Trip Advice

Since 2000, the TripAdvisor website has been giving travelers the opportunity to look at customer reviews for travel destinations as well as hotels and restaurants. The writer of Hebrews gives us similar reviews of two contrasting destinations — Mount Sinai and the new Jerusalem. 

Planning a trip? Going on vacation?

If so, the planning is likely going to involve a laptop and/or a smartphone.

For our parents, the planning was totally different. When they planned a summer vacation, they’d go to the local auto club and pick up a stack of maps, guidebooks and brochures about a potential destination. If it was a road trip, they might have obtained a strip map that outlined construction along the way.

If it wasn’t the auto club, it was a travel agent. Every strip mall had a little travel office in those days. On the walls were huge murals of sun-drenched beaches, glistening cities and invariably a gondolier plying the canals of Venice.

The agent gave your parents a guidebook listing reviews of hotels and sights to see, but those reviews were often written by auto club employees who gave a place stars or diamonds based on their particular expert criteria. Mom and Dad wouldn’t necessarily see a photo of the place in the guidebook, nor would they...