I had an interesting conversation with my friend and fellow tour guide Adam Wadell that touched on issues surrounding educational tourism as well as interfaith relations and guiding in the post October 7th world. In addition to our shared American upbringing, Adam and I have many things in common including an interest in environmental policy and a focus on educational tourism. We talked about our experience of working on programs that bring people to Israel to better understand the political reality here, the importance of education, and our hopes for the future.

In the intro to this episode, I mention a recent lecture that I gave about the genesis of liberal anti-Zionism that can bee seen HERE.

In this episode, tour guide Haike Winter, returns to Tour Guide Confidential to share her experience of volunteering in a dairy farm during the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Like all tour guides in Israel, Haike was left unemployed by the war that began with the massacre of October 7, 2023. A "milker" since the 1980s, Haike has volunteered twice for the cowshed of Nir Oz, a small kibbutz in the Gaza envelope that was devastated by the pogrom. This is the kibbutz from which the Bibas family (the red-headed children) were taken hostage to Gaza. Haike describes her volunteer experience, the state of the kibbutz and cowshed in the aftermath of the attack,  and how this has strengthened her connection to Israel. 

Anita Andziak is a Swiss-based tour guide and tour leader, PhD candidate and Virtual Tourism expert. Her passion is the combination of artificial intelligence and tourism. We sat down in January of 2022 to talk about the promises and pitfalls of Virtual Reality both during the pandemic and as we stride into the metaverse of the 21st century.  Based on her research and professional experience, Anita discusses the ways in which customer behavior, cultural changes and the geopolitical situation are pointing to new directions and tourism trends. I invite you to listen to this episode about VR tourism, where I push back a bit at the techno optimism surrounding this cutting edge technology while also learning about many of the benefits that this growing sector in  global tourism offers. To contact Anita and to explore Dokodemodoors where she is employed click on the respective hyperlinks.