Flavors, Fitness, and Imagination: Travel provides us with Inspiration for the palate, body, and mind and has long held a way of opening our eyes, hearts, and taste buds to the exciting diversity of our world. When you think of your favourite destination or dream holiday, travel enriches us intellectually through cuisine, physically through activity, and creatively by sparking the imagination.
Whether trekking by plane, train, bus, or bike, journeying to new places fills us with fresh perspective, energy, and motivation. When we step out of our daily routines and into lands near or far, travel encourages us to live more fully through food, fitness, and creativity.
Move: Active Ways to Explore
Travel gets our bodies moving, allowing us to explore destinations on foot, on wheels, over water, or through the air. Discovering a new place through active transportation engages us with our surroundings at a closer level while also stimulating our sense of adventure.
Here are some of our favourite ways to explore on vacation:
Walking Tours
Lace up your athletic shoes for walking tours, one of the most intimate ways to soak up the sights, sounds, and secrets of a new city. Connect to the rhythm of the streets, following expert local guides through historic districts, arts enclaves, and bustling markets. Built-in exercise and nonstop photo ops.
Biking
Two-wheel travel lets you cover more ground than walking while still interacting with the city landscape. Many urban areas now offer bike share programs, making it easy to pedal along bike lanes and park paths. Feel the rush of the wind in your hair as you glide by top attractions and hidden neighborhood gems.
River Cruises
Sail through scenic countryside and waterside villages on riverboat tours that serve as both transportation and lodging. Morning yoga on the deck, afternoons spent cruising and exploring ashore, evenings enjoying onboard entertainment and cuisine. Relaxation and adventure rolled into one journey.
Skiing and Snowboarding
For cold weather travelers, strap on skis or snowboards and head to the slopes to shred through fresh powder. There’s no better way to take in stunning mountain vistas than while racing downhill filled with adrenaline. Après ski fireside with hot cocoa to recharge.
Surfing
In warm beach destinations, hang ten on an epic wave for the most exhilarating water activity under the sun. Early morning surf sessions bond you to nature in a truly energizing way. Hit the beach cafe after for fish tacos and sunset watching.
Hiking
Trekking through forests, along coastal bluffs, or up mountain switchback trails connects you to the beauty of the natural world. Work up a sweat climbing to jaw-dropping lookout points, then replenish with trail mix and water while soaking in the views you earned.
No matter your preferred mode of transport, on-the-move experiences allow you to actively engage with your destination for an authentic local perspective. Travel opens a world of possibilities for combining physical activity with purposeful exploration for peak fulfillment.
Eat: Savoring a Taste of Place
Food provides intimate access to local culture, making culinary adventures quintessential to meaningful travel. Exploring regional specialty dishes, visiting food markets, and taking cooking classes immerse you in a destination’s singular flavors.
Here our top picks for making the most out the travel culinary experience:
Street Food Tasting
Grazing at street food stalls, food trucks, and night markets pulses you into the daily rhythms and traditions of a city. Chat with vendors while sampling authentic bites like banh mi sandwiches in Ho Chi Minh, tacos al pastor in Mexico City, or currywurst in Berlin.
Farmers Markets
Wandering through stalls of farm-fresh produce, artisanal baked goods, and gourmet food products connects you to local agriculture and cottage industries. Meet passionate purveyors, gather picnic provisions, and assemble edible souvenirs. Don’t miss iconic markets like Seattle’s Pike Place, San Francisco’s Ferry Building, or Helsinki’s Hakaniemi.
Cooking Classes
Sharpen culinary skills while learning regional cooking techniques straight from expert local chefs. Shop neighborhood markets for top-quality ingredients, then head to the kitchen to prepare menus spanning staple dishes, desserts, and craft cocktails. The ultimate hands-on, palate-pleasing experience.
Michelin Star Dining
For the ultimate gastronomic splurge, book tables at restaurants awarded Michelin stars for their impeccable cuisine. Though costly, multi-course tasting menus paired with wine flights offer the pinnacle of fine dining innovation, ambiance, and service. An unforgettable special occasion meal.
