Bons voyages with the travel fellowship
Ligia Corredor, a devout globe-trotter, frequently travels solo, but she’s rarely lonely. For her, travel is first and foremost a friend-making quest. Whether she’s landed in Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, or California, she can easily find someone to meet for coffee, share a meal, show her around their favorite neighborhood, or host her for a few nights at their place — even if, as is often the case, they’ve never met before. Where does she find these instant besties? The International Travel and Hosting Fellowship.
“First of all, being a single person and a woman, I find I feel comfortable,” says Corredor, a member of the Rotary Club of Miramar-Pines, Florida, talking up the benefits of the fellowship she’s been part of for over 25 years. “It feels safe when I travel to ITHF friends” since they’re Rotary members. Best of all, it feels like family, whether she’s being hosted or hosting visitors at home along a meandering waterway just outside the Everglades.
With more than 850 members, the travel and hosting fellowship is one of the largest within Rotary. It allows its members to enrich their travels through cross-cultural exchange by visiting local Rotary members for everything from quick meetups at cafes to several days in their home.
Madhumita Bishnu (left) at Mornington Peninsula National Park in Australia with Rotarian Peter Downes and his wife, Helen.
Courtesy of Madhumita Bishnu
Fellowship members from Canada and the U.S. enjoy a swim in Brazil.
Courtesy of Ligia Corredor
Though the fellowship was officially recognized in 1989, the idea was sparked a few years earlier. The group formed from a growing circle of connections that started with an American Rotary member and his wife, who were struck by the hospitality of Rotarians they encountered on an extended stay in Europe in 1986. When they, in turn, hosted a group of Australians who had the same interest in exchanging visits, they knew they were on to something.
Tips on turning up the hospitality
On being a good host
- Communicate well. “Most of the time the complaints would be the host not responding, the host doesn’t check email, doesn’t telephone,” says Bishnu. Detail what you can and cannot offer Rotary guests and their partners.
- Introduce visitors to neighbors and other locals, especially members in your club, to foster new friendships and potentially even projects.
… and a good guest
- Make contacts well in advance and share your interests and purpose for the trip.
- Inquire about the rules. It might seem like an obvious consideration, but “always ask,” insists Corredor. “What can I touch? What can I not touch? I give guests a tour of the house” from the start.
- Be flexible with your time and your plans. “Consider the options presented by the hosts,” says Wyatt. “This is often the area that I have had the most rewarding experiences, as you see the location through a different perspective.”
- Decide how you’ll express your gratitude. “I always bring a token gift. I recommend a food item,” says Corredor, who finds coffee from her native Colombia is universally appreciated.
- Consider lesser-known spots. Harned remembers an Australian saying they never got visitors because of a lack of interest in their location off the beaten path. “I said, ‘OK, we’re coming.’ We had a wonderful time with them.”
“What we do is give you an opportunity to connect,” says Madhumita Bishnu, of the Rotary E-Club of Melbourne, Australia, who logs on from her home in Kolkata, India, as the fellowship’s current chair. Members can reach out to each other through the website and arrange to connect. “You make the connection and stay with the person or be invited to a club meeting. It could be local sightseeing, a visit for a cup of tea or coffee, any kind of hosting,” Bishnu says.
“Connections can involve homestays over a few days but can also be as simple as just meeting for a meal,” notes Sheila Hart, president of the Rotary Club of Nelson Daybreak in British Columbia and a past chair of the fellowship.
Tracey Wyatt, of the Rotary Club of Wynnum and Manly, Australia, calls the fellowship “the best-kept secret.” “It’s far deeper and more insightful than any tourist experience,” she says. And the expert local knowledge is helpful. Wyatt, for example, regularly cautions travelers not to underestimate Australia’s vastness and set unrealistic travel plans.
Rick and Mary Ellen Harned, members of the Rotary Club of Louisville, Kentucky, note that some Rotarians lack room at home to accommodate guests. “In Japan, I would not necessarily expect home hospitality where they just don’t have space,” says Rick Harned, a fellowship past administrator. But a simple meetup can be equally enriching.
For their visit to Osaka, Japan, for instance, a Rotarian-hosted walking tour and dinner at a Japanese sports bar were memorable highlights. During a visit to Germany, the wife of a Rotarian stocked their rented apartment with light victuals, and Rick Harned delivered a presentation about Rotary life in Kentucky to the Rotary Club of Detmold-Oerlinghausen. On another trip, Australian Rotarians introduced the couple to the kangaroos romping on a friend’s property. The landowner, it turned out, was a Rotarian the Harneds had met on an earlier fellowship group tour.
The fellowship also encompasses domestic exchanges; the Harneds visit Rotarian friends in Wisconsin and enjoyed a short trip to neighboring Tennessee in April to experience a solar eclipse with a Rotarian there. “We tend to do what they do in their communities,” says Mary Ellen Harned. “In the smaller communities, you see things an average tourist wouldn’t see.”
Rick Harned (left) and his wife, Mary Ellen (center), visit Chicago with Rotary hosts John and Jean Henderson.
Courtesy of Mary Ellen Harned
On a 2021 hike, Tracey Wyatt (right) shows Australia’s Blue Mountains to Nancy Fleming, a longtime U.S. Rotarian before her death.
Courtesy of Tracey Wyatt
Corredor has hosted visitors who were excited just to help tend to her garden, which is adorned with palm trees and lush greenery. On another occasion, a couple from Canada who arrived in time for a breakfast with Santa event for kids that she was attending tagged along and volunteered all day to hand out gifts. And when Corredor was staying with an Australian member near Brisbane, she went with her to check out a club project to teach teens and adults with disabilities how to sail. “I would have never seen anything like that if I had not been with Rotarians,” she says.
The fellowship also organizes group tours, including excursions around the Rotary International Convention. After the convention in Singapore last May, Corredor joined a fellowship tour in Bali, Indonesia. A Rotarian there arranged for them to take a cooking class in which they even got to pick the vegetables and herbs from a garden. Another recent fellowship tour was planned for Patagonia and Antarctica. And the connections start even before the trips; members often get to know each other ahead of time through lively WhatsApp groups.
“The biggest takeaway is the long-term relationships that I’ve made,” says Corredor. “I have a lot of friends I’ve made that are not in the fellowship. But we convince them. Every time, you need to join us. It’s the camaraderie that you develop.”
This story originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of Rotary magazine.