Travel challenges truths that we were raised thinking were self-evident and God-given. Leaving home, we learn other people find different truths to be self-evident. We realize that it just makes sense to give everyone a little wiggle room.

I travel around the world in a way that tries to open my mind and give me empathy and inspire me to come home and make this world a better place.

Be fanatically positive and militantly optimistic. If something is not to your liking, change your liking.

As a traveler, I've often found that the more a culture differs from my own, the more I am struck by its essential humanity.

It seems that the most fearful people in our country are those who don't travel and are metaphorically barricaded in America. If we all stayed home and built more walls and fewer bridges between us and the rest of the world, eventually we would have something to actually be fearful of.

By day, Venice is a city of museums and churches, packed with great art. Linger over lunch, trying to crack a crustacean with weird legs and antennae. At night, when the hordes of day-trippers have gone, another Venice appears. Dance across a floodlit square. Glide in a gondola through quiet canals while music echoes across the water. Pretend it's Carnevale time, don a mask - or just a fresh shirt - and become someone else for a night.

I believe if you’re going to bomb someone you should know them first. It should hurt when you kill someone.