June Letter from the Founder: Future
Travel is opening up! Andiamo!
Hello Friends,
The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the breeze is getting warmer every day. Welcome to June, the gateway to summer.
As you might be able to tell, I am in an excellent mood. For the first time in months, I am writing to you from the road. I am currently visiting a tiny (and lovely) Croatian island, Vis, with my co-conspirator and GC member, Andrew Villone. We are out to shake off the cobwebs and see what travel looks like these days. You could say that we are out experimenting in what future tourism could be.
Our theme this month is “Future” and what an apt idea to consider at this point. I don’t know about you, but when I look back on my life before March 2020, I already consider that to be the “before times".” Before Covid, life hummed along and tourism seemed to be growing to impossible levels, an unstoppable freight train. And then, in a few months, everything changed. I look back at the before times with some melancholy. Life was good in some ways. In other ways, it had reached a point that made change or growth impossible. I wouldn’t personally have asked for a pandemic, but I muse often about how it might have been the miracle I didn’t know I needed. It’s a reset button for everyone in the world. Now that the reset button has been hit, how do we want to start over?
Now is the time for us to have a hand in defining our future. No matter your place in life, career, or personal situation, we all have this golden moment to make significant change. Change is usually scary, but after the year we have suffered, it seems far less intimidating and almost inviting. What do you see in your future? Or perhaps a better question, what do you really want, if you could have anything? The time is ripe to stop dreaming and to actually go for it.
Here at Guide Collective, we have taken time out of our weekly meetings to discuss the future. As a group, we see that travel needs a reboot, but in what way? Our key premise is that sustainability needs to be the focus going forward. While that may sound like a catchphrase, sustainability is a broad concept that addresses a host of problems. The environment is a key component. We, as travelers, must seek to reduce our impact on the environment while we explore the world. Another way to look at sustainability is to consider the intangible ways that over-tourism has an impact. How does it affect the lives of the people that live in the places we visit? How can we be a welcome benefit to a destination rather than a burden? If you ask locals, most will say small scale tourism. Small groups and individuals, and long stays that really get travelers in touch with the cultures they encounter. Perhaps the past is actually our future and the Grand Tour had it right!
Our discussions about this topic are ongoing, but my hope is that we will eventually have a mission statement to share with you, our vision of the future we’d like to see. Can we really have happy travelers, happy locals, and a happy planet? I think we can, it will just take some change in approach to our methods.
It’s easy to look at the past with wistfulness, the present as a quagmire, and the future as a mystery. Perhaps, instead, we should look at the past as a lesson, the present as momentum, and the future as the ideal of who and what we’d like to be. Seen that way, we all can lend a hand in making the future far better than the before times.
In this month’s issue, we will feature “Future” articles from our guides, including Anna Savino, Ben Curtis, and Roberto Bechi. Our book club will be led my myself and fellow Italy guide Susanna Perruchini. We will be reading a Rome-based mystery, The Raffael Affair by Iain Pears, bringing you some fun live-streamed coverage of Raffael in Rome. Our podcasters are busy at work, look for new episodes for Scottish Blethers and Eastern Approaches. Our guides will also present live events— Helen Houston will present a virtual tour of Iona, Scotland, and Fran Glaria gives weekly cooking lessons. More events HERE.
Of all of our hopes for the future, I think there is one that we can all agree on. We all hope to be able to travel freely and experience this beautiful world. I don’t mind being the trailblazer, and from what I’ve seen so far in Croatia, I’ll tell you this—dust off that suitcase and get ready. The world is opening up and we hope you’ll join us to explore it.
Andiamo!
Sarah