Best of Israel, steps of Paul

Photo by Josh Appel on Unsplash

We don't travel overseas often in the overall scheme of things. In fact, it's been 6 years since we were last overseas in a "big" way, and that turned into our honeymoon. You can read all about our Parisian adventures here if you have time on your hands. In between there have been various trips to Bali, which I may write about some other time and which, for Australians, especially Perth residents, is the "Clayton's overseas trip" (the overseas trip you have when you're not really having an overseas trip). We’ve also done the odd road trip (perhaps also worth a few posts sometime) and pretty much annual trips to visit family interstate.

But this is the first major trip we've booked in quite a while, it is much anticipated, and has been the catalyst for this blog. So where are we going? Well, over the past couple of years I found myself becoming interested in the possibility of travelling to Israel, the Holy Land, the Promised Land, the land of the Bible. This interest was sparked when I was listening daily to a Bible reading app. Each year I would hear the team talking about their upcoming trip to Israel, where listeners from around the world come together to join the team in exploring Israel, and my fascination would grow. I would follow their travels on Facebook too, and I found myself wanting to be a part of that amazing experience.

Unfortunately this particular tour, each year, would inevitably fall right when my husband was busy with an interstate commitment - a commitment he's kept for over 20 years. While he was willing to miss that event if I really wanted to join that particular tour, we did the next best thing - he kept his commitment and we found another group who would be visiting Israel a month later. Win, win.

So part of our travels will be with a tour group - a first for us, although I have vague recollections (and the photos) of a tour of New Zealand with my family when I was a teenager - but we're looking forward to meeting other like-minded travellers from elsewhere in the world who are also excited to be in Israel. The various segments of our trip take us to a range of locations in Israel, but also to Turkey, a brief cruise through the Greek Islands on our way to Athens, and then back to the Greek Islands for a couple of weeks to process all that we've seen and done (and to relax, of course). We will be seeing some of the "best of" Israel, following, at least briefly, the steps of the Apostle Paul as he travelled on his missionary journeys, and visiting various other significant Biblical sites.

So now here we are, almost packed, with great anticipation, heading off tonight to "drink from the fire hose" that is Israel. We've been madly reading and researching for the past few months, our fascination and excitement growing as the departure date approaches. This blog is a record of our travels, what we see, but also what we feel as we discover the incredible history, go places and hear names that we've read so many times in the Bible, walk where Jesus and the apostles walked, and just soak it all in.

And this blog is also for my mum, so she can travel to Israel vicariously through us. Who knows how often I’ll be able to write and post, but let’s just see how we go. Israel here we come!