Joel Thornton

A common sense conservative.

Plans for 2022

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I am getting ready to head to Greece. It wasn’t my plan to travel to Greece. We are sitting here at the beginning of 2022 still staring at the Coronavirus pandemic that will not go away. Four times I have cancelled a trip to Israel because the Israelis government has closed the country to outsiders.

I was scheduled to be in Israel this coming week; instead, in the next few months I am traveling to Greece with a small group of pastors to pray for strategy in the fight against sex trafficking. We are doing a Steps of Paul tour and spending time in strategic meetings and prayer.

This has been a frustrating time for all of us. Businesses shut down, travel shut down, new rules every other week. How do we navigate the pandemic and how do we know what is true and what is not? How do we trust the science when we are told not to question the science? I have been trying to get back to Israel for over six months.

I am fully vaccinated and ready to travel. Anyone who knows me knows that I am always ready to go on the road. I would have been a rock star but for my inability to write inspiring music and play at a professional level. Instead, I travel without fanfare. I bring groups of people on the trip of a lifetime. I get to experience the same places through the new eyes of a first-time traveler. That is fun.

I am going back to Israel in June if the country opens up. I will be taking 30 of my new closest friends with me. It will be exciting. In the meantime, I will be in Greece following the Apostle Paul through the first days of Christianity in Europe. Then I hope to do a Christmas Market Tour of France, Germany, and Austria in December this year.

Whatever this year brings I will face it. If I don’t travel internationally, it will not be for the lack of trying.

Strasbourg–the Hidden Jewel of the Alsace Region

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The first time I went to Strasbourg, France was in the late summer of 1997. I was on a fact-finding mission for my company. We were contemplating opening a European office and I was charged with determining if we should and where it should be located. That trip took me to Paris, Brussels, London, Cologne, and Strasbourg. I had only been to London before that trip.

I fell in love with Strasbourg from the beginning. Even though I was there when I received that one of my musical heroes, Rich Mullins, had been killed in a car accident, the city still holds fond memories for me.

Most people have never heard of Strasbourg, but it is the headquarters for the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe’s purpose is to uphold human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in Europe. It was founded in 1949 and has 47-member states.

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Safety, Always a Concern, Never an Issue

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Many people never travel abroad because of the fear of the unknown. I do not let that happen. I believe that, if we do our homework and take some easy precautions, we can avoid troubles while abroad and still enjoy traveling.

My family and I were living in Strasbourg, France on September 11, 2001. We sat in our apartment and watched the World Trade Center Towers come tumbling down. I knew that this one event would change how we travel for years to come if not forever. Tensions rose in Europe, as did anti-Semitism.

Not long after, we began to see refugees streaming into Europe unchecked, mostly from the most troubled areas of the Middle East. This changed the dynamic of Europe fairly drastically. And yet the world still spins on its axis.

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HOW TO DECIDE WHERE TO GO.

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There are probably hundred of factors to consider when trying to decide where to travel. We will explore five factors to help you decide where to go.

  • Follow your dreams;
  • Follow your passion;
  • Count the cost;
  • Consider the tensions in the area where you are traveling;
  • Have courage and step out boldly.

Follow your dreams, they can lead you to great places! We all have places we have dreamed of traveling. Think about those moments when you imagine being somewhere else. You lift yourself out of the world that surrounds you and deposit yourself somewhere else. Where is that place? Is it France? Is it England? Is it China? You are the only one who knows.

            I think when you travel you should follow your passions. I was always interested in Germany, from the earliest memories of foreign countries Germany was there. So, naturally when I began to travel that is where I went. I have never regretted being in Germany. Following your passions will mean that you are always somewhere you are excited to be. That opens a whole new world for travel. It helps you get the motivation to get out of the hotel everyday and explore the city where you find yourself.

            I have expertise in European travel and in travel to Israel. I have led two tours to Israel and right now have three more scheduled. I am leading my first tour to Greece and Germany soon. These are all places I love. So, every time I go there I am excited. Even though I have seen many of the sights dozens of times, they always come alive when I am there again. That is what I mean by following your passion when you are choosing where you are going to travel.

            It is important to count the cost for your trip. In addition to following your dreams and your passions you should also consider what your budget is. International travel can be expensive because the airline tickets are much more expensive than domestic airline tickets. There are many ways to save money when traveling, but the airlines are typically not one of them. You can stay in lower rated hotels that are safe and comfortable without being extravagant, make sure you eat with restraint (Have one expensive meal to experience the cuisine of Paris and eat more frugally the rest of the time. This does not mean you do not eat well. It is easy to eat well in France without spending a lot of money, you just have to be more discerning.), use public transportation, walk when you can, or check to see when free museum days are and build your itinerary around that perk (it is easy enough to rotate days to take advantage of free admissions in some cities). There are many ways to take advantage of cities that make a lot of their revenue from tourism. You just have to be prepared.

