UPDATE: I changed my mind about not posting about the trip, and have written a post for each day of the trip. I also updated the maps to reflect our actual itinerary (which is different from what the original plan was). See here for the updated maps, and for a list of posts for our Holy Land trip.
Mary Ann and I will be making a trip to the Holy Land this summer. We will leave on Wednesday, May 31, and return on Saturday, June 10. In order for us to get a better idea of exactly where we’re going, in preparation for the trip, I mapped it out in google maps, and copied the information from the travel brochure at each spot. I decided to put the maps on the website so we could easily access them, and in case anybody else is interested in more details. This won’t be a photography trip, so I don’t plan on bringing my camera (except a cell phone), and I don’t plan on doing any posts about the trip, except for this one.
The maps are interactive. If you click on the icon in the upper left, you can see the options. Each day has two layers, one with the stops, and one with the directions. You can click or unclick the red checkmark to select which days you want to view, and whether or not you want to view the driving/walking directions for each day. If you select an individual spot it will tell you what activities occur at that location, using text copied and pasted from the travel brochure. You can also select the individual spot on the map itself (hint: don’t select the letter, but rather the teardrop shaped icon for the location). You can also view the maps directly on the google maps page, rather than on this website. I think the interface is nicer. I put the links for that after the maps, if you are interested.
There are some things that aren’t accurate in the maps: I don’t know some of the exact locations (e.g. which Druze village we will visit, exact spot on the coast on Day 2, etc), and in some cases (e.g. in Jerusalem), I don’t know exactly where we will drive versus where we will walk. So I made my best guesses. I’ll update some things as I learn more.
The trip is being led by Kevin Saunders, who teaches the Arizona Bible Class at different venues in the Phoenix area. We have been friends with Kevin and his wife for years, going back to when Mary Ann met Diane at the Arizona State University Catholic Newman Center back around 1980. We took Kevin’s bible class in the 2000’s, and he’s offering it again at our church (St. Tim’s), and we decided to do a ‘refresher’. We meet every Tuesday night and, in the course of about 4 years, read through the entire bible, with Kevin teaching along the way. We’ve been talking about doing a Holy Land trip for years, and when Kevin offered the trip this year, we decided to go for it.
I couldn’t put the whole itinerary in one map because of limitations of google maps. So I divided it into two.
Here is the map and travel brochure for days 2 – 6:
Here is the map and travel brochure for days 7 – 10:
The interface to view the maps is nicer on the google maps page, rather than in the this website. Here are the links for the google maps page for each of the maps:
Days 2 – 6
Days 7 – 10