Brewery Tours
Tour craft breweries to taste award-winning ales and lagers fresh from the source while learning about traditions behind the beer. Visit favorites like Belgium’s Trappist Monasteries, Prague’s Pilsner Urquell, and Bavaria’s Hofbräuhaus for insider industry perspectives.
Dining immerses you in the food culture that nourishes and connects a community. Return home with cooking skills, recipes, and memories of remarkable tables that will enrich your worldview for a lifetime.
Make: Creative Pursuits with Purpose
Seeking out creative experiences while traveling stimulates new ways of seeing ourselves and the world. Dedicating time to hands-on crafting, artistic appreciation, and mindful making highlights the endless human capacity for imagination and self-expression.
Keep these activities in mind on your next adventure:
Local Handicrafts
Traditional artisanal handicrafts represent generations of indigenous talent perfected from generation to generation. Seek out local woodcarving, weaving, pottery, or other craft shops to meet creators and find one-of-a-kind souvenirs full of meaning. Support cultural continuation through craft.
Group Art Classes
Unleash your inner artist through group painting, sculpting, and other art lessons tailored for all levels. Follow along with skilled instructors step-by-step in relaxing, judgement-free settings. Discover new mediums and take home proud masterpieces to showcase your blossoming talent.
Photography Tours
Lens-based travel teaches you to see your surroundings through a photographer’s eye. Walking tours led by pros guide you to shoot stunning landscapes, portraits, cityscapes, food, and more. Experiment with composition, lighting, angles, and editing for images that communicate the spirit of place.
Music Performances
Attend culturally significant music shows and festivals to be immersed in the sights, sounds, and collective effervescence only found through live performance. Feel the spiritual rhythms of Sufi qawwalis in Pakistan, samba at Rio Carnaval, flamenco in Andalusia, or didgeridoo in Indigenous Australia.
Voluntourism
Give back to local communities by participating in volunteer programs supporting arts, environmental conservation, economic development, social justice, education, and more. Use your skills in service on initiatives organized by trusted nonprofits for responsible, ethical impact.
Pursuing creative and cultural experiences is a double gift – widening your imagination while preserving heritage and uplifting communities. Inspiration starts with a single brushstroke, chord, or act of service.
Top 10 Tips for Rejuvenating Travel:
1. Pack light and leave room for collecting mementos.
2. Slow down and wait for those unplanned magic moments to find you.
3. Say “yes” to invitations for homemade meals or other offers of radical hospitality.
4. Connect with one new local person at each destination.
5. Keep an old-fashioned paper travel journal.
6. Learn 10 phrases in the native language. Use them.
7. Take long detours and get lost on purpose.
8. Put away phones and cameras once a day to simply be present.
9. Try one new food you’ve never eaten per destination.
10. Move your body, nourish your spirit, and let art stir your soul.
The beauty of travel is how it opens us up to new rhythms and ways of being human through food, fitness, and creativity. These experiences plant seeds that continue to sustain and inspire us long after the return home.
With an open heart and curious spirit, extraordinary transformation is as close as the next subway stop, bike trail, or world-famous landmark.
The journey begins with a single step.
Sleep: Unique Lodging Experiences
There are many options for hitting the hay on your trip and some of these options might be a little more interesting than simple booking a hotel bed:
Glamping
For travelers who want to experience nature without sacrificing comfort, glamping offers luxury camping with furnished private tents, cozy bedding, on-site private bathrooms, and amenities like electricity and WiFi. Guests can enjoy campfires, stargazing, and outdoor adventures while still relaxing in a stylish setting with comfy beds each night.
Sites like Under Canvas provide glamping escapes across U.S. national parks and globally in destinations like African safaris or Australian rainforests for those seeking either domestic weekend getaways or far-flung luxury tents. The glamping trend combines natural remote locations with upscale accommodations and is perfect for couples or families who want to “rough it” in serious style.
Houseboats
Houseboating is a unique lodging option that allows travelers to call the waters home and take in gorgeous scenery by parking houseboats each night in a new picturesque spot on rivers, lakes, or islands. Guests can enjoy home-cooked meals on shore or in the boat’s kitchen, then fall asleep under the stars on deck or in cozy indoor sleeping quarters.
