Like many across the globe I am looking back and reflecting on the year 2023. For me, the year in review immediately has me taking stock of my travels and I am probably not alone. 49% of Americans traveled this year and according to the World Tourism Organization 975 million people traveled internationally between January and September 2023.
The places we go create a vision of not only where we have been, but how have we expanded our minds, interacted with new people and grown in our view of the world. Travel opens up your awareness to things that may never have been considered before, broadening our understanding of customs and culture.
We also unfortunately travel, often at the drop of the hat, when we get that phone call of the loss of a loved one. We immediately head to pay respects, offer condolences and join in the celebration of life. Travel is a connector to our wishes and desires as well as our community and foundation.
So where did I go. In 2023 I visited 6 countries on 3 continents and more than a third of the United States, including both Alaska and Hawaii as well as the island of my beloved mother’s birth, Jamaica.
What is clear is that no matter where we are from, be it the city of Istanbul with 16 million inhabitants to a small village in Anchorage, is that people want the opportunity to experience the fullness of life – mobility, receiving and sending goods or services and importantly the relaying of information.
Globally this has been an exceedingly difficult year especially in war torn places. The critical movement of information seems to be on par with the essential movement of emergency supplies and goods.
The long and short is that mobility is an indispensable part of our lives, whether we are living in relative peace and comfort, or we are barely surviving in the middle of human rights atrocities or war. In all of these spaces, every single one of them, mobility plays a large portion of how we experience life, love, community, fellowship, friendship, and freedom.
It is not lost on me, and likely not you, that access to mobility has become not just a pursuit of happiness, but at times a political tool to determine the life or death outcome of both our friends and our enemies.
In looking at 2024 I vow to share my belief more emphatically at how critical mobility is for our society. I aim to not just communicate but to educate, implore, and inspire those who have an opportunity to increase access to mobility for people around the world. Mobility as tool for good not as a weapon for harm.
When we are look at how we spend our time each and every day also give thought to the people that we encounter and how easy or difficult mobility is for them. Then use that knoweledge. Do your part to encourage all to have access to transportation that allows affordable, efficient and sustainable mobility.
I wish you all a mobility paradise in 2024 where movement is not gated, where transportation is affordable and efficient where your dreams are sustainable, and freedom is yours for the taking.
Transportation is Mobility and Mobility is Freedom ™.
Happy New Year!
