There's a form of travel in which we can all engage that is inexpensive (free in most cases), easy and can make a huge difference in promoting understanding and, perhaps, peace. You don't have to leave your hometown to do it. In fact, in many cases, you don't even have to leave your home.

This "travel guide" was inspired by Robert Putnam and Rick Steves.

In his book, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam writes about the decline in what he calls, "social capital" which, basically, represents the decline in interactions between people with differing values, beliefs and attitudes.

Putnam maintains that, over the last 50 years, we more and more live, work and play with people who are exactly like us. He attributes this to television, urban sprawl and the pressures of time and money and it has resulted, he asserts, in more social conflict. Because we don't interact with people different from us, we don't understand people different from us and we fear people different from us.

Coincidentally, I was recently listening to an interview with Rick Steves. Steves is well known as a travel guide, has had shows about travel on public television and is the author of many best selling books about travel.

Steves maintains that "the antidote to fear is understanding" and his mission is to use travel to get people to interact with others different from themselves.

Basically, Steves and Putnam are making the same suggestion. Greater understanding results in a reduction in fear and conflict both internationally and interpersonally.

I could relate to what Steves and Putnam were saying. My Chicago neighborhood might as well have been a village in Russia where my father was born. I was Jewish and everyone I knew was Jewish. On Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holy Days, Solomon Elementary School was empty. All the kids were with their parents in the synagogue. Growing up, I never saw a home with a Christmas tree.

My high school was much the same, although there were a few "non Jewish" students (I call them "non Jewish" because, at that time, I had no idea of the distinctions between denominations).

I went to college at a state school. I interacted with many people, but we were all products of middle class homes and shared very similar beliefs, attitudes and values.

Then, after college, for nine years, I was a teacher in a high school in the inner city of Chicago. The school was 100% African American and across the street from the Robert Taylor Homes which, at that time, was the largest public housing project in the city. I was immersed in a world completely different from any I had ever known.

I have spent the last 25 years as a corporate trainer and consultant. But my high school teaching experience gave me an understanding that still effects my perception of people different from me and it is how I developed the idea for my "travel guide."

Here it is:

Read magazines and newspapers that have a different political orientation from your own. For example, watch Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck if you are "liberal" and Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow if you are "conservative."

Have a conversation with a (gay, lesbian) person you may have been avoiding.

Ask someone Jewish about Judaism, a Christian about Christianity and a Muslim about his/her religion.

Call up (or get introduced) to someone who is rich (or poor) and ask if you can buy lunch for him or her.

When you pass a person on the street asking for money, food or a job, ask, "What happened?" and then take the time to listen to the response.

Attend a National Rifle Association meeting if you are against gun control and an American Civil Liberties Union meeting if you are not.

Get literature from Planned Parenthood if you are pro life and from the National Right To Life organization if you are not.

Read Al Franken's book, "Rush Limbaugh Is A Big, Fat Idiot" and watch Michael Moore's movies and read his books. Read Rush Limbaugh's book, "See I Told You So" or, to be more contemporary, Bill O'Reilly's current bestseller, "A Bold, Fresh Piece of Humanity"  (or books suggested on Limbaugh's and O'Reilly's web sites).

You get the idea. The key is to experience difference and, in understanding that difference, discover our common humanity.  

You don't have to travel far to encounter diversity and you don't have to change your mind. Simply work to understand those who are different. It's harder to be in conflict with one another when we understand one another's values, beliefs and attitudes.

QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? LJBARKAN@THEPIVOTALFACTOR.COM

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Reprinted by permission of the author, Larry Barkan: http://www.conflictresolutiontraining.net