chapter 17: a new year, a new way to travel
reflections from my new year's eve wellness retreat group trip
Happy New Year! Welcome (or welcome back) to this corner of the internet where I share my honest thoughts and reflections at the intersection of travel and personal development – because, you are where you go!
This newsletter got a significant influx of new subscribers lately so if you recently subscribed:
Thank you and welcome!!!
I know I promised that my next newsletter would reveal how much I spent on travel in 2023. I’m excited to shared, and it’s coming soon… it’s just taking me longer than I thought to transfer the data from my budget tracking spreadsheet into newsletter format. And, I just am so jazzed and full of positive energy after wrapping up this group trip that I couldn’t wait to share these thoughts first!
As I mentioned in my last newsletter, the New Year’s Eve wellness retreat group trip that I just led from December 31–January 5 in Playa del Carmen and Cozumel, Mexico started coming together only just about 2 weeks prior to when everyone flew in.
It’s the most last minute I’ve ever thought of an idea for a group trip, and executed all the research, planning, scheduling, and booking last minute… but, everything turned out better than I could have expected and it has been one of my favorite trips in recent memory!
So what exactly is a wellness retreat group trip? Let me give you a run down of our itinerary full of trying new things, meeting new people, being open to new experiences and deep, vulnerable conversations:
getting to know the strangers you're traveling with for the first time during NYE dinner, followed by fireworks by the beach🗣🍽🎆
ringing in 2024 with paddle boarding at sunrise🌅🌊🚣
focusing on the present during hatha yoga and a sound bath with literal good vibrations in the middle of a jungle🌴🧘🔊
soaking in the beauty of nature while biking through the jungle to reach a hidden cenote with crystal blue water where you can swim and cliff jump🚴♀️🌴💧
channeling your inner child with painting and breakfast on the beach🏝🎨🧑🎨
experiencing local culture through a traditional Mayan temazcal ceremony featuring self reflection in a pitch dark steam room in the middle of a jungle💭🧖♀️🌴
training your body to withstand stress and gain health benefits from ice baths on the beach🧊🌊💪🏽
soaking in the sun and the sounds of ocean waves while doing yoga on the beach🧘♀️🌊☀️
finding a meditative state underwater while scuba diving in Cozumel along the second-largest barrier reef in the world 🤿🐠
journaling to reflect on 2023 and look forward to 2024✍🏽🔙📝
Every group activity in the schedule above was available to travelers on an opt in basis, so they could craft their own daily itinerary based on their personal energy and fitness levels, interests, budget, and/or remote work schedule.
I haven’t done a “sign up” per activity on past group trips, but loved this approach because it ensured everyone who was participating in an activity truly wanted to be there, and no one felt forced to just participate as part of an all-inclusive travel package priced at top dollar — which is the way that most “wellness retreats” I’ve seen are often run.
So, this trip cost anywhere from about $200 per person for the fixed cost of the group Airbnbs for 5 nights, to about $600 per person if they chose to participate in every single group activity. When I tried to search for wellness retreats that I could join, many were in the range of thousand(s) of dollars, which is crazy to me – taking care of yourself, trying new healthy activities, and finding a group that has a shared intention for self-reflection and growth shouldn’t be reserved for the rich!
I’m so grateful and proud that I was able to create a more accessibly priced wellness retreat-style trip, and definitely plan to create another group trip like this later in the year. Keep an eye out on this newsletter, or reply to let me know, if you’d be interested in joining a future wellness-focused trip!
I enjoy bullet journaling (i.e. just writing down key thoughts and observations rather than full cohesive paragraphs) so let me share some of the moments and reflections from this trip that stuck with me:
setting an alarm for 6am on New Year’s Day as I was heading to sleep around 1:30am was not a fun prospect — but, it was infinitely worth it when we saw the sun rays peak through the clouds like the gates of heaven as the warm Caribbean Sea lapped against our legs dangling off the side of paddleboards in the middle of impossibly blue waters
one of my 2024 goals is to improve my free diving skills and maybe even get professional free diving certified — so I practiced diving on a breath hold in the middle of this “cenote with no name” in the middle of the jungle and mainly frequented by locals. I calmed my nerves, took a breath that filled both my stomach and my lungs, and calmly swam with my flashlight toward the bottom of the ~40 foot dark pit below me and hit 27 feet on my dive computer… a good baseline to set on January 1 to try to continually beat as I practice throughout the year!
