About travel.

"When you travel to places new to you, you understand more, and you fear less." Rick Steves quoted in the Feb. 9, 2010, CHRISTIAN CENTURY. To which I'd say, "Maybe" and I think Rick is suggesting it as an ideal, not reality for everyone, because he goes on to say "The system encourages you to be a tourist, because the system is an economic engine. You are led to believe that you need to be a consumer, that you need a fancy hotel, that you need to take a fancy tour. You will go home having done some predictable things--just what the advertisers told you would happen....You could go to Africa and take in all the finest golf courses and come home having learned nothing. Or you could go to Africa and drink tea with local people, help them out in different ways and gain empathy for them. You'd come home changed. That's being a traveler. Travelers and pilgrims are people who are connecting, learning, challenging themselves and not doing what is predictable"