every time we turn on the television
open a paper or glance at social media
it seems like the world is becoming more
and more divisive mean-spirited comments
negativity appear to be our new normal
and growing examples of racism fear and
anger lead us to feelings of
disillusionment confusion and
hopelessness
it’s heartbreaking but this is not our
narrative so how do we counter the
negativity and blatant disregard for
others years ago my husband Ian and I
found one solution and it came at a time
when I was searching for my purpose
we opened a travel agency with the sole
purpose of connecting cultures through
meaningful travel experiences and we
were very successful in a short amount
of time and I loved helping my clients
realize their travel dreams but
something was missing booking tickets
was not fulfilling my life’s purpose but
I had such a belief in travel and is so
passionate about it I knew that if I
stuck with it my purpose would be found
there and it’s funny when you step into
your purpose other things will follow
and what followed for us was a larger
platform to share the joy and importance
of travel for the last 10 years
Ian and I have operated a socially
minded travel media company and through
our multiple platforms including our
podcast we have shared inspiring travel
stories we have connected cultures we
have fostered cultural intelligence and
we have shared our
common humanity through powerful and
honest storytelling many of our
distinguished guests including the late
dr. Maya Angelou agreed with us on the
importance of travel that travel is a
powerful connector that travel breaks
down walls that travel is a wonderful
bridge filling the cultural gap and that
travel is incredibly transformative and
as it was as an illustration of the
transformative power of travel I want to
share a story about another guest Rene
Murray is an african-american jazz
artist and years ago she told us her
agent booked her for a concert tour in
Germany and she didn’t want to go
because she believed that Germans were
racist and that they would reject her
and her music but she went she had to
and she decided she was going to give
her German audience everything she had
to offer and she was going to lean into
that travel experience and when she did
that she made two important discoveries
the first like Germans love jazz and
they embraced her and secondly as an
african-american woman she was
embarrassed and appalled at the fact
that she held an unfounded and unfair
bias against another culture because of
the color of her skin their skin but
because she leaned into her travel
experience and went with as much of an
open mind as she could have Rene gained
a wider audience for her music and she
also found another country she now calls
her second home that is a transformative
power of travel
Travel is also inspirational how can you
not be inspired when you gaze in an
architectural wonder or when you see
children playing around the world with
such glee or even when you’re bombarded
by squirrel monkeys in the Amazon who
are searching for a banana that is me
under that brood and that’s
inspirational in its own way
certainly walking in the footsteps of
history as we did in Israel and looking
upon this planet’s beauty is too
inspiring to not want to protect it we
have seen the dedication of school
children in st. Vincent walk up and down
a mile a mountain for two miles each way
every day to go between school and home
that is inspiring and in a Rio de
Janeiro favela it was thrilling to find
a thriving theatre community and to
enjoy beautiful street art as we walk
down the mountain speaking of Rio you
know one of the things that travel
really affords us is an opportunity to
see the power of the human spirit up
close and personal as we did in Rio
during the 2016 Paralympic Games this
gentleman in the middle with no arms he
took home two gold medals he swam at
lightning speed it could probably beat
any of us in a pool travel is like an
open classroom it’s very educational if
not the most educational experience one
could have we learned so much about
ourselves about our history about our
culture and we find these interesting
discoveries like we did in Havre Montana
we came upon in underground city that
back in the day when it operated was
complete with an opium den a meet a
butcher a dentist a doctor’s office a
brothel that also sit next to the law
office in jail and in bloomington
indiana we uncovered a a tibetan
monastery in the midwest where we rent
we chanted and we prayed and i learned
firsthand how much the dalai lama loves
chocolate in fact so much he keeps Bulls
especially blessed chocolate next to his
his bed and i was specially blessed to
try a few travel also teaches us an
appreciation for the food items that we
universally enjoy including tequila and
knowing how hard it is to harvest the
agave cactus i now sip tequila more
thoughtfully and travel teaches us
survival skills especially when you’re
hiking a very grueling historic trail as
we were in Dominica
and this trail went from a desert to a
rainforest to slippery wat rocks and so
we had to deal with different terrains
and it was hot inhuman and so we
searched for foods that would quench a
desperate thirst and keep a sustained
throughout the trail I have no idea what
my husband found on the ground to
sustain him but he’s here with us today
wasn’t harmed these three gifts that
travel offers us form an acronym ty
because travel is the tie that binds
travel is the thing that connects us all
travel
offers an open door and puts a face on
our humanity and it connects us in
different ways that we may not think and
and brings together people that may be
surprising and we had a surprise in
Sochi Russia you remember back in 2014
the Winter Games the headlines were
terrorism because of the Russia Ukraine
conflict but Ian and I decided to go and
we did our own ground truth in we found
our truth on the ground and we realized
that our experiences did not validate
the headlines in fact the only
excitement we had were the people who
flocked to me so that I could take a
photograph of them with my husband I
think they might have thought he was
Barack Obama but certainly some
celebrity he was quite popular now I
want to contrast these stories because
what we did in Russia was put a good
face on America we were abasa ders for
our country and I want to show a side of
somebody who did not lean into their
travel experiences years ago when I was
in law school here I did a summer of law
at in China and one of the girls from my
program came from Seattle and she
rejected everything Chinese she rejected
the food that the university prepared
for us and ate American fast food every
day for six weeks and she also refused
to interact with Chinese students at the
university we were at and we had
something called english-speaking corner
twice a week where Chinese students
would practice her English and where we
had a chance to practice our Mandarin
and we talked about American
culture and remember Michael Jackson was
a hot topic back then and this this
student from Seattle also decided not to
travel around the country with some of
us after the program and she left
immediately and I felt really bad for
her because I don’t know what she took
away from that program I don’t know what
she got from traveling to China I took
away some lifelong friendships a couple
of them have come to visit me in
Washington DC and when you lean into
travel and start interacting with people
that opens doors and because Ian and I
are travel journalists we may lean in a
little bit further than others and try
local things just to immerse ourselves
like we did in Namibia and where we
enjoyed grub which I think kind of
resembles caterpillars and my picky
husband even ate one and I was shocked
but very very proud of him the thing is
in many communities insects provide the
best source of protein and you don’t
have to enjoy the local insect in order
to connect with with the culture or
immerse yourself in the destination but
you can do simple things like learn
pleasantries please and thank you in the
local language and smile which is a
universal welcome you can do those
things even if you are on a beach at an
all-inclusive which sounds really nice
right now but you can connect with
people you’re local to your fellow
traveler your server and it means a lot
I want to share one last story and kind
of bring things full circle a couple of
months ago I shared the stage with a
group of incredible people with powerful
powerful
stories about overcoming adversity and
after we were done and commenting about
our experience I happen to mention that
I didn’t feel that my talk about travel
fit because I didn’t have an event in my
life I had to overcome I was blessed
that way but one of the women who shared
the stage with me by the name of Diana
Simone she was a visionary behind the
AMBER Alerts the alerts that alert us
when a child is missing and Diana
grabbed my hand and she said Tonya you
weren’t talking just about travel you
were talking about world peace
and how important travel is in
facilitating that and that touched me
and she gave me a gift and helped me
travel as an antidote to divisive Ness
is a great idea but great ideas don’t
affect change great people do and so I
hope through this journey we’ve taken
that you have been transformed you’ve
been inspired and you’ve been educated
and you see the value of travel in
today’s world and that you will use your
travel wherever you go in this country
across the globe to be a tie that brings
us together thank you you