Elevate Your Travel: 4 Ideas for High Vibration Experiences
Elevate Your Travel: 4 Ideas for High Vibration Experiences
Doing the conventionally unpopular can amplify your frequency. Why you may want to consider some off-season magic for a high vibration experience.
*For your listening pleasure there is also an audio version of this article read by the author. It may include a few sidebars ;)
Updated April 2024
Doing the Conventionally Unpopular
As I write this I’m staring off my hotel deck at the South Carolina coast. It’s the first week in March and last night I walked on the beach like it was a movie set shut down by the cold just for me.
The ocean pulled at my toes like crisp champagne as it meticulously reorganized shells up and down the beach. Sometimes there is huge benefit in doing the opposite of what almost everyone else considers “the best” vacation.
One of my favorite vacation memories was a mini flash flood in the mountains of Sapa, Vietnam during rainy season. My travel partner and I were just leaving a massage. We shoved open the shop door to torrential rain and shopkeepers grabbing outdoor signage as water thrashed down the road in an angry tirade.
We slogged out with water halfway to our knees, accoutrements rushing by that hadn’t been grabbed.
Absolutely soaked in the first minute, we sloshed our way to our hotel, while lighting like I’d never seen in my life fractured the sky above us, and water ran from my chin.
Pretty sure I lost a shoe and ruined my pants- but wow. The feelings that come with a rare experience are hard to replicate. There’s magic in off-season travel.
Crowded beaches make me think of flying to LA to celebrate my 28th birthday at a club that was having its moment.
Just like popular beaches, everyone wanted to be there. When they blew money all over the crowd I glanced down pondering how much dignity I was willing to trade for some beer soaked cab fare.
A packed beach offers similarly dubious options. Do I put my towel here and listen to the musical selections of a group of questionable gentlemen, or in the slightly empty spot by the trash cans?
No matter the decision, both the club and the beach are popularity induced chaos. If we want to really feel our vibrational frequency it needs space to expand. To not be bumping in to the vibrations of others. Sometimes this means doing the conventionally unpopular.
I stayed in an Airbnb in Nashville with an incinolet. For those who haven’t had the pleasure it’s a toilet that burns instead of flushes. Yes, you read that right.
Surprisingly, it’s not as bad as you’d think, but definitely unpleasant. Point is, it was an experience.
This won’t apply to everyone, but for a decent amount of us, cultivating a higher vibration is collecting a variety of experiences to expand ourselves. Avoiding the temptation to have one kind of experience over and over. Expanding ourselves elevates our vibrational frequency.
This isn’t to say antithetical experiences like a Vietnam flash flood are higher vibration than commonly appreciated Hawaiian vacations. It’s to say they both have value. We often discount, or don’t fully comprehend, the value of what we are missing when we only travel the conventionally popular road.
There are Vacations We Want and Vacations We Need
When I enthusiastically high fived my friends about a trek to Lake Atitlán in Guatemala I did not factor in scorpions. Scrolling hotel listings after making my commitment, I kept reading reviews mentioning scorpions. In the bed, under the chair, crawling across your dresser…
There were photos of people swollen after being stung while sleeping. This did not bode well. I tried to buy my way out of the problem looking at nicer hotels. Nope. Still there. I knew it wouldn’t be as bad as it looked, but ugh. No, just no.
I’d had my share of encounters over the years; waking up to make eye contact with a large iguana watching me sleep, a bloody Indonesian cecak falling on me from the ceiling. My heart was set on Guatemala.
I could already taste the dirt in my mouth bouncing over terrain to the lake. Yet my nervous system was not in the mood for scorpions, nor the parasitic infections people were claiming they got from the lake.
If I checked in with myself I wanted adventure, but I needed a beach chair.
I had no doubt I’d find Guatemala epic, and be so glad I went, but I didn’t think I’d be relaxed. And that was really what I needed. Peace.
