Travel guide writer Rick Steves will talk about the relationship between travel and spirituality at Northwestern next week.
Steves, host of “Rick Steves’ Europe,” a travel show on public TV, will share his personal experience about how he came to view travel as a Christian act in Cahn Auditorium, 600 Emerson St., on Dec. 5. He has also appeared as a guest on other TV and radio shows and works to provide affordable housing around the world.
“(Steves) is going to talk about the importance for folks who are able to travel and afford that luxury to think about the importance of affordable housing in their own communities,” University Chaplain Tim Stevens said.
The event will be sponsored by the Chaplain’s office and Good New Partners, a Chicago organization that works to provide affordable housing in the East Rogers Park neighborhood north of Howard Street. It will be preceded by a V.I.P. event, a chance for guests who pay extra to meet Steves, and all of the proceeds from both parts of the event will go to Good News Partners.
“By traveling thoughtfully, we can understand that whether we live across the street or across the seas, we are all neighbors and children of the same father,” Steves said in a news release from Good News Partners. “And, for any person of faith, travel can be a spiritual experience.”
Steves, who has spent 120 days each year since 1973 in Europe, was confronted by the problem of how to live cheaply while traveling. This helped him realize what it would be like to live in poverty said Jan Hubbard, director of major gifts and church relations at Good News Partners.
“Steves connects travel with learning about the world and helping people,” Stevens said.
In 1990, Steves bought a run-down building in his hometown in Washington and turned it into a place for homeless mothers and children to live. Good News Partners, working along a similar model, bought its first building in 1980 and turned it into a place where homeless people could work to get off the streets.
The organization is working to buy a new building in the Rogers Park area to turn into affordable housing. All of the proceeds from this event will go towards purchasing that building. Tickets to the lecture are $30, and the V.I.P event is $150.
Steves agreed to help Good News Partners because their missions line up, Hubbard said.
“Through his travel, Steves truly believes in the need to be thinking of behaving as one big family,” Hubbard said.
