With smartphones commonplace and the use of social networking ubiquitous, many Americans believe they are more connected than ever with friends, family and co-workers. 

However, according to Andrew Vanover, an alumnus with a degree in communications, and Austin Simmons, a senior in graphic design, things like loving others and treating strangers as more than means to an end were becoming increasingly difficult in their own lives.

Last year, with the help of 50 sponsors, the two decided to take drastic action to address what they saw to be a problem. And on June 28, the two departed the United States to begin a journey of 50 days to visit 19 countries, travel more than 55,000 miles, take 21 flights and sleep in more than 20 hotels. Their goal was to connect with at least 50 people from all over the world and do their best to show them love and hear their stories over a meal.

Simmons and Vanover called their project 50 Days 50 Meals and hoped by learning to interact with strangers abroad they could begin to learn more about interacting with strangers on a daily basis.

However, they did not want to keep the 50 Days 50 Meals experience to themselves. As the duo began to map out the adventure, Vanover and Simmons said they found an opportunity to try to inspire others.

“We were just going to travel and meet people and photograph their stories but that was going to be it,” Simmons said.”That was going to be the extent of it but something happened as we were thinking it through. We were like, ‘Why would we be so selfish as to leave these things for ourselves?’”

The two accomplished photographers have participated in several photography projects, including the Raleigh Help-Portrait, a movement in which photographers offered free photo shoots to underprivileged families.  Through those experiences, the pair found a way to communicate its effort through a photography-based blog.

In addition to photographs, they posted journal entries, videos and general updates so people from all over the world could follow their journey. However, Simmons said they were sure to not stop there. To spread their ideas about love and connecting with others, Vanover and Simmons also shared their modus operandi: “Meet a stranger. Engage in conversation. Offer them a meal. Share life with them. Stay connected.”

Through this project, Vanover and Simmons were able to meet and exchange contact information with about 300 people. Often the offer of food helped to facilitate discussion and break down barriers created by differences in cultures and background.

However, Vanover and Simmons said that from the beginning, food was never the duo’s center of attention.

“Yeah, we photographed our food and we videoed it and we did all that kind of stuff, but at the end of the day, I’d put the fork down and put the plate of food aside to capture the person across the table,” Simmons said.

Nevertheless, 50 Days 50 Meals attracted the attention of several news outlets from magazines to food blogs, which saw it as a food project.

“We’ve been approached by many people, food blogs, the Food Network even, big names that say, ‘Oh, you’re doing this amazing thing about food,'” Simmons said. “And I think our response to them is, ‘Thanks so much, we’re so grateful that you reached out, we’d love to partner with you, but the purpose of the project is not food. It’s about people.’”

In order to keep their intentions pure, the two said they turned down several opportunities for media coverage and tried to continuously reevaluate their goals. It is because of this philosophy Vanover and Simmons said they insisted on meeting everyone not with a questionnaire or interview but something they could consider to be a real conversation.

“We wanted to approach the shepherd in New Zealand differently than anyone else,” Simmons said. “We wanted to ask him about his sheep. … And we wanted to ask the guy who rows a boat in Venice, ‘Have you been here all your life? What do you know?’ There was just this variation that was kind of mind-boggling, and it was cool to just hear people talk about what they know life as and what their home is and how they identify home.”

Vanover and Simmons readily admit not every interaction was easy. However, they said this was part of their intention — to test themselves so they could learn.

The two travelers lost equipment to theft, and several times they encountered people who wanted nothing to do with them. However, Vanover and Simmons said during those times, their religion helped them keep things in perspective.

“One of our big motives is that we’re two guys who love Jesus,” Simmons said.  “We’re Christians, we love the Lord and our response to how Christ loves us is to have an expression of love towards others … [However,] this isn’t a Jesus project. This is a photography project. It’s about relationships, it’s about people and we don’t force anything on people, but it is important to know when people ask, ‘How do you keep going?'”

“The project is about people loving other people and that includes people who don’t believe in a god,” Vanover said. “That’s the idea. People don’t have to agree with us in that but we can agree about love.”

Things have not slowed down since the pair returned Aug. 16. 

“The idea behind 50 Days 50 Meals wasn’t just bound in 50 days of a trip,” Vanover said. “The idea is written in my heart now. This idea of spontaneous love is more important than just one life experience.”

The two continue to not only try to practice their philosophy of spontaneous love, but they also still encourage others to do the same in the United States — the country where Vanover said it is most difficult to have meaningful connections with people outside his social circle.

“I think that many people in the States and many people in general have a tendency to communicate with others less and because of that have a tendency to love others less because we don’t care and we don’t have to,” Vanover said.

Vanover said he is trying to follow the lessons he learned during his trip in his interactions with people in the United States. According to him, it is never the easy route to love others, but it is something he found important to do even during his long and tiresome journeys.

“We’re looking in the near future to find ways in which we can do stuff like 50 Days 50 Meals here and to challenge others to do it as well. We’ve inspired people, but we haven’t challenged them as much as we could.”

Vanover and Simmons said they plan to continue to explore different ways to extend 50 Days 50 Meals to the Triangle area. They record many of these extensions on their blog, 50days50meals.com.