I'm playing an old blind Bugbear Druid focused on the earth element.
This is my feat:

Earthbender's Blindness (Homebrew)

Creature is permanently Blinded (unless transformed/polymorphed).
Attack rolls by unseen enemies against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s Attack rolls on unseen enemies have disadvantage.

Creature has 5 ft. of Blindsight.
The creature can perceive its surroundings without relying on sight.
At level 10 this is increased to 10 ft.
Every ranged attack on the creature from outside the creature's sight has advantage.

Creature has 30 ft. of Tremorsense.
A creature with tremorsense can detect and pinpoint the origin of vibrations within a specific radius, provided that the creature and the source of the vibrations are in contact with the same ground or substance.
At level 5 this is increased to 40 ft.
At level 10 this is increased to 50 ft.
At level 15 this is increased to 60 ft.
Creature cannot sense enemies who are flying, on trees or roofs, etc.
Enemies that cannot be sensed, cannot be targeted.

If the creature attempts to Dash with no sight/blindsight of at least 10 ft. he must succeed an Acrobatics check of DC8+(ft. dashed/10), meaning a 30 feet dash is DC11. On fail the creature falls prone where the dash initiated.

Sounds like daredevil and then getting trained by "stick" I love it

Blindsight within 15 feet tremorsense out to 40 worked for my blind monk. He had a stupidly high passive perception (good wisdom+ observant+ expertise in perception) and it kept it balanced. He was basically immune to visual illusions and fought just as well in total darkness as in normal conditions, but anything airborne was basically permanently invisible and if someone attacked him from out of that range again, basically invisible. He could still use deflect missiles because he could hear the creak and twang of bows and the thump of a crossbow, as well as hear the arrow fletchings hiss as they flew. Dm did turn it around though and rule that he had vulnerability to thunder damage and had to make essentially a concentration check whenever he took thunder damage or be blinded, repeating the save on subsequent turns with the dc going down 5 each turn. It was tricky, but fun and had a funny moment where a guard told him to look for a woman in a red and gold dress.

Quote from Brian_Avery >>

This is the blind condition as listed in the PHB.

BLINDED • A blinded creature can't see and automatically fails any ability check that requires sight. - Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature's attack rolls have disadvantage.

That is a huge handicap to overcome. There are magic items that might help, the one that jumps to mind is the Robe of Eyes .

In my opinion, a character needs to be able to see to navigate and interact with the world if you are dead set on going with a blind character that I would recommend making her something like Theresa from the Fable series.   In case you don't know who she is, Theresa is known as the blind seer who is gifted with prophetic powers.  These prophetic powers allow her to see into other worlds, other realities, and she can use what she sees there to navigate and interact with the world in which she exists.

That said, she is still blind, and what she sees in the other worlds and realities is not always what happens in her own.  She makes mistakes and misjudges situations or miscalculates the outcome of an event, so she still has blindness, and that is her major weakness.  In cases where her seer's ability is blocked or lessened somehow, she becomes ineffectual and very vulnerable.

In short, give your character this kind of sight beyond sight with their disadvantage being their permanently inflicted blindness as described above and in the quoted comment.

A lot of people are suggesting a familiar to see what's going on. The problem with this is that to do so, you have to use your action to see through your familiar's senses, leaving you unable to do anything else unless you have multiple actions per round.  The other problem with a blind caster is that an awful lot, if not most spells require line of sight to cast, seriously limiting castable spells  for the character. 

I'd say the easiest way to run a character with the blind flaw is grant them a boon which partially compensates for the otherwise fatal flaw. As a DM, I'd allow the character to ignore the disadvantage in melee, but all other effects of the condition would be retained. (In RL I've got a blind buddy; when we throw darts @ the bar, everybody takes cover.)

Another way to compensate could be a magical item~ a hag's eye. give the character the inheritor background, but with the persistent chance of losing the item the character's survivability as an adventurer remains slim.

The first character I played for more than 1 session was a blind artificer, and since the game was casual and all of our first times playing, the DM just let me have boots that gave me effective heat/tremorsense, that could be fooled by illusion magic. Talk to your DM about handicaps and the like, but my recommendation is to suggest having blindsight at the same range as normal darkvision, 60ft, and counting as having the blinded condition beyond that radius. 

