Description

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An essential strategy book for how to have transformative, sustainable, responsible travel experiences--starting at your own front door. Recognized Peacemaker and National Geographic Explorer Aziz Abu Sarah shows how, by crossing boundaries, we can heal our world from stereotypes, prejudice, and ignorance.


Whether you're planning future travels or exploring the diverse cultures in your own community, Crossing Boundaries provides strategies for growth and getting out of your comfort zone. Moving between inspirational stories, humorous anecdotes, and helpful conflict resolution tips, Abu Sarah guides you through having personal, meaningful experiences with people from different backgrounds. He sketches a vision of a kind of travel with the power to help heal the divides of a world polarized by seemingly intractable conflicts. 

Abu Sarah argues that transformative travel can start at home. He knows this firsthand: a former Palestinian radical, he shares his own moving story of creating connections across his divided hometown of Jerusalem, and of co-founding a tour agency with a Jewish American. Today, they direct Dual Narrative Tours, co-led by guides from different communities in countries like Israel and Palestine, Ireland and Northern Ireland, North and South Vietnam, and many others.

Drawing on these experiences, Abu Sarah's book offers tips on how to meet people naturally and safely, design an inclusive itinerary, shop to support the local economy, deal with setbacks, and much more. A guide for going beyond museums and monuments, this book is for both the first-timer and seasoned veteran. Abu Sarah shows that if you put down your phone and strike up a conversation, you can break through the walls that separate people. You'll discover shared values, build lasting relationships, and realize that far more unites us than divides us.

About the Author

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Aziz Abu Sarah is a National Geographic Explorer, a TED Fellow, and cofounder of MEJDI Tours. His work has been featured by BBC, NPR, CNN, the Washington Post, and Al Jazeera, among others. Abu Sarah is the recipient of many awards, including the Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East from the Institute of International Education, the Eliav-Sartawi Award for Middle Eastern Journalism, and the Intercultural Innovation Award from the UN Alliance of Civilizations and BMW Group.

Praise For…

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“Brimming with humor and humanity, Aziz Abu Sarah is a perfect tour guide. His philosophy of travel penetrates deeply into intriguing places and unknown cultures, but more importantly, he plumbs the warm and vital depths of the human heart.”
—Geraldine Brooks, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for March
 
“Aziz Abu Sarah rightly reminds us that it’s not more travel we should be after but the right kind of travel—one that treads lightly, highlights multiple perspectives (including traditionally marginalized ones), and fosters personal transformation, which is the key to a better world.”
—Norie Quintos, Editor at Large, National Geographic Travel Media
 
“Crossing Boundaries reminds us that travel at its best is about breaking bread and sharing exotic flavors, powerful conversations, and transformational experiences with strangers who quickly become friends and sometimes even family.” 
—Mark Bauman, former Senior Vice President, Smithsonian Media