Over the next three years the Abraham Path Initiative strategic actions focus on:

• Inspiring and promoting global awareness of Abraham's Path through storytelling and events such as international walks and cultural exchanges, captured by the global media in film, print, television and web-based technology.
• Facilitate international, national and community-based partnerships to establish Abraham's Path as a worldwide cultural tourist destination. The initiative partners with tour agencies, tour operators, municipalities, media, non-profit organizations and universities to facilitate the flow of travelers down the path.
• Empower local institutions and communities through nationally-based staff teams, which ensure the long-term sustainability and ownership of the path. The initiative's national staff teams work with other national and community partners to open pilot segments, engage communities in collaborative planning, mapping activities, and partner with other local and international NGOs to run development projects and youth entrepreneurial programs.

Through the preparation and development of Abraham's Path, the initiative and its partners can advance rural, social and economic development in the communities of the Middle East. As a platform for development, Abraham's Path provides a system for sustainable growth that simultaneously preserves and honors cultures and their traditions.

The Abraham Path Initiative plans at least five concrete actions to address safety concerns.

1. Monitoring and security information sharing from our partners on the ground: Areas which have suffered unrest in the past will be closely monitored and advice for travelers will be provided through the Abraham's Path website. Updates to travelers on the ground can be sent via email and other handheld devices.
2. The Path is being developed in collaboration with local residents and national and local authorities, who work to provide for the safety of their guests and the long-term security of the Path.
3. A code of conduct for guests is being prepared, which will help travelers negotiate the cultural differences. The guidebook and the Abraham's Path website will contain advice on dress codes and behavioral norms.
4. For travelers desirous of support, a pool of licensed tour guides familiar with the trail will be developed and made available to travelers on a fee basis.
5. Health and safety in the desert: The partners and teams are working to produce accurate hiking maps and GPS co-ordinates that will help travelers to navigate the trail. Maps will include emergency water sources, and the guidebook will list local and national emergency telephone numbers. As walking trail segments open they will be way marked for further identification and guidance.

The borders between some of these countries are, in fact, not open to citizens from all nations. The Initiative recognizes these realities and will work within the limitations imposed by them. The Initiative has no political agenda, and will not attempt to change any nation's policy on border control or visa regulations. Most visitors from the West will be able to travel the entire length of Abraham's Path without any problem, and visitors from most countries of the Middle East will be able to travel large portions of the Path's route. At a minimum, people of the region will be able to travel the path within their own country.

Where restrictions do exist, the Initiative will try to find meaningful alternatives. While the Initiative takes no stance on the state of present boundaries, the spirit of the Path looks forward to a time when travel is unrestricted in the region. Indeed the landscape and the people are connected historically. Abraham, and the many sites throughout the region that are connected with his legacy, stand as a reminder of that connection.

Abraham's Path is a symbolic honoring of Abraham's journey. No scripture is detailed enough to allow us to recreate Abraham and his family's actual path through the Middle East, and the route chosen does not imply any judgment about the veracity or precedence of the different scriptural traditions. The scriptural records of the three Abrahamic faiths do concur in citing specific places, including the ancient city of Harran in Turkey, Jerusalem and the tomb of Ibrahim / Abraham in Al Khalil/Hebron, where the core route will start and end. Between these two locations Abraham's Path will pass through places that are cited in the scriptural record or associated with Abraham and his children by local tradition. The route will also try to follow a 'line of beauty' — winding through the most appealing landscapes in the region and passing through sites of more recent historical interest.

Please see our page on Organization & Support.

Please see our page on Organization & Support.

International demand for this kind of travel is reflected in the development of eco-tourism, religious tourism, voluntourism, and long-distance hiking trails across the world. The Inca Trail in Peru, the Appalachian and Lewis and Clark trails in the United States, the Grand Randonne routes through France, the Greenways paths in northern Europe, the Saint Paul Trail in Turkey and the Via Francigena in Italy are attracting hundreds of thousands of people every year. Most remarkable of all has been the revival of the Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage route that runs through Spain.

Abraham's Path will include many great cities, which rank among the oldest and most evocative places in the Levant. Between the great cities the trail will cross the Biblical landscape of the desert, climb through the forested and snow-capped mountains that rise from the Mediterranean Sea, and descend through the wildflowers and olive groves of the foothills. For its natural beauty, its cultural richness, and its historical appeal, Abraham's Path can become one of the very best and most traveled routes of tourism in the world.