They say that travel broadens your horizons. Certainly, it exposes you to a variety of people and places that you otherwise would not meet. The more you travel, the more you begin to see that we are but one small person, in a small community, on a large planet. The scale of your perspective on life changes.
The idea behind deep travel is that, now that you have this new perspective, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to seek insight into why things are different? Are you going to build understanding between your different cultures? Are you going to work to build bridges and create solutions to global issues? Deep travel is not about laying on a beach sipping margaritas. It’s about digging in deeper, really getting to know your destination, not just observe it passively. Ideally, you’re new found insight will motivate you to leave the place just a little better than you found it.
Deep travel doesn’t just result in changes to the places you visit. Sometimes the best change is a minimal change, such as when visiting ancient ruins or pristine wild areas. Other times it may mean helping local people create a sustainable livelihood or provide a much needed improvement to the community school. In either case, it should always result in a positive change in the traveler because deep travel touches the soul.
So how can you become a practitioner of deep travel? We’ll use this space to highlight things you can do, simple and complex, suppliers you can utilize, and current developments in the area of responsible travel in general.
