Like you, I love to travel (though I’m still a bit of a novice by some ITN readers’ standards, having visited only six continents and 60-plus countries). I’ve always viewed travel as a combination of entertainment and education, but my trip to Israel in November 2018 far exceeded my expectations and has had two lasting impacts that I didn’t expect.

The tour

My tour, “The Holy Land: Past, Present, and Future,” was offered by National...

Even before leaving for a Southern Africa safari in September 2019, my two friends, Cynthia and Jim Lyon, and I had already booked a trip to East Africa for September 2020. All three of us love to travel, and nothing nourishes our souls more than a wildlife trip. Who knew that a global pandemic would ground us for most of 2020?

As spring wound into summer, our hopes of traveling to Kenya were quickly dimming, but we still fanned a little flame of optimism. In early July 2020, it was...

In pandemic mode, temporarily cut off from our travels, all that we have left to satisfy our adventurous spirits are our memories… and planning for the next trip.

As longtime friends and travel companions, we plan our own trips over several months, sometimes years, scouring blogs, asking others about their experiences and always reading everything available in ITN! We travel together about once a year to places that aren’t of interest to our other travel companions. We...