Rebuilding the Village
The Art of Gathering in the Anti-Social Century
Christoph reflects on his village
I grew up in a small East German village tucked deep in the Thüringen Forest. Back then, community wasn’t something you planned, it was something you lived.
The woods present a place of greeting
You didn’t need an invitation to stop by a neighbor’s house. The bakery was a place to trade news. The forest paths, where everyone walked on the weekends, were places of greeting. We all knew one another’s rhythms: who was fixing a roof, who was slaughtering a pig, who had extra apples to share.
When I read The Atlantic’s description of our time as “The Anti-Social Century,” I can’t help but think how far we’ve drifted from that way of life.
Today, many of us live surrounded by people, yet alone. Our worlds are shrinking to family on one side and online tribes on the other. What’s disappearing is the village—the living, breathing space in between, where everyday connection once happened without agenda.
Family teaches love. Tribe teaches loyalty. But village. . . village teaches community.
The village is where you learn patience, compromise, humor. It’s where democracy begins—not in grand debates but in small, daily acts of coexistence. When that middle layer of life erodes, so too does empathy.
Gatherings crackle through thoughtful design
The Art of Coming Together
In her book, The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker writes, “gatherings crackle when real connection meets thoughtful design.” That line stays with me. The best gatherings don’t happen by accident—they’re shaped with intention, held with care.
That’s what we try to create at Dressler Detours: gatherings in motion.
If you think about it, group travel is one of the last places where strangers come together—people from different worlds sharing the same road for a while. You arrive with different stories, accents, and beliefs, and then you find yourselves toasting Glühwein in Germany, drifting over Cappadocia, or crunching through snow in Finnish Lapland.
Something shifts.
Conversation replaces commentary.
Curiosity dissolves difference.
And suddenly, the village is rebuilt, if only for a moment.
Cheers to gatherings in motion
(Re)Building Villages
We design our Detours not to cross borders, but to build bridges, or maybe better said, to build villages.
Culture isn’t static; it lives in the space between people in conversation. Each journey becomes its own small experiment in connection—strangers becoming companions, curiosity turning into friendship.
I’ve spent much of my adult life chasing wide horizons and quiet light through my camera lens. But what stays with me most are not the landscapes; It’s the people who shared them: the warm laughter over wine in a Sicilian vineyard; the contemplative silence standing on Normandy’s beaches; the frozen awe staring in communion at Finland’s northern lights.
These are the moments that remind me: we don’t travel to escape the world, but to rejoin it.
The magic of the village isn’t gone; it’s simply waiting for us to find it again. It’s there at the next shared table, on the next quiet trail, in the next unexpected conversation.
We design the art of gathering. You bring the wonder.
Each of our Detours is, in essence, a village: a fleeting community where strangers become companions, curiosity turns to connection, and belonging feels beautifully possible again.
If this speaks to you, come join us. Every Detour is a village, and we’d love to welcome you into one of ours in 2026.
Our Villages:
Small Gatherings that Feel Like Home
These are the villages we’ve built with you—small gatherings of curious travelers who met as strangers and left woven into one another’s stories. A village can happen anywhere: around a table, on a trail, or in a faraway place, whenever people choose to show up for one another.
