New Year Ponderings

One of the things I have been thinking about since March is why travel matters.  My professional background was in investment banking and I made a conscious move to segment into the travel industry because it was, and is, where my passion lies.  As for many of us, with the onset and progression of the pandemic I have had to postpone personal and work related travel plans on an almost monthly basis, including to Cyprus, Japan, Moscow, London, Greece and Marrakesh.  I have found it viscerally difficult to be confined to one place.  I have travelled when many Israelis have not, escaping to the UK as soon as it was added to Israel’s green list, and rescheduling now green listed Greece for the end of this month.

It turns out that travel is a privilege and not a right, and I have been taken by surprise by the strength of my apparently congenital, almost physical need to travel.  However, to state that travel matters, is different from asking why it matters.  The more I think about it, I think that why travel matters is linked to at least some of Jonathan Sacks’ Rosh HaShana questions.

For me, the act of travelling, is in and of itself a change of perspective.  We suffer from an inbuilt bias that the way we do things, personally or societally, is the way things should be done.  Much of our lives are governed by unthinking habits and assumptions.  When we actually physically experience other ways to live, when we are surrounded by people who think differently, and do things differently, questions naturally arise.   In addition, sublime landscapes can powerfully change our perspectives by allowing us to experience our true smallness in the face of nature (Alain de Botton has an excellent essay about this in his ‘The Art of Travel’).  For example, a couple of years ago, we visited the Simien Mountains of Ethiopia, which combine grand African-Syrian rift settings (of which Israel’s Golan Heights are also part), with meeting people whose isolated, technology free lives are so completely different from our own.  We inevitably found ourselves comparing, questioning our own way of life, asking what the good life means, and considering how we relate to the concepts of time, boredom, happiness, success.

For me, one of the highlights of running Pomegranate is hearing from clients about how Israel and Middle East travel has changed their perspectives and assumptions on topics as diverse as problem solving and innovation, peace and interfaith relations, and matters of faith.  This is why we work hard to ensure our clients have the opportunity to meet a wide range of people when in-country with us, in addition to seeing the sites.

I am grateful for the opportunity that Rosh HaShana presents to grapple with ‘big’ questions.  I will be engaging with this year’s disappointments, my own personal failures, and ways in which I should be living better.  But I also know without a shadow of a doubt that despite the challenges of this year, being deeply involved with travel will not feature on my list of blunders.

On the topic of travel and expanding horizons, here at Pomegranate we couldn’t be more delighted about the recently signed peace accords between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain.  Travel between these countries will now be possible and we are currently designing Islamic Heritage and other tours to welcome visitors from the UAE and Bahrain.  We are also designing itineraries for our clients from all over the world which will allow them to twin Israel with these destinations.  Once the world is back to some sort of normal, it will be expanded at least in this exciting way!