It's time to stop relaxing!

As a traveler as well as a travel agent, there's only so much a person can go to fancy shmancy hotels, eat delicious food, lounge in luxurious surroundings and get waited on hand and foot. If you're a person that needs to be stimulated both physically and mentally, too much lounging wreaks havoc on your body as well as your psyche. After a while lounging gets boring. I know you're probably thinking that is an INSANE statement but it is true. This is not to say that beautifully appointed resorts do not have a place in the travel industry because THAT statement would be insane. Of course they have a place in the travel industry ~ everyone needs to be pampered and taken care of from time to time and everyone needs to relax and unwind from their hectic daily life routines.What I am saying is that when you've reached a plateau ~ a saturation, if you will ~ of vacationing at resorts and lounging until you can't lounge any longer, perhaps you may want to consider another vacation avenue: ecotourism.

As a former Social Worker turned Travel Specialist ~ Dream Maker, as I like to coin myself ~ I understand the value and innate desire in humans to enrich our lives as well as those of others, I understand the need to feed our souls with what interests us. Everyone wants to feel connected to themselves as well as to the world at large and more often than not, in our hectic, fast paced lives, we find ourselves disconnected. It happens to the best of us. Why am I talking about this? I am talking about this because this is where ecotourism comes into play. When we NEED something more out of this world that we are currently not receiving, maybe it's time to skip the lounging on the beach vacation and opt for something that is going to invigorate us and remind us of why we are on this planet.

http://www.ecotourism.org/what-is-ecotourism

So you are asking yourself, "What the heck does an ecotourism trip look like?" It looks like nurturing your interests in photography, cooking, agriculture, volunteerism, adventure, everything nature, language learning or whatever else your heart desires. It looks like you dreaming of going to, hmmm, let's say India and meditating in the temples. It looks like you staying in a Tuscan farm house and mastering your skills in Italian cuisine. It looks like you staying in small, locally run boutique hotels, eating in local restaurants and building friendships with people who will touch your soul forever. "But that's not relaxing!" you may say. I think our insane quest for a relaxed state needs to be replaced with a hungry desire to live our lives to their fullest, feeding ourselves with unique experiences that enrich our lives  and in turn, I think we'd feel a whole lot different about the "need" to always relax. When we are fulfilled and our cup runneth over with experiences and encounters that have reignited our flame, our quest to do nothing becomes less and less and our desire to "viva la vida" becomes more.

Think of it this way, at some point in time, we're going to be pretty old. We're going to be sitting in our lounge chair, watching the news, maybe doing a crossword puzzle or what have you and we'll be forced to relax.  If we've traveled wise, fed our souls, given back to the world at large, and have pushed ourselves into adventures we never thought we'd dare take, imagine the crazy cool stories we will have to share as well as the memories that will have made our lives well lived.  We will be able to share these stories  with our friends who have either shared adventures with us or with those who have lead a "relaxed" life and who are currently reaping the joys of our  stories. Food for thought ~  

Viva la Vida Travel is all about bringing the life force out in all of you through travel experiences hand crafted just for you. I am all about helping you embrace the world around you through creating enriching experiences that will leave you a happier, more tolerant and believe it or not, relaxed. Trust me on this. Viva la Vida!