There was the time when traveling was about visiting a new city and its sights or resting in a beach resort. Today, people all over the world are seeking trips that bring unforgettable experiences and even more: trips that have a purpose and promote positive changes for them and for the world. This is the objective of the transformational travel, a journey that moves senses, promotes connections with people and cultures and removes travelers from their comfort zone.
“In addition to bringing changes to tourists, the transformational travel also has a positive impact on the host community, since the connections and exchanges between them are always very intense and long lasting,” explains Marianne Costa, director of Vivejar. “Taking a trip of this type is doing something that opens your mind and raise questions that are brought back into your daily routine. It really brings a valuable extra “luggage” back”, says Marianne.
According to the Transformational Travel Council, there are typically 3 critical elements in a truly transformative experience:
1. Traveling with intention, openness, and mindfulness
2. Engaging in challenging physical and/or cultural experiences
3. Taking time for personal reflection & meaning-making
The Benefits of a Transformational Travel
Even the most unpretentious journeys can cause changes and inner transformations in people in many ways. It is often a simple matter of how to live these trips. The benefits and transformations promoted by a trip will often vary from person to person. But in a truly transformational travel everything is organised so that these benefits are gathered and improved for all, with activities and initiatives that stimulate positive impacts and cause changes in their worldview.
Experiences of sleeping in local communities or handicraft activities with women artisans, such as those that we have on our trips here in Vivejar, for example, lead travelers to get to know the culture and reality of other people closely, to discover similarities and differences between them and to support the local economy.
Besides disconnecting themselves from the stresses of everyday life, tourists leave their travels with new senses of the world and themselves, new intentions and anxieties, new impressions about people and cultures of certain regions and still relationships and memories that are marked for the whole life.
