PREPARE

Apply a growth mindset, uncover motivations, and set intentions

Prepare for your journey from the first whisper of your call to adventure, through the departure from your everyday world. Use this time wisely, it's an opportunity to look within and bring purpose to your journey. Mindful decisions made now will help you create the conditions for deeper connections and expanded meaning. Whether you’re the type to fly blind, or someone who plans every second, thoughtful preparation will serve you and others well.

ADVENTURE

Go slow and artfully explore the inner and outer worlds

Once you’ve crossed the threshold into the greater world, your adventure has begun. We encourage you to raise awareness, seek the depths, explore with all of your senses, and choose experiences that make you feel fully alive! There will be many choices to be made along the way, many people to meet, places to see, and perspectives to discover. As you observe, explore, absorb, and interact, you are actively writing your own travel story.

THINK

Reflect and uncover deeper layers of meaning and insight

Even as your travels conclude, the journey continues. By examining, reflecting, revisiting, and contemplating, we nurture a fuller appreciation of our travels and uncover deeper layers of meaning and insight. Thinking through your experiences with intention is a bridge to integrating your experiences into your life. Reflections made during your adventure are strengthened and broadened when you continue processing after you’ve returned home.

HONOR

Expanding the power of your travels into your life and our world

You can honor your travels, the privilege to be able to move through the world, the impact you have on the places you go by using your journey to affect positive change in the world. Whether you've uncovered newfound wisdom, learned a new skill, or have decided to make a change in your life, this clarity provides a rare opportunity to take inspired action in your life! This is how you will be able to manifest your journey in the highest way: through the positive actions that change your life, affect the lives of others, and radiate out into the world.

BE HUMBLE

Have an empty cup mentality. Foster an approach of equality, learning, understanding, and be fully open to the power of connection.

BE ENGAGED

Be a participant, not a spectator. Take responsibility for your role in your journey, bring a growth mindset, and be proactive in creating your experience.

BE AWAKE

Pay attention. Be actively attuned (awake) to/(aware of) the power and complexity of internal and external circumstances/reactions, as well as the internal and external effects of our choices.

BE RESILIENT

Be ready to embrace challenge and disorientation. Accept difficulty (proactively and re-actively) in order to access better experiences, stretch, take time to reflect and identify growth opportunities.

BE THANKFUL

Adopt a grateful mindset. When we're thankful we're thoughtful, better stewards, everyone is happier.

Having Heart is to care about yourself, others, and the destination. It’s being vulnerable and real in order to connect, and being Humble enough to be a steward of the places you have the privilege to go.

Keep your sense of humor. Laugh every day. Be mindful without taking yourself too seriously. Engage your surroundings to be an active participant, not just a passive observer or consumer.

Steady your Resolve to willingly take on challenges, push your boundaries, go outside of your comfort zone, and truly explore.

Open yourself to be free of expectation, entitlement, and judgment, accepting the experience for what it is, what it has to teach and accepting yourself for who you are.

And lastly, be Thankful, practice empathy, bravery, and gratitude in every opportunity.

Reimagine Travel

Approach your journey as a means to a greater end, instead of an end unto itself. Being open to change and using your journey to grow, learn, and create positive change creates a far more meaningful experience than one designed around merely enjoying the moment.

Disconnect to Reconnect

As you begin your journey let go of all the external constructs of self. Often our identity becomes wrapped in the demands of our daily life but travel gives us an opportunity to shake that off and expand out into the world. Leave behind anything you do not truly need, travel light, and be open to rediscovering what is important. Reconnect to your core self in the freedom of travel.

Seek Challenges

Seek out opportunities to be challenged physically, culturally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, and mentally while also accepting with grace the unplanned challenges travel offers. View challenges as opportunities for growth and chances to move beyond the crowd.

Reflect & Revisit

Reflect on your journey, its experiences, and your thoughts, insights, and inspirations. Collect and document your thoughts, feelings, and perceptions. Create a plan to revisit them, and reconnect with your journey in the coming weeks and months.

Have Purpose and Set Intentions

Start by considering the purpose of this journey. What calls you to this adventure? What would you like to accomplish? Why? Prepare by considering what actions and choices will allow you to pursue that purpose. Set intentions for how you want to approach, engage, and react to the wide variety of experiences and situations you will find along the way.

Travel with Your Lights On

While you seek to learn, grow, and change YOUR life, aim to positively impact the many people, places, and environments you encounter along the way: Through meaningful cultural interactions, sharing perspectives with others, being an ambassador of your own culture while learning from others, and constantly making choices that positively impact the local environment and economy, your Journey can have an even deeper and more powerful transformation than your own personal growth.

Practice Wellbeing

Make choices that support your wellbeing as your travel. Eat healthy, local foods. Exercise daily. Take time for meditation. Spend time in nature every day. Remember that a transformatioanl traveler needs his/her strength to face their challenges and slay their dragons.

Take Purposeful Action

Now do something with all of this insight, wisdom, inspiration, and clarity! Commit to making a change, sharing it with others, and following through. Whether it’s something small or something grand and sweeping, use the inspiration and insight discovered during your travels to create a positive impact on your life, and the world around you.

Seek out Regenerative Places

There are conditions known to amplify the possibility of transformation … Taking a transformation mindset into a regenerative place can be powerful. Be mindful of your travel choices, seek sustainable or regenerative destinations, communities, and experiences that are symbiotically connecting visitors, residents, host communities, and ecosystems in a holistic process of mutual healing, reciprocity, and maturation.

Embrace Ritual & Ceremony

Integrate both ritual and ceremony into your travels. For example, take time every morning for meditation; when you arrive in a new destination, do something special to honor your arrival … and do the same upon departing, thanking the people and place for the gifts it has bestowed.

Connect w/ People & Place

Choose an unfamiliar place and connect with what makes it special. Explore the good and bad alike to grasp the real beauty and complexity of a place and its people. Embrace the obvious differences, but celebrate the similarities you share as human beings. Their home is not meant to make you feel comfortable. Accept invitations but don't overstay your welcome. Stay open and allow your opinion to be changed. Stay respectful and polite. Help where you can, but don't be in the way. Talk less, listen more. Stay open to make new friends and shift the standard definition of friendship; every person you meet, no matter how short the encounter is, was meant to happen, so learn from the encounter. Be grateful: It’s a privilege to travel and not everybody has that opportunity. Say Thank You! a lot … even better if you can do it in the local language!