I’m glad you asked that question. Oh… I mean I’m glad *I* asked that question! I have loved traveling from the very first time that I was lucky enough to venture out to see new people and places. My very first trip was to Israel and Europe when I was 19 years old. I was one of about 30 college students who were in an all-inclusive tour. We went all sorts of places I never would have gone– to museums, concerts, and even to the opera. I loved it! I developed, that summer, a love for classical music, Impressionist art, Botticelli paintings, and the sights, smells, and sounds of foreign lands. I enjoyed having a group of friends (for after the first week or so, all of us became friends) to share the experience.

Now, as an adult, I realize that in addition to organized tours providing many more and varied sights and sounds than one would plan for oneself and in addition to providing quick and easy transportation and entrance to all sorts of attractions, that much of the fun comes from sharing the experience with compatible people who not only like traveling, but who kid and joke and enjoy life together.

My daughter was kind enough to send me a link to this article that reminded me of this.

Of course, for me as a systemic therapist, a family systems person, a social worker– forming and nurturing the group experience is one of my most important jobs as a guide. As we travel in China and in Vietnam/Cambodia, we enjoy the group experience as well as the unique experiences of the sights and sounds of the places we travel. We make sure, on our Shai Bar Ilan tours, to take our people to places where they can meet local residents and connect with them as well and so at the end of the trip, we can look back not just on the pictures we took, but on the people we met (both local people and those on the group) and experiences we had that are unforgettable.

And as I prepare for Pesach, I am dreaming of my next trip. Come along with DrSavta to China this summer!!!!

The other night my husband and I went to see a play in Tel Aviv at the Cameri Theater. The plays are always in Hebrew because that is the language of the country, but some evenings they have a superscript in English- a short very-wide sign above the top of the curtain on which is projected the English translation as the dialogue progresses. That night we were surprised to see the play would be superscripted in English.

Not long after we sat down, a group of American tourists filed in and sat down. The woman to my husband’s right started to talk to him and to me and in the course of our conversation, she talked about the fact that they were having a total experience of Israel from museums to theater to lectures and places of interest. We mentioned that we are very careful to give the people who travel with us as rich an experience as possible. When we mentioned that we led tours to China, she said she was “boycotting China because they oppress their people and things are getting worse and worse.”

When we told her that although we think that a different form of government is desirable, the Chinese government has been taking very good care of its people and there is a sense of excitement and freedom in the country. The people everywhere we travel are smiling and happy– and we travel to numerous cities, some of them VERY far off the beaten path (one city we went to can only be reached by road- no airport, no train- and the ride to the next city takes 12 hours! Two cities we went to were ONLY 8 hours from the nearest city.)

And then I mentioned that in one village where we frequently take our groups, we used to take them to see how the village people lived. We took them to a place where we walked into an alley and to our left was the pig sty. It was also the bathroom (no plumbing). Further on, we entered a main room that was where people were born and where they were laid out when they died. There were 6 rooms that opened into the main room. Each room contained one family. In the back of the house there were two small, very primitive kitchens (water brought by bucket, cooking over fire.) This past October when I took my group to that village, the house had been razed and the people were living in brand new apartments that had been built in the few months since my last visit. Our local guide told us that no one in that village was living without indoor plumbing anymore.

The woman tourist we were talking to said, “But did the people have a CHOICE as to whether they wanted to move?”

On Hebrew we would say, “Nu- b’emet!!!” In English I said, “You have GOT to be kidding!”

My mistake. I shouldn’t have confronted her preconceived notions with the truth.

*Thanks to Simon and Garfunkle– I miss you guys!