I've been thinking about this and of course Daredevil and also Toph from Avitar the last Airbender come to mind as archetypes.  Tremorsense and prophetic powers are interesting. What about echo location?  is there something like that in D&D or would we need to homebrew a feat for that?

Quote from DecemberEvermore >>

I've been thinking about this and of course Daredevil and also Toph from Avitar the last Airbender come to mind as archetypes.  Tremorsense and prophetic powers are interesting. What about echo location?  is there something like that in D&D or would we need to homebrew a feat for that?

Echo location is ruled as Blindsight. See: Bat.

Quote from DecemberEvermore >>

I've been thinking about this and of course Daredevil and also Toph from Avitar the last Airbender come to mind as archetypes.  Tremorsense and prophetic powers are interesting. What about echo location?  is there something like that in D&D or would we need to homebrew a feat for that?

This might be a bit spoilery but the movie's over ten years old.  You might want to check out the Denzel Washington / Mila Kunis post apocalypse adventure The Book of Eli.

Just add the “Blinded” stats effect, permanently.  

I am glad to come across this page, my sister likes to make her character blind in one eye or in both. And feeding through the comments I’ve gotten a lot of info. 

Quote from Jodi >>

My character is blind.  She was blinded by her father at the age of ten.  She has been training in the martial arts.  What abilities or disadvantages should I add to this character before she begins her adventures.

 

I mean.. she's blind. In 5e, there is a literal status condition for that. You could definitely start there.

i think using Pact of the Chain of Magic initiate could work very well because you have a familiar that acts as your eyes instead, and the mechanics say that you are blinded and deafened but see and hear through your familiar, so if they are right next to you, you can see people and hear people and are still able to respond to what they're saying to you. besides, if they're a bird then you get a top view of a battle which is particularly handy in some situations.

Take one level of fighter, with the new "Blind Fighting" fighting style (also in the new material... you take the bad with the good) and you won't have to convince anyone of anything as long as they allow the new material.  You legit can overcome it no matter where you go from there with your character.  A good DM will usually reward a good back story, so even the fighting style might not be required... but it is there if you need it.

I would grab a level of Fighter and take the Blind Fighting style. This gives you "sight" in a small radius around yourself, enough so you can explore and be effective in combat without harming the fantasy.

Quote from Jodi >>

My character is blind.  She was blinded by her father at the age of ten.  She has been training in the martial arts.  What abilities or disadvantages should I add to this character before she begins her adventures.

 

 If they're going the route of the Monk, they can effectively be blind - but you can homebrew that if she expends a Ki point - energy emanates around her (say, 30feet) - painting a picture of where people are, as a Bonus Action. (Think similar to Daredevil's "radar sense" in Marvel)

I'm playing a blind Tiefling Ranger/Rogue. The fighting style Blind Fighting gives her blindsight of 10ft, allowing her to functionally "see" creatures within 10ft, including invisible creatures. Taking the Alert feat means creatures outside your blindsight no longer have advantage to hit her. I gave her expertise in perception, so she generally succeeds all perception checks using her other senses, and with a passive perception of 22 she can make an educated guess as to the location of her enemies on the battlefield even though she can't see them.
My goal with this character was to strategically build a character that could function without sight. Her disability means that she is permanently under the blinded condition RAW as in the PHB.
Weaknesses:
-all her ranged attacks have disadvantage, however, if she is hidden from a creature, or uses the rogues optional AIM feature, she can make a normal attack
-she can't cast spells or use class features that require her to see, if the wording says "a creature you can see" I interpret that as she can't use it
-if deafened she's rendered functionally useless, she has a strong aversion to thunder damage if not an outright vulnerability
-she might have a debuff to detecting creatures hiding from her that fly, lack a heart beat, or don't need to breathe
-roleplay-wise, she often misses context cues and has no idea what a color is, uses texture to distinguish objects

Abilities:
-Immune to effects that require the target to see, e.g. the Basilisk's Petrifying Gaze, or the fear spell
-always recognizes voices
-invisible creatures aren't any more obscured from her, but she also doesn't know when a creature is invisible
-doesn't stumble in darkness or from bright flashes of light, a common tactic she uses is to blind other creatures using the spell darkness or fog cloud and suddenly have advantage
-taking advantage of people who underestimate her