Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
For 12 days, I'd been out of my comfort zone, in a land where people live under a
theocracy. I tasted not a drop of alcohol, and I never encountered a urinal. Women were
not to show the shape of their body or their hair (and were beautiful nevertheless). It was
a land where people took photos of me, as if
I
were the cultural spectacle.
Landing in Paris was reverse culture shock. I sipped wine like it was heaven-sent. I
noticed hair, necklines, and the curves revealed by tight pants like never before. University
students sat at outdoor cafés, men and women mingling together as they discussed
whatever hot-button issue interested them. After the Valium-paced lifestyle of Iran, I felt
an energy and efficiency cranked up on high. People were free to be “evil” and able to
express their joy any way they wanted. And, immersed in that vivid whirlpool of life, I
was thankful to be a Westerner. I was grateful for the learning experience that gave simple
things—from visiting the men's room to dealing with traffic jams, from valuing noncon-
formity to respecting women—a broader cultural context.
Returning home to the US, I faced a barrage of questions—mainly, “Why did you go to
Iran?” Some were skeptical of my motives, accusing me of just trying to make a buck.
(As a businessman, I can assure you there was no risk of a profit in this venture.) Reading
the comments readers shared on my blog—some of whom railed against me for “naively”
acting as a Jane Fonda-type mouthpiece for an enemy that has allegedly bankrolled terror-
ists—was also thought-provoking. The whole experience made me want to hug people and
scream at the same time. It was intensely human.
I didn't go to Iran as a businessman or as a politician. I went as what I am—a travel
writer. I went for the same reasons I travel anywhere: to get out of my own culture and
learn, to go to a scary place and find it's not so scary, to bring distant places to people
who've yet to go there, and to talk to people who have a dramatically different world view
than I do…to gain empathy. To me, understanding people and their lives is what travel is
about, no matter where you go.
I have long held that travel can be a powerful force for peace. Travel promotes un-
derstanding at the expense of fear. And understanding bridges conflicts between nations.
As Americans, we endured the economic and human cost of war engulfing Iran's neigh-
bor, Iraq. Seeing Iraq's cultural sites destroyed and its kind people being dragged through
the ugliness of that war, I wished I'd been able to take my film crew to Baghdad before
that war to preserve images of a peacetime Iraq. As our leaders' rhetoric ramped up the
possibility of another war—with Iran—I didn't want to miss that chance again. It's human
nature to not want to know the people on the receiving end of your “shock and awe”—but
