spent almost a year hardly able to leave the house it was also a blessing, that Christmas Tom saw a video on YouTube and excitedly showed parents Joanna and Terry, the video was of Aaron 'wheelz' Fotheringham who was in his wheelchair barrelling down the huge Nitro Circus ramp then landing a back flip. Frankly we just laughed the thought of getting to that point when merely self-propelling was so difficult was so unbelievable.  Not deterred Tomas did more research and found it wasn't just 1 crazy American it was actually a sport called WCMX where you take your wheelchair to the skatepark and that’s exactly what he wanted to do, we agreed to give it a go. 

In January 2020 we went along to Graystone Action Sports in Manchester, UK and gave it a try, Tomas loved it and we struggled to get him out of the skatepark and vowed to continue so we booked a coaching session which was funny because the coach had no idea about WCMX either so it was more just having fun and seeing what was possible. Then Covid hit and the UK was sent into lockdown from early March until July we spent hours watching other people's WCMX videos and dreaming of a trip to the World Championships our imaginations went wild deciding to take a month touring between different skateparks we'd seen in the videos it really kept us going during those isolation months.

Once we got back to the skatepark we Tom started working with a new coach and with both of them watching videos on YouTube and breaking down the tricks to figure out how to do things coaching went from once a week to twice and his skills came on amazingly as did his passion.  Then he spotted that the World Championship had been announced as an online competition, and they were including beginners and intermediate so he could enter.  Tomas and Rob poured over the rule book and suggested tricks and came up with a run that would push Tomas but was achievable and Graystone Action Sports paid for a Filmer to come and record the run.  It was amazing to watch after the park closed at 10 pm one summer night as the 3 of them had to figure out how to get the run in 1 take as editing wasn't aloud Jake followed Tomas on his skateboard while Rob moved steps and ready for him to climb out while Rob pushed Tomas out of the bowl and we all panicked when we realised that the planned smoke bomb might possibly set off the smoke alarms as they couldn't be disarmed sod it! they went for it and at 3am we set off for home a very tired but happy Tomas on board. October 2020 Tomas skipped passed the beginner division and came 4th in Intermediate making him number 1 male in UK!!!!

Training quickly grew to 3 times a week and his passion and dedication to his new found sport was definitely set, in 2022 when competitions went back to in person we were ready for a bumper year first Switzerland where he was bumped up to Pro Men's division then Germany his first podium finish followed by the World Championship in California.  He finished the year 4th in the World, and we spent our month touring around seeing LA the California Mountains, Grand Canyon and Texas. it was that Christmas in Grapevine Texas that we had a crazy idea we could buy a place out here then we could reduce our travel expenses and Airbnb it to pay the bills.

Summer 2023 we were back in Texas house hunting and found a place in Canyon Lake but there was a problem and days before we were due to fly home it fell through but we had fallen for the area and so we moved our flights and got back to house hunting the house we'd all seen and liked but was too expensive became the house we can't afford our realtor insisted we go and look and we fell in love however being the house we can't afford we didn't hold out much hope.  later that day our realtor called the house was in probate and if they didn't accept an offer by the next day it would be taken by the bank, so actually Tomas worked out our offer it was really low compared to the asking price but we had nothing to loose even the realtor was taken aback at how low it was but Tomas pushed back and we went for it to everyone's amazement they said yes and as we were about to board our flight home we signed the documents.

The house was ours in October 2023 and work began as the house needed a new septic tank and we arrived for the World Championship to an empty house we had air beds and a coffee maker but we were home. a week later Tomas made history by being the only person ever to take the World Champion title from Aaron 'Wheelz' Fotheringham the guy from that video just 4 years before and brought back down to earth spending the next 3 weeks building flat pack furniture ready to launch our very first Airbnb in January 2024.