As we approach the holiday season, I’ve been thinking a lot about travel’s power to transform people’s lives, build meaningful connections and bridge cultural divides.

The world has become an increasingly divided place and as our founder, Bruce Poon Tip, says, travel truly has the potential to be the fastest path to peace our world has seen.

Most of us will be travelling these holidays, whether it’s a short distance to spend time with family and friends, or heading further afield to enjoy warmer climes. It’s a time where we both spend time with loved ones, and also have the opportunity to meet new people and connect.

This year, I’ll be spending nine days traveling across Morocco on our National Geographic Journeys with G Adventures Morocco Journey trip. After the devastating effects of the earthquake in Morocco, I’m excited to see my travel dollars positively impact local communities.

This holiday season, I implore you to truly connect with people and come to understand their perspectives, be they your family or local people in a new country. Ask questions, get to know them and how they live, enjoy a meal together and share your experiences.

Looking back on 2023, my best memories include interactions with people completely unlike me, with varied backgrounds and life experiences. I continue to be amazed that no matter how different we appear on the surface, there are so many similarities between us. We really are more the same than we are different and this is a reason to celebrate.

When I was in Borneo this year, I met with the most incredible Canadian travel agents and we had so much fun. I love the job I do, because of the travel agents that I get to work with.

Then in Peru I connected with the women at our weaving cooperative. It was so much fun to see these women, who live and dress so traditionally, throwing shapes on the dancefloor at our Village People performance during the GX summit in Cusco.

And now that we are back in the office this year, I’ve been able to reconnect with my G Adventures family at our Toronto Basecamp office, as well as our community around the world on my travels.

There are so many ways we can bond – travel, music and food are just a few of those. And the same rules apply to our loved ones, we just need to take a moment to uncover the things that bind us together and truly build meaningful relationships.

Many times this year, I’ll be honest, I’ve had to dig deep emotionally. The world can be a frightening place. We’re still recovering from the pandemic, natural disasters continue all too frequently and sadly wars and terrorist attacks are happening around us. It’s no wonder we sometimes question ‘when will this ever end’.

I encourage you all to find ways to offer random acts of kindness, if we all focus on compassion, being there for one another and find ways to use travel as a force for good. Like Bruce I also believe that travel truly has the potential to be the fastest path to peace our world has ever seen.

I wish you all a happy and safe holiday season no matter how you celebrate. Let’s celebrate travel’s return, the blessings we have been bestowed over the course of the past year, plus let’s celebrate each other at a time when peace and harmony should prevail.

Thank you to all our valued partners for all your hard work this year, and for the role you play in helping travel be a force for good in the future.

See you in the New Year – let’s make 2024 even bigger and better!

DG

G Adventures’ Managing Director David Green’s monthly column, ‘G in 3’ is a 3-minute read running exclusively in Travelweek Daily all through 2023