From the Norfolk Broads in England to Lake Powell in Arizona, travelers can chart multi-day self-driven houseboat adventures or hire captained boats for relaxed cruising and sightseeing. For water lovers, houseboating is ideal for exploring destinations at a serene pace on the ultimate floating vacation home.
Treehouses
Childhood dreams come alive for nature-loving adults staying in fantastical treehouse hotels and rentals integrated seamlessly into forest settings or nestled high up in remote canopies. Guests ascend into the treetops via stairs, ladders, or bridges to access gorgeous handcrafted oases featuring rustic details like wood finishes, leafy accents, and fairy lights alongside modern amenities.
Notable treehouse resorts can be found everywhere from New Zealand to Oregon for those who want a whimsical escape immersed in the sights, sounds, and cozy seclusion of the woods. Sleep like an Ewok with all the comforts of home.
Ice Hotels
For intrepid cold weather travelers, overnighting in an ice hotel carved entirely out of snow and ice makes for an unforgettable wintery experience. Each year, ice hotels are rebuilt with breathtaking design elements like frozen beds, art galleries, bars, and chapels illuminated with colorful lights.
Though cold overnight temperatures require cozy thermal sleeping bags, days can be spent enjoying activities like ice sculpting classes, sledding, reindeer encounters, and viewing Northern Lights. Famous ice hotels exist in Quebec, Norway, Finland and Sweden for those adventurous spirits seeking to basecamp in magical frozen settings.
Hostels
Budget-minded travelers can opt for social, communal hostel lodging that often includes amenities like free Wi-Fi, shared bathrooms and kitchens, game rooms, and organized activities.
Dorm-style and private rooms promote easy mingling with fascinating travelers from around the globe. Guests can get tips from the front desk on sightseeing, pub crawls, day trips, and more ways to deeply explore the destination from knowledgable staff. From Costa Rica to Cambodia, hostels allow flexible access to authentic local experiences at affordable rates.
Capsule Hotels
For visitors to packed metropolises like Tokyo or New York where space is limited, capsule or pod hotels offer diminutive sleeping quarters at budget prices. Travelers are provided with a small pod just large enough for a single-size bed along with some shelving, lighting, a TV and free WiFi in communal lounge spaces.
While compact, pod hotels provide affordable overnight options in prime city center locations. Their efficient model is perfect for solo urban explorers who prioritize spending money on sightseeing over spacious rooms.
House Swapping
Savvy travelers can swap homes with a fellow house-swapper in a mutually desired travel destination as a cost-effective way to live like a local. Homeowners connect on house-swapping sites and agree to trade homes, cars, etc for a designated period of time, often across international borders.
House-swappers water plants, pet sit, and maintain properties for each other, building trust and friendship. This allows both parties to visit and immerse in a new place in depth like a resident. Home exchange offers the comforts of non-touristy home life.
Mindful travel activities
In our fast-paced, overstimulated world, mindful travel allows us to slow down and reconnect in a more conscious way. Actively practicing mindfulness while exploring a new destination tunes us into the present moment, enhancing awareness and appreciation.
Contemplative activities cultivate a sense of inner calm by directing focus to our senses and immediate environment. Whether it be photography walks honing visual observation of details, meditation prompts attuning to sounds and sensations, or stargazing evoking cosmic perspective, mindful practices deepen the travel experience.
By fully engaging our awareness instead of simply rushing from one sight to the next, we open up space for more authentic interactions, self-reflection, and lasting memories. Carving out time for photography, meditation, vision quests, sound baths, floatation, labyrinths and more activities provides the perfect counterbalance to crammed itineraries. Before journeying outward, first travel inward.
Here are our top picks for mindful travel activities to keep in mind on your next journey:
Photography Walks
Slow-paced photography walks encourage mindful observation of surroundings by framing leisurely strolls around the artful, contemplative process of capturing images. Whether focused on patterns, textures, lighting, landscapes, or street scenes, purposefully composing photos heightens visual awareness and appreciation of details easily missed. Concluding by reviewing images underscores unique perspectives and reflection.
Guided Meditations
Be present through guided meditations in serene natural locations like forests, gardens, lakesides or temples and landmarks. Often beginning seated, prompts first direct attention to bodily sensations, breath, and sounds. Noticing thoughts without judgement then shifts awareness outward to mindfully observe all sensory details. Profound mindfulness results from becoming immersed in the sights, textures, and fragrances of environments.
