Dear Traveler,

Before you depart on your journey we wanted to share a few thoughts with you, and ask that you consider them carefully.  The journey you are about to embark on will be meaningful to you in many ways for years to come.  There will be the profound experiences that change you immediately, altering the way you see yourself and the world.  And, there will be the myriad number of subtle influences that come and go in your minds as the years pass, gently affecting the choices you make in life.

We ask that during your travels you keep an open heart and mind about what you see, feel, and hear, trying not to judge but appreciate.  A friend of ours coined a term: “Cultivating Conscious Curiosity.”  It is a wonderful way to think of approaching a journey.  It will help you appreciate your experience at a deeper, more meaningful level.

Appreciation comes through understanding.  You will be entering another land and another way of life.  In order to truly appreciate/understand the differences between another culture and your own, it’s important that you understand yourself, your land, and your religion.  Through this reflection you will come to grips with the differences between yourself and your hosts, thereby enabling you to wholly appreciate the people you meet.

As you do this, imagine how you will encounter, with integrity, things that anger and frustrate you, as well as inspire, awe, and fascinate you.

Crooked Trails facilitators will be there to support you, but will lead from behind so that you can experience the country on your own terms, find your own special moments, and meet the people on your own initiative.  We hope to support these moments, not create them - that is up to you.

Finally, we all know that travel is uncertain and that life is full of risk, and we wish to share a famous quote by Helen Keller:

Security is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change
and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.