painting is something that is so rarely part of adult life, but I want to go out of my way to incorporate more ways to be creative and observant and playful with mixing colors. Even if I don’t love the final product, it’s all about enjoying the process — a mentality I’m trying to incorporate more into life in general, as I’m usually very results-oriented
inside the temazcal, a small cement building that got filled with hot stones that produced hot steam in the pitch black environment, our ceremony guides told us to remember we have been in a place like this before — dark, humid, hot — when we were in our mother’s wombs. We were able to channel that mentality, and take it as an opportunity to look inward, reflect, and metaphorically but also somewhat literally be reborn when we exited the temazcal. During the 3+ hours we spent inside, I kept thinking about how uncomfortable I was and brainstormed excuses to be able to leave early — but ended up persevering and staying the entire time. We’re truly capable of enduring so much more than we think we can, if we just decide and commit to a plan
I’ve never done an ice bath — I’ve even tried taking cold showers and usually can’t handle it for more than a second. So as I was about to step into a tub full of ice cubes and commit to submerging myself for 3.5 minutes, I was a bit nervous. But I stepped in, focused on my breathing and the sound of the ocean waves around me, and at the end of 3.5 minutes I found myself actually wanting to get right back in for another round — I craved (and still am craving) the unique feeling my body experienced being put to the test outside of my comfort zone
apart from the group activities, I’ve realized that some of the best bonding moments on group trips come during unstructured time — when walking from place to place, on long car rides, or when just hanging out at the end of the night. One of the most interesting and memorable convos from this trip, and through which I learned a lot about my fellow travelers, was a long late night discussion that touched upon topics like is it fate that you’ll lead a certain life and have a certain degree of success, or do you create your own opportunities; is there a higher power or god of any sort; is where and how you were raised more influential than your own natural state of being?
this trip had the largest age gap out of any group I’ve previously hosted. Usually travelers are a few years older or younger than me (age 25), but this trip we had one friend turning 28 and another who was only 18. It’s a testament to the maturity and open-mindedness and self-selecting nature of the type of people who join a group trip knowing they will be traveling with strangers they’ve never met. This 28-year-old and 18-year-old duo ended up developing a big sister/little sister relationship throughout the week together and it was heartwarming to see
celebrating a birthday can be so special and fun — and I intend to do everything in my power to make it such if someone chooses to spend their birthday traveling with me! Over the summer in Olympic National Park, my group and I surprised a birthday girl with a cupcake at midnight. On this trip, I ventured into a local market and flexed my Spanish skills to buy a piñata and local Mexican candies to surprise the birthday girl with a local birthday tradition that ended up being a hilariously memorable moment when it took forever to crack it open by hitting it with a frying pan from our Airbnb
during our virtual reflection session led by my good friend Adele, we filled out worksheets where we recapped the highs and lows of 2023. It was interesting to see how so many of the lows — getting laid off, ending a friendship — could also be counted as highs — embarking on a new career journey, getting rid of friends who no longer serve a positive purpose in your life. The duality of life is beautiful and it was a powerful reminder to always look at situations with optimism
It’s the little moments and realizations during a trip that stick with me long term, yet are so difficult to convey in the Instagram stories and posts that most people see.
If you’ve read this and feel inspired, I would also encourage you to adopt a practice of “bullet journaling” this year — capture your favorite moments, interesting observations, and don’t let the little moments slip away into your abyss of memories.
As a main takeaway from this trip, I’ve realized that I usually consider traveling and vacationing to be different — the former involving packed schedules and maximizing a destination, and the latter involving laying on a lounge chair and maximizing relaxation — but there’s also a happy medium, of traveling with the intention to relax and find peace and a focus on wellness while still maximizing the unique activities available at a destination.
And this style of wellness-focused travel is more of what I’m seeking in 2024.
If you are too, I hope you join me on a trip later this year, or plan your own trips with this intention!
Enjoyed reading your 2024 travel perspective! I can’t wait for the next chapter!
love the update!
when does the 2024 trip schedule come out? I wanna come on one of them :)