How to Discover Our Shared Humanity Through Travel
Author and world traveler Gail Straub joins Lisa Andrews to discuss her latest book, Home Inside the Globe: Embracing Our Human Family. Drawing on more than 60 years of travel, Gail shares inspiring stories from cultures around the world and explores what connects us despite our differences. Together, they discuss resilience, personal agency, and the powerful lessons travel can teach us about humanity, hope, and belonging.
Travel often starts with a desire to see something different. A new country. A new culture. A different way of life.
But according to author and world traveler Gail Straub, the deeper lesson of travel is often the opposite.
After more than 60 years of traveling the world, Gail has discovered that beneath our differences, people everywhere share the same hopes, challenges, and desire for connection.
Be sure to check out Gail’s newest book, Home Inside the Globe: Embracing Our Human Family, as reflects on the lessons she's learned from cultures around the world.
Why Travel Matters
One of the most beautiful paradoxes of travel is that we leave home looking for something unfamiliar.
We want to experience:
Different foods
Different languages
Different traditions
Different perspectives
Yet when we arrive, we often discover something surprisingly familiar.
Whether you're sharing a meal in Jordan, walking through a village in Vietnam, or sitting with a family in Africa, the same themes emerge:
Love for family
Community and belonging
Appreciation for beauty
Hope for the future
Travel reminds us that while cultures may look different on the surface, our humanity connects us all.
What Jordan Taught Us About Family
During a recent trip to Jordan, I spent time talking with a local guide about what mattered most in his life.
His answer was simple: family.
As we talked, I realized that despite our very different backgrounds, our priorities weren't all that different.
Travel creates opportunities to see ourselves in other people.
It reminds us that:
There is no single "right" way to live
Different cultures have wisdom worth learning from
We don't have everything figured out
Other countries often do some things better than we do
The more we travel, the more humble we become.
Finding Hope Through Travel
The world can feel overwhelming at times.
Gail has spent decades working in refugee camps, impoverished communities, and places experiencing significant hardship. Yet she says travel has given her more hope, not less.
Why?
Because she has repeatedly witnessed the resilience of the human spirit.
Throughout her travels, she met people who faced:
Poverty
Displacement
War
Loss of loved ones
Limited opportunities
And yet many of them continued to live with courage, dignity, and purpose.
One lesson that stood out came from visiting Syrian refugee camps in Jordan.
The people she met reminded her that even when circumstances are incredibly difficult, our inner world remains our own.
Our dignity, values, and choices come from within.
The Power of Agency
For more than 40 years, Gail and her husband led the Empowerment Institute, helping people develop confidence, self-awareness, and personal agency.
What surprised her most was discovering that the same principles worked across cultures.
Whether someone was:
Living in New York City
Growing up in a rural African village
Living in India
Navigating life in Russia
The core human need was the same.
People want to know that they have the ability to shape their lives.
Gail found that empowerment begins when we:
Challenge limiting beliefs
Take responsibility for our choices
Trust our own voice
Recognize our inherent worth
No matter where we come from, that journey is universal.
Lessons From a Village in Vietnam
One of the experiences I shared during our conversation came from a recent visit to a small village in Vietnam.
Women in their seventies and eighties were still making incense sticks by hand, sitting together and working throughout the day.
When we asked what made them happy, their answers were simple:
Being with family
Having good health
Being able to work
Enjoying everyday life
There was something refreshing about hearing those responses.
It stripped away many of the things we often believe are necessary for happiness and highlighted what truly matters.
Travel has a way of helping us see life more clearly.
Fatima: A Teacher in West Africa
One of Gail's most meaningful travel stories comes from her time serving in the Peace Corps in West Africa.
There she met a woman named Fatima.
Fatima had never attended school and could not read, but Gail quickly realized she possessed extraordinary wisdom.
She became one of Gail's earliest and most important teachers.
Fatima demonstrated something that travel teaches again and again:
Wisdom is not limited by education, wealth, or status.
Some of the greatest teachers we encounter while traveling are people we might otherwise overlook.
Her story is a reminder to:
Stay curious
Listen deeply
Be willing to learn from anyone
Approach travel with humility
Why Making Mistakes Is Part of Travel
Traveling well doesn't mean getting everything right.
In fact, Gail admits she made plenty of cultural mistakes throughout her early travels.
Fortunately, people were often gracious and forgiving.
One lesson she learned was simple:
Be yourself.
Approach people with respect, curiosity, and openness.
Most people appreciate genuine effort far more than perfection.
Seeing the Full Spectrum of the Human Experience
One of the reasons Gail continues to travel is because she wants to understand the world more deeply.
Through her work in places like Russia, Afghanistan, India, Jordan, Morocco, and West Africa.
She has witnessed both incredible hardship and remarkable resilience.
Rather than making her cynical, these experiences strengthened her belief in humanity.
Again and again, she encountered people who found ways to create:
Joy
Meaning
Community
Hope
No matter their circumstances.
Final Thoughts
At the heart of Gail's message is a powerful idea:
The world can become our home.
Travel helps us move beyond stereotypes, assumptions, and fear. It invites us to see both the differences that make cultures unique and the common humanity that connects us all.
As Gail writes in Home Inside the Globe, we don't need everyone to be the same.
We need each other.
And sometimes the best way to remember that is to step beyond our own backyard and see the world through someone else's eyes.