            Do your research and consider the tensions you might run into. You should never just travel blindly without considering the tension that exist in a country or city where you are planning to travel. There are several ways to check on hot spots, including the State Department’s web site. This site tends to be very cautious, so do not stop with that one check. You should do an Internet search of the area where you are going. See if there have been any terrorist attacks. See if violent crime is a problem there. Use some common sense. Remember, even in American cities where you might feel very safe because it is home there are parts of the city where you would not go at night. There are other places where you would not go during the day. The same is true in every city in the world.

            There are ways to determine if you are in a safe environment. For example, if you see women walking alone that is a good sign that the neighborhood you are in is fairly safe. If you see women with children walking alone, without a male escort, that is a positive sign. Regardless of how safe you feel, it is important to always be vigilant. Often, if I am leaving a hotel to walk about I check with someone at the hotel to get their take on the area where I will be heading. They almost always speak English and they are always willing to help.

            I will talk in depth about safety and tensions in another blog dedicated to the subject. While it is a matter that deserves our attention, it should never keep us from traveling.

Have courage and step out boldly. Plan your trip with courage. There is no reason to let fear keep you from traveling to those locations to which you have always dreamed of traveling. Europe is less violent than the United States. Remember, their cities are the opposite of ours, the safest places in most European cities are the inner cities areas. The troubles typically happen in the suburban areas.

Also, television, especially the news, give us the impression that when there is a riot going on in a country it is dangerous to be there. I have been in Athens, Greece during riots that made it look like the city was being burned down. We barely saw any signs of riots, and we were careful to stay out of harm’s way. I was in Jerusalem the day we announced that we were moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. The next day was the begin of three days of rage by the Palestinians. On the first day of rage we went into Bethlehem, there was no sign of rage or danger. The next day Bethlehem was closed for security reasons. My point is that there are people locally who are making sure that tourists stay safe. Keep an eye out but never let fear keep from traveling.

The most important thing is that you travel. Travel changes how you view the world. It changes how much you appreciate home. It changes who you are, so I always encourage people to explore other cities and other countries.

Be safe, be smart, but travel.

If you are thinking about traveling and would like some more information, contact me at [email protected]. You can also ask to sign up for our travel newsletter (we are beginning it soon) and to keep up with tours that we are currently planning. We can help you make memories to last a lifetime!

WHY TRAVEL?

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            There are literally dozens of reasons to travel. We each have our own reasons for traveling, reasons that cause travel to rise to the top of our list of options of how to spend the next week. I travel because I have a wanderlust. Early in my career as a lawyer my boss called me a vagabond. He laughed and said, “Joel, you are a vagabond, have bag, will travel.” Perhaps I would have been better placed to have grown up in the age of Jack Kerouac, hopping on and off trains as a “hobo.”

            Nonetheless, here I am stuck in the 21st Century, lost in an age when security precautions and family concerns make it unrealistic to ride the rails like they did less than a hundred years ago. So, I’ll make the best of life and travel in the era into which I was born.

            Why do I travel? I travel because travel opens the world to everyone of us. When I travel I expand my borders. I expand my understanding of different cultures. And in the middle of those two great reasons to travel, I get to see some of the coolest things a person could ever see. I get to experience some of the most different views of life, views that I could never experience sitting in my living room watching television.

            I also travel because I love the process of traveling. There was a time when I was not able to go. In those days, I would spend hours planning trips I never took. I would work on where to fly from and where to land. How to get from the airport to the city center. How to travel from town to town. What sights to see while I was in town. What day trips to take. How to navigate the subway systems of the city where I was planning my imaginary trip. I did all this just for the fun of planning the trip.

            I have spent most of my time traveling in Europe. Since 1980 I have been to Europe at least forty times. I have traveled from country to country by train, by car, and by plane. I have wondered around cities, walking from sight to sight. I have driven around major European cities looking for a place to park. I have ridden on their subway systems, which are some of the best in the world. I have wondered cities and villages alone and with family and friends. I have experienced Europe in virtually every way that you can experience Europe. Every time I went, I went as an American, a fact that is hard to hide because of the way we dress, the way we talk, and even the way we walk. I have lived and worked in Germany and France.

            The purpose of this blog is to help open the doors of the world to you and your friends. I hope to provide information that will help you make decisions on where to travel, what to take, and what to do when you get there. We will explore countries, cities, sights, and all the little details that help make a trip successful.

            Sit back, relax, let me do the work for you. If there is something you need to know that I am not talking about write to me. Let me make it easier for you. Let’s explore the world together.

If you are thinking about traveling and would like some more information, contact me at [email protected]. You can also ask to sign up for our travel newsletter (we are beginning it soon) and to keep up with tours that we are currently planning. We can help you make memories to last a lifetime!