Viva la Vida Travel with Carmen Schaffer

So you want to travel. You've been saving your hard earned money for years to get to this point in time when you can FINALLY take that trip of a lifetime. Maybe you want to go on a safari or maybe you want to stay in one of those beautiful over the water bungalows in Fiji. Wherever it is you want to go, there's definitely a large amount of effort involved to get you exactly to where you want to be. Unless you working in the tourism industry, chances are you will be Googling your dream vacation and relying on the internet and Trip Advisor reviews to guide you through the process. Remember, you can't believe everything you read on the internet. That hotel suite with the beautiful balcony overlooking the ocean may have a rancid smell to it and the food at the hotel may be atrocious. They don't talk about that on those fancy websites because they are trying to sell you their product. A large part of what I do as a professional in the tourism industry is to tr...

How many times have you said to yourself, "I need to get swimsuit ready because I'm going on vacation and I want to look good in a bathing suit." When we are on the cusp of baring our bodies in swim suits, shorts and sundresses, nothing feels more urgent than trying to "get in shape"for our vacation.  The majority of people who travel to warm weather climates are searching for rest, relaxation, fine dining and their fair share of unlimited libations. Let me ask you this? Did you work so hard on getting in shape so you can sit around on  your vacation and undo everything you just spent months busting your butt to improve? So many choices. Yep. Be choosy. It'll be there tomorrow! If your vacation includes a stay at an all-inclusive resort, the likelihood of you blowing your months of dieting is pretty high. Why do I say this? All-inclusive resorts are fantastic. I enjoy the fact that I don't have to do a thing while there. I enjoy eating...

The word "wellness tourism" often times evokes multiple thoughts in our heads because what wellness means for one person, it certainly doesn't mean the same thing to the next.  By definition, "wellness tourism" means, "Travel to pursue activities that maintain or enhance health and wellbeing."  Some of us may be involved in wellness related practices in our daily lives such as yoga, running, meditation, eating well, etc. Others of us are looking for a jump start to our lives that are void of such practices. We are searching to align ourselves with an intense immersion into the world of wellness so that we can bring our new found passion back home and continue the practice.  There are many ways to take your upcoming vacation to the  next level by incorporating elements of wellness into your days. Many more resorts are offering on-sight yoga classes and a variety of other wellness related activities as well as world renown spas. Perhaps you...

As a society so bent on making sure our kids are occupied all the time with academic, sports or other activities, we can easily slide into that  same mentality when pursuing a family vacation. We may think that our vacation needs to offer our children programmed activities to "keep them busy." We may search out places that have water parks, kids programs and wi-fi capability readily available to keep our kids connected at all times. I challenge you to consider if this is really a family vacation or just a change of scenery with all of the comforts of home.  How did we get to the point as a society where our kids ( and ourselves ) are so dependent on manipulated activities to hold our attention? We could probably talk for days on this topic but the short and sweet answer to this question is: we just did. We've allowed it to happen to our children as well as to ourselves so when we  choose a family vacation, we often tend to go with what feels comfortable in or...

I recently took one of those online quizzes to see just how many of the 69 plus iconic places in Mexico I have been to and discovered that I'd visited 16 of those 69 places. That's not bad for a gringa like me. One of the locations on the list was in Baja California and I just so happened to have crossed that spot off of my bucket list on my last trip to Mexico. I had the opportunity to explore La Paz, Baja California with the La Paz tourism department on a recent "work trip" to Mexico. As I said before, I've explored many parts of Mexico; Chiapas, Oaxaca, Quintanaroo, Morelos, Michoacan and beyond, but I'd never dove into the Northern part of Mexico mostly based on the "fear" that it would be too Americanized. After all, Los Cabos is in Baja and everything I'd ever heard about Cabo was that it was all hotels, golf courses, deep sea fishing and deserts. I'd been swayed by the media presentation of the area and I wanted to find out ...

I arrived in Mexico City bound for my first stop on my Mexico whirlwind of travel, punch drunk from having only two hours of sleep the night before, yet fueled by my unending enthusiasm for exploring a "new" destination in Mexico : Tepoztlan, Morelos. Tepoztlan, Morelos lies about one hour south of Mexico City and is coined as the land of eternal springtime and good energy. Similar to Sedona, Arizona it has been said that the energetic vibrations in Tepoztlan are positive and emanate an overall sense of well being. I would have to say that as soon as I rolled into the quaint little town, my heart fluttered and I had a feeling of butterflies filling my belly. I'm pretty susceptible to vibrational energies and I knew that what I was feeling was a result of my body picking up the energy surrounding me and it felt GREAT! Posada del Tepozteco. Bliss.  My first stop, as well as my accommodations for the night, was at Posada de Tepozteco . Nestled high up on a hil...