Each month we highlight a company that best serves travelers based on the theme of the newsletter. This month, there is not a particular company that features “spiritual tours.” Instead, in keeping with the idea of the Host Review, I am choosing a company that best serves an area that, from personal experience, I think is a great destination for those travelers who want to explore a cross section of 2,000+ years of Western civilization and spiritual spaces.

That country is Turkey, a modern Muslim marvel that has been able to separate politics from religion, while not only keeping alive its past, but encouraging the study, understanding and promotion of the history that has shaped it.

Like many countries in the region, Turkey as a modern nation-state is less than 100 years old. Yet its history spans millennia and transverses political and religious boundaries. Like medieval Spain, Turkey continues to be a place where Christians, Jews, and Muslims, live and work together in relative peace. Politically tied to Europe, religiously attached to the Middle East, and culturally and ethnically Central Asian, it would appear that assimilation and understanding are inherent parts of Turkey’s unique heritage.

Asia Minor Travel and Tours is a company that I believe understands all these various parts and can combine them to create a superlative Turkish trip for any traveler. This month’s story on the Seven Churches and Asia Minor’s Millennium Tour prove it knows about the area’s Christian past. Turkey's Abundant Roman Cities draws a fantastic view of the Roman Empire’s influence on the area and its trips along Turkey’s beautiful coastline allow travelers to experience the natural wonders of the country.

Asia Minor Travel and Tours offers escorted tours, custom–made tours, individual arrangements, adventure tours and can create special-interest travel programs such as archeological, cultural, bird watching, hiking, biking – just about everything you can think of.