ROAMING WITH A PURPOSE
Many travelers are putting more meaning into their future trips
By Elaine Glusac
Every year, John Shackelford, 26, a bicycle messenger in New York City, takes what he calls a “tour,” or long-distance ride with friends. Following a summer of social unrest sparked by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black Americans at the hands of police, the 2020 tour, he decided, would travel roughly 1,100 miles from Mobile, Alabama, to Washington, D.C., visiting places associated with Black history, including civil rights landmarks, history museums and memorials such as the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. The pandemic was an obstacle to visiting some sites, but not enough to hold back the ride.
It was both a personal mission and a demonstration of diversity, something Shackelford, who is Black, hoped to model for future generations of cyclists. From this kernel of an idea, a movement grew as a film crew signed on to document the trip named the Underground Railroad Ride, which took Shackelford and four fellow cyclists 18 days to complete in October.
“With all the anger and animosity going on, I felt this was the time to bring something important to the surface and answer some questions I’ve always had in terms of history,” Shackelford said.
The crises of 2020 — particularly the pandemic and the killings of Black Americans — have caused travelers to rethink how and where to travel.
Rather than taking luxury spa trips or sun-and-fun cruises, many are seeking to put more meaning into their future travels, either through a personal challenge like long-distance cycling, exploring their heritage or realizing a life goal such as visiting all 50 states.
Mission-driven trips also assert a heightened sense of self-awareness. In her book “Getting Away From It All: Vacations and Identity,” author and sociologist Karen Stein writes that “vacations reveal what people choose to do, rather than what they must do. They are opportunities for self-definition.”
It’s impossible to quantify the number of missiondriven travelers out there, especially when travel remains severely depressed and restricted in many places, but tour operators indicate some future travelers may do more than fly and flop. At Hands Up Holidays, a tour operator devoted to volunteer travel for families, bookings for trips more than six months out are 2 times greater now than in January 2020.
During the pandemic, the California-based travel agency CrushGlobal Travel created road trip guides in several regions of the United States that aim to make road trips more inclusive by highlighting Blackowned businesses.
And the tour company Backroads, which provided the Underground Railroad Ride with mapping and route logistics, plans to offer a similarly themed biking and hiking trip to the public next October in conjunction with Outdoor Afro, a nonprofit organization that encourages Black participation in outdoor recreation and conservation.
“The pandemic has given our world an opportunity to look within as well as at tourism, which is so catalytic to personal growth and raising awareness of ourselves and others,” said Jake Haupert, co-founder of the Transformational Travel Council, an organization that trains travel advisers in planning more sustainable, purpose-led travel. “I think we’re seeing an awakening to more values-driven travel.”
‘COVID has made me rethink everything’
That sort of awakening is true for Cessie Cerrato, 40, of New York City, who said the pandemic inspired her to overcome her family’s objections and make plans to visit Cuba, a country her grandparents and parents fled several years after the Communist takeover.
“I 100% identify as Cuban,” said Cerrato, a publicist who grew up in Miami, deeply steeped in Cuban traditions, from Christmas Eve pig roasts to wearing azabache jewelry to ward off the evil eye.
Though her family has discouraged her from traveling to Cuba, which would funnel money to a regime that had ruptured their lives, not being able to travel has persuaded her to go anyway, perhaps this summer, to explore her heritage and strengthen her connections.
“COVID has made me rethink everything and to be more intentional about where I go,” Cerrato said.
“Cuba holds a special place in my heart because my family’s from there and I want to discover it.”
Activists abroad
During the travel shutdown, fewer tourists contributed to a rise in poaching in some areas of Africa, highlighting the importance of travel in funding conservation.
For sisters Isabella and Willow Poschman, both
15, of Aspen, Colorado, the hiatus has pushed Africa to the top of their agendas. At age 7, after seeing a documentary on African elephants being slaughtered for their ivory, the twins, with the help of their parents, founded the charity Kids Saving Elephants through which they have worked to raise awareness by writing letters to the presidents of China, Kenya and the United States, making educational presentations at school and fundraising.
Now, with their parents, they are planning to travel to Kenya, hopefully this summer, to visit the conservation organizations they support, including the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and Retiti Elephant Sanctuary.
“It’s important because, on the one hand, we know a lot, but we’re also so removed from that environment,” Isabella said. “And we don’t really know a lot about the people who are actually living there and their side of the story so that would be really helpful to go there and learn about.”