Greetings from Toronto!
I'm back on home soil for a few short weeks to sort out a few things to keep everything moving forward for our future programs, and to attempt to get caught up on member communications.
While reviewing our New Member Questionnaire, I came across several questions regarding vaccines and travelling with Wheel & Anchor. Since it's been some time since I've mentioned it and we have a number of new faces in our community, it's a good time to address it again.
First of all, at the moment in Canada, you cannot even get on a plane without proof of vaccination. So as you can imagine, it would be quite difficult for us operate if we were maintaining an open policy on the issue.
Second, the vast majority of countries we visit have a vaccination policy for tourists, so once again, it would be a mighty challenge to try to swim upstream on this. So that's the official stance from the powers that be, and we are aligned with that.
To travel with Wheel & Anchor, you must have relevant proof of vaccination within whatever time designation required of the places we're going to visit.
Now, I'd like to make a further point on this so everyone can get a bit more insight into our vision for this community and how we do things around here.
Wheel & Anchor is a travel community, and we do group travel - we bring travellers together. Therefore, the first point of reference for us when making decisions for the community and our trips is, "what's best for the group?"
If you've read our Traveller's Creed, we see travel as about more than hedonism and base pleasure - we're here to seek out meaningful experiences and develop ourselves (while absolutely, 100% enjoying ourselves in the process).
I like to think that travel is a part of our personal, individual evolution, and around here it's an activity we pursue and share together. I also like to think doing so is in sync with the wider development of human existence on this planet.
In the greater context of human evolution, we have progressed from a tribal stage of development, where individualism was subjugated beneath the tribe for survival reasons, to societies where individual expression has generally advanced us as a species.
The next phase of evolution swings back toward the 'us' of the tribe, but without crushing the individual, as we create more collective and conscious societies.
Here the individual will be integrated into the whole, on the basis of agreement and cooperation, rather than subjugated by rules and threatened with exclusion, as in our tribal period.
I like to think this stage of evolution is in progress, and I like to think Wheel & Anchor operates on the principles of collective evolution.
We want you to join us as an individual traveller, with all your stories and energy that makes our group more diverse, interesting, and complex.
We want you to understand that doing things as a group occasionally requires small sacrifices or concessions that you might not have to make in a system that is set up for maximum individual benefit, and that when everyone consciously gets this, we create an even better experience for us all.
All evolution requires the integration of the previous stage to truly rise above its limitations, and it's no different here.
We want you to have the best individual experience when you travel with us, and to do so there are just a few rules in our tribe - that we largely don't need to enforce, because we're all on the same collective wavelength here.
I don't love taking vaccines (does anyone?), and I can't wait until they are no longer needed to travel. That isn't the case now, and until further notice, you need the required protection to travel with this collective.
I trust you understand our position and I hope this resonates with you. As always I appreciate your thoughts and feedback - we can't be a collective without you 🙂
Cheers!
Gordon Dreger
Founder, Wheel & Anchor
P.S. Our Japan trip and Sicily LiveAway to be released very soon! Do join us for the webinars if you are able - links are in your newsletter.
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