Transformational Travel

Each year hundreds of thousands of visitors fly or sail to the Caribbean to enjoy the sun and sea. Beyond Borders offers a radical alternative to the typical vacation package to the Caribbean. Through its Transformational Travel program, Beyond Borders organizes reflective trips to Haiti for small groups from churches, colleges, and community organizations, opening opportunities for authentic dialogue between visitors and their Haitian hosts. Instead of being isolated behind resort walls and insulated from the reality most local people live, Beyond Borders takes visitors into the heart of Haiti.

Participants come to Haiti for one to two weeks and spend several days in a rural community where they stay in the homes of Haitian families along with a translator. These journeys offer a life-changing chance to see the world from the other side of the global economic divide and the challenge to live in authentic solidarity with those the world has left behind.

Most of what outsiders learn of Haiti, they learn through news reports that focus almost exclusively on Haiti’s economic and political difficulties. Rarely is Haiti’s rich cultural, spiritual, and natural beauty mentioned. In fact, there is much that we from the wealthy, industrialized world can learn from Haiti and her people. But even we who are disillusioned with our society’s soulless pursuit of possessions and power can miss what Haiti’s poor have to teach us.