Diana von Glahn, The Faithful Traveler, and the Holy Land

You might recognize Diana. She’s known as The Faithful Traveler and she has produced multiple Catholic travel television series that have aired on EWTN.

She’s also my friend.

Diana von Glahn – The Faithful Traveler

Together with her husband David, Diana produces and hosts The Faithful Traveler. As host, Diana explores the art, architecture, history, and doctrine behind shrines and places of pilgrimage around the world. When appropriate, she includes a bit of food in there too. But we’ll get to that in a minute.

David shoots the show. He is the series director, and is usually behind the camera, light, and sound of each episode. Diana also researches and writes the scripts, organizes all the shoots, and edits the episodes.

What’s so captivating about The Faithful Traveler is that Diana is “just” a faithful Catholic, rooted in prayer, who loves Jesus and the rich tradition of the Catholic Church. She is not a theologian or a religious. She’s a “regular” person – a lay person – passionate about our Faith, and she takes great joy in sharing that passion with the world. Her joy and her love of the Faith speaks directly to the heart. Because her tv shows are available as DVDs and online, as well as broadcasted, she has touched the hearts of people around the world.

The Holy Land Connection

Believe it or not, I first met Diana while I was in the Holy Land. Notice that I did not say we. She wasn’t in the Holy Land at that time. She was back at home busy promoting the imminent debut of her most recent Catholic travel television series on EWTN: The Faithful Traveler in the Holy Land. She spent some of that time promoting the show on Facebook, and that is where she met me.

That very week I had left home for the first ever Food Meets Faith pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In addition to all the standard Holy Land pilgrimage experiences, my trip included a veritable feast of culinary extras meant to give travelers hands-on experience of biblical foods. In addition to cooking classes and wine tastings, we experienced the power of growing in faith around the table of the Eucharist… and around the dinner table, as we shared several celebratory meals together in some of the Holy Land’s finest restaurants.

Being The Catholic Foodie, and doing what I do, you know that I was regularly posting pics to Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook of food, holy sites, and people loving life as they were gathered around the table. Diana saw some of the pics that I posted, probably because we are both friends with Edita Krunic of Select International Tours. Edita planned and organized my pilgrimage to the Holy Land. As it turns out, she had planned Diana’s as well.

Small world, huh?

I was also privileged to meet Diana in person just a couple of weeks ago at the Catholic Media Conference in Charlotte, NC. She was there along with Edita Krunic, Susan Prendergast, Shibly Kando and Saliba Danho.

Over dinner one evening, I asked her to join us on the Around the Table food show that I co-host with Msgr. Christopher Nalty and David Dawson. Diana had just gotten back from another tv shoot in the Holy Land, this time sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism for the occasion of Pope Francis’ visit to the Holy Land. Msgr. Nalty was in the Holy Land for the event too, and it was great to talk with both of them about their experiences… and about the food they enjoyed in the Holy Land. 😉

Listen to the Show Now or Download to Your Computer

You can listen to the show now by clicking on the Play button below, or you can download the MP3 file to your computer to listen to at your convenience by clicking this link: CF192 – Diana von Glahn, The Faithful Traveler and the Holy Land.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Join Jeff Young, The Catholic Foodie, Chef Matt Murphy and Fr. Kyle Sanders on a Food Meets Faith Pilgrimage to the Holy Land

Registration for my next pilgrimage to the Holy Land is now open! The pilgrimage will be from February 26 to March 8, 2015. Chef Matt Murphy, owner and operator of The Irish House in New Orleans and winner of Food Network’s Chopped in 2012 will accompany me, and Fr. Kyle Sanders, a priest of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, will travel as the Spiritual Director.

I want to invite you to grow in faith together with me around the table of the Eucharist and around the dinner table in the Holy Land.

See full itinerary HERE. You can also download it.