My mind berated me for being so basic and giving up adventure to lounge under a palapa, but I went with my heart. Told my friends, “So it turns out scorpions are a thing…” and that I’d meet up with them in Tulum.
Sometimes what we think we want may be exactly what needs tempering to enhance vibration.
Wants typically follow our habitual patterns of being, and these can get us stuck in narrow patterns that don’t allow vibrational frequency to fully expand. Guatemala was the first time in a decade I said no to adventure travel, and yes to relaxing travel.
After years of popping handstands in the back of 15 hour Singapore Airlines flights to keep my ankles from swelling, it was hard to admit, but I wanted ease. Sometimes going against the self image we cultivate of ourselves is the hardest thing to do.
Pressing the easy button gave my friends permission to do the same, and we all went to Tulum.
We had an epic time, legs dangling off lawn chairs, eating popsicles we bought from our local neighbor who made them in her kitchen with coconut milk and fruit.
Swimming in a cenote with weird fish was as far as my nervous system wanted to be pushed.
Tulum stemmed from an honest assessment of where I was and what I needed. Balance expands vibrational frequency.
There’s travel we want and there’s travel we need. It’s about knowing the difference.
Doesn’t mean we can’t go with what we want, but the awareness helps us avoid trekking through the rainforest thinking it’s vacation so we’ll come back relaxed- and getting the absolute opposite.
Know Your Elements
A super basic understanding of Ayurveda can enhance any travel experience.
What do I mean? Both Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine agree we are composed of elements. They vary slightly on which elements, so we’ll go with Ayurveda today.
Ayurveda’s elements are ether, air, fire, water and earth. It’s conceived that all beings receive a mix of elements at birth. There’s Vata (air + ether) Pitta (fire + water) and Kapha (water + earth).
Here’s a quick 10 question dosha quiz from Deepak Chopra’s site to figure out your elements.
Looking for areas that will balance our elements is akin to finding our ideal habitat.
Going outside our elements is like dropping a panda in Portugal or a jaguar in Norway. They aren’t going to instantly perish, but will likely be damn uncomfortable.
Humans have habitats similar to animals. We don’t often consider them because there’s so much at our fingertips (humidifiers, air conditioning, unseasonal produce) to help us adapt wherever we are.
However, just because we can adapt doesn’t mean there isn’t an ideal habitat to begin with.
Imagine a Kapha type with stuffy sinuses that leans toward water retention. Soaking in humidity in Singapore may dull a Kapha’s experience no matter how epic the view is from the pool at Marina Bay Sands.
Yet, a Vata type will be positively glowing because they need all that extra moisture to balance their dry air qualities.
Turn it around and Tibet is not the same struggle fest for Kapha it would be for Vata.
A country with an elevation roughly 3x Denver, where 87% of people have a genetic mutation that assists with high altitude living, puts Vata way too high up in the ether. It’s likely a Vata will have headaches and constipation.
Kapha is so grounded from their earthy qualities they won’t have any idea what Vata is complaining about. They’re invigorated by the thin air.
The short story is we don’t need more of the same elements we are.
Pittas are more likely than others to get aggravated in hot steamy climates because they already have enough water + fire. Excess creates discomfort. Find your elements, and try for the opposite.
Typically vibrational frequency elevates when our body experiences ease. An understanding of the elements helps us give ourselves that gift.
Awareness doesn’t mean we have to travel by element. It’s just something to be aware of so we aren’t blindsided by unexpected symptoms.
A Last Note on Vaca Indulgence
If you want key lime pie for breakfast on the cruise, have key lime pie for breakfast.
It’s healthy to let go of our rules at times, and not run our lives on excessive willpower. Just promise me you’ll celebrate the experience afterward. We can’t rewind our vacation food choices, but we can promise we won’t berate ourselves afterward.
I don’t know if key lime pie will lower your vibrational frequency or not, but berating yourself for eating it most definitely will. So just enjoy.
If you’re left wondering why frequency even matters you may enjoy Why Should I Care About Vibrational Frequency?