
The Traveler's Path
Finding Spiritual Growth and Inspiration Through Travel
Douglas Brouwer
About the Book
Paperback: ### pages
Publisher: Reformed Journal Books & Front Edge Publishing
Publish Date: March 2025
Language: English
ISBN-10: ####
ISBN-13: ####
As researchers have documented, and as Douglas Brouwer has experienced, human experience in varied cultures expands people’s perspectives, curiosity, creativity, and empathy. In this memoir of his own life travels—from family vacations to mission trips to pilgrimages to ministering in varied states and nations—he explores lessons learned. And he bids us to consider how we, too, by travels beyond our comfort zone, might grow in spiritual and cultural understanding.
—David G. Myers, social psychologist and author of How Do We Know Ourselves: Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind
Douglas Brouwer has been traveling throughout his life, beginning with three-week road trips every summer with his mom, dad, and sisters. Since then, he’s continued to travel by leading pilgrimages, going on mission trips, and seeing as much of the world as it is humanly possible to see. He’s even lived and worked abroad on three different occasions. In recent years, he’s discovered the joys of walking solo along the various Camino paths in Spain and Portugal.
But what is travel? What leads people to set out, go places, and meet people? Is curiosity always a good thing? And does travel really change us? We mean it as a compliment when we say that someone is “well-traveled,” but is it? Mark Twain has a famous quote about how “travel is fatal is prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,” but his book Innocents Abroad (where that quote is found) is filled with prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. So, travel doesn’t always do for us what we claim for it. And then there is the harm that travelers do to the earth by moving around so much, as well as the over-crowding that occurs when too many of us converge on cities like Venice, Barcelona, and Bruges.
There’s a lot to unpack (if you’ll pardon the expression) when it comes to travel, and that’s what Douglas Brouwer set out to do with The Traveler’s Path—to tell his own stories, to invite you to think about your stories, and then to ask if it adds up to anything. (Spoiler alert: he thinks the answer is yes…sometimes.)
Author

Douglas Brouwer is a retired Presbyterian pastor and the author of several books, including his memoir, Chasing After Wind: A Pastor’s Life (Eerdmans 2022).
Endorsements
We travel. But why? What kinds of journeys are driven more by purpose than by pleasure? And how does an outward journey impact the inward journey of our souls? What is the root of our restlessness, and where might it lead? Douglas Brouwer turns to illuminating questions like these to look at all our experiences of travel—exploratory vacations, pilgrimages, mission trips, and more—through a reflective, spiritual lens. Partly memoir, these pages are also infused with the secular and sacred wisdom of others. What shines through are the experiences of this well-traveled pastor that have transformed his life and will enrich any reader who sets off on a journey.
—Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary Emeritus of the Reformed Church in America and the author of Without Oars: Casting Off into a Life of Pilgrimage
In a true journey of the soul, Douglas Brouwer paints an exquisite portrait that echoes my own experience of leading pilgrimages to the Holy Land—not as a mere journey across continents, but as a profound voyage of spirit. From the sacred stones of the Holy Land to the remote corners of the world, this book traces the footsteps of pilgrims past and present, each journey woven with faith, purpose, and a desire to seek both within and beyond. Through the lens of mission trips and sacred travels, Brouwer shows us that the act of pilgrimage is not only about the places we visit but the transformation that unfolds along the way. This is a book that will stir the soul, beckoning us to explore the deeper meanings of travel, to walk in the footsteps of the divine, and to serve with open hearts wherever we are called.
—Rick Ricart, Founder and President of Imagine Tours & Travel
This book is an adventure. Invited in by personal stories, this well-crafted book drew me to explore my own thoughts and experiences. That’s because Douglas Brouwer’s honest commentary on his growth allows others to look honestly at their process. I was very impressed by the amount of research into various views of travel, which added significantly to broadening my own understanding and provided a solid base for further discussions. There were two bits of writing that caught my attention. One was Doug’s quote of Thomas Merton’s words spoken close to the end of his life. In essence they were: We are all one but imagine that we are not. The other was a comment made about a self-discovery of his own. He came to understand that one of his gifts was being able to listen. I experienced this quality a few years ago when he listened, over long emails, to my own processing of finding the book I was wanting to write. His ability to hear my personal travel into that book allowed it to happen—a gift from a fellow traveler.
—Judith E. Bowen, author of The Mystical Symphony, A Memoir of Healing, Vision and Wonder
In warm, wise, conversational prose, Douglas Brouwer reflects in these pages on a lifetime of rich and varied travel: vacations, pilgrimages, mission trips, job relocations, and more. He alerts us to the pitfalls of mere tourism, the fleeting seductions of consuming yet another exotic site. But he also shares the best that travel has to offer—lessons in humility, in learning how to listen and really see, in how to offer and—even more difficult!—accept hospitality. He is especially alert to the spiritual dimension in all these encounters. In meeting so many others, he shows, we may come to know ourselves better, and in roaming far afield, may finally recognize our true home. This is a wonderful guide both to going abroad and to searching deeper within.
—James Bratt, Calvin College emeritus professor and scholar of American religious history
Part travel memoir, part meditation on the meanings of our movements, this winsome and wise book invites us to thoughtful reflection on who we become through the journeys we take.
—David I. Smith, Director, Kuyers Institute for Christian Teaching and Learning, Calvin University