Vision Quests:
Seeking profound purpose, some travelers embark on intense solo indigenous-guided vision quests involving fasting alone in remote wilderness for days awaiting an insight. Elders share preparatory wisdom before participants purify through sweat lodges and fasting. The reflective isolation of questing elicits a surrendering to nature, receiving inner clarity from the land. With open presence, transformative guidance may arrive through a spirit animal, intuitively sensed wisdom, or serendipity.
Stargazing
Tracing constellations, meteors, planets and galaxies in night skies untouched by light pollution restores our cosmic perspective. Recognizing Earth as a tiny speck in the universe awakens natural humility. Professional guided star tours point out celestial features, share ancient myths, and remind us how stardust created all life, linking human existence across time and space. Endless inspiration abounds in the heavens.
Sound Baths
Sound healing baths involve reclining and listening during concerts of calming sounds from gongs, Himalayan singing bowls, chimes, drums and more. Vibrational frequencies purportedly reduce stress, ease muscle tension and shift energy flow in the body. A meditative experience, bathers focus on each tone, entering a trance-like state. With mind chatter silenced, inner wisdom arises. Tuning into soundscapes alters consciousness, bringing restoration.
Sensory Deprivation
Silent darkness experienced in floatation tanks blocks external stimuli for profound mind-body awareness. Epsom salt water effortlessly suspends bathers, releasing tension. Without gravity or sound, awareness turns inward, lowering neural activity into creative theta brainwaves. Time dissolves until eventually emerging rejuvenated, grounded in bodily calm and mental clarity.
Labyrinths
Walking winding labyrinths traces an ancient meditative ritual dating back 4,000+ years across many cultures. Following the contemplative path with mindful presence quiets overthinking. Physically mirroring the route, each step directs focus inward. Centered awareness achieved calms and restores balance. Peace arises from detours along the meandering path, not the destination.
Remarkable Destinations to Explore and utilise many of these activities
- Paris, France – Stroll bustling market stalls and dine at Michelin-starred temples of gastronomy. Bike along the Seine soaking up the architecture. Paint en plein air and find inspiration like the great Impressionists.
- Sahara Desert, Morocco – Trek and camp under starry skies on a camel safari. Watch the sun rise over undulating sand dunes. Join in drum circles with vibrant music.
- Cinque Terre, Italy – Hike between colorful cliffside villages along the Mediterranean. Indulge in the seafood catch of the day. Take a pasta-making class and bring recipes home.
- Banff, Canada – Bike mountain trails, then replenish with poutine and maple treats. Unwind in natural hot springs under the peaks. Capture epic landscape photos.
- Costa Rica – Zip line through the rainforest canopy teeming with wildlife. Volunteer at a sea turtle conservation program. Stay in an open-air jungle treehouse.
- Tokyo, Japan – Feast on sushi and ramen in this culinary mecca. Meditate at ancient temples. Take a sado tea ceremony and learn about Zen Buddhism.
- Barcelona, Spain – Wander the whimsical architecture of Gaudí. Sip sangria and join locals in lively flamenco dancing. Create your own colorful mosaic.
- Big Sur, California – Drive along the Pacific Coast Highway taking in dramatic seascapes. Hike redwood forests and waterfalls. Unplug in serene isolation.
- Iceland – Soak in the Blue Lagoon’s geothermal waters. Camp under the Northern Lights. Join mask-making and drum circle workshops.
- New Orleans, USA – Bike the jazz heritage trail. Take a creole cooking class. Volunteer rebuilding community arts spaces. Stay in a funky vintage inn.
As we’ve discovered, travel opens doorways that awaken and nourish every part of our human experience. By engaging fully in eating handmade local cuisine, getting active in natural landscapes, learning indigenous arts, staying in one-of-a-kind accommodations, and practicing conscious presence, we immerse all our senses while exploring new terrain. The insights gleaned, perspectives expanded, and skills gained infuse our lives with renewed passion long after returning home.
While the allure of far-flung destinations calls to us, sometimes transformation is as close as venturing to the other side of town with fresh eyes when we choose to let curiosity chart the itinerary.
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