NEXT CHAPTERS
Slow-Travel Make The Best Women’s Getaways
Why Does “Slow-Traveling” make the best kind of Women’s Getaway?
WELL…Have you ever come home from a vacation feeling more exhausted than when you left? So many clients of mine, travelers, and other vacationers coming to Southern Spain, I’ve witnessed and seen live hectic, stressfully paced lives. Then they reproduce the same experience when they travel. They don’t even realize that they create the same unfulfilling experience when they take the time & plan for their vacation. Hurry rush-rush they do their tourist attraction filled a vacation. Imagine taking the time and living 5-10 days in a Spanish Pueblo, Italian village, or in a French cottage in the countryside outside of Paris. Buying fresh vegetables from the farmers market every morning, sipping Café con Leche at another appealing… now one of your favorite… sidewalk terraces. Taking a leisurely paced day trip to neighboring villages … off to an unknown Relic on an off-the-beaten-track ending your day where they make the best homemade bread and marmalade. Standing in the middle and witnessing how any one of these cultures really lives!
Seeing local music & dance that only an insider knows. Experiencing or taking part in the making of local food, art, wine, or festival. Sound appealing? That’s the magic of slow-travel, with the emphasis on less is more… then the manic “sights” seeing and daily trips tours. By putting more emphasis on taking the time & actually witnessing and participating in your surroundings in a relaxed cultural-seeping-in-pace. With wine included… hahaha
Slow travel allows you to form a stronger connection to the culture, a place, the people, your like-minded other travel companions & to the things you are visiting while feeling less rushed. With a slow itinerary comes, that pure reason we travel… An Ah-Ha Moment, a Transformation that drives the desire to go, to see other places/ cultures. Giving you something to hold onto and take home to your life at home.
“Sometimes, you need to leave home in order to come home.”Â
With Slow Travel, you won’t experience the stress of attempting to knock out every site in your guidebook. Instead, you’ll stay in one place long enough to recognize your neighbors, shop at local markets, and pick your favorite coffeehouse or wine bar. Few societies move as quickly as Americans do, slow down in another country not only allows you to escape your own stressful daily life but also to slip naturally into the pace of another culture. Maybe leaving with a few new customs that work best for you… helping you to customize your own unique lifestyle anywhere you live. As many of us have roots long or short in other cultures, many of my clients have found themselves resonating with a local custom only later to see themselves included in their daily lives at home.
The essence of slow travel, of course, includes the slow food movement, which are meals made by hand locally, by tradition and of the season. Paired with wines and drinks of the culture. And in our themed tours you will meet like-minded women and enjoy the slow pace of conversation/sharing.
The Environment
Another distinct advantage of slow travel is that it’s generally much easier on the environment than other types of travel. As airplanes have been pinpointed as a significant contributor to global warming, we mix in trains and staying in strategic locations to keep transportation down &, thus, more eco-friendly. While we organize events in and around our unique sites, Palaces, Villas, or Chateaus. Typically at our locations, you can also enjoy alternatives such as biking and, of course, your own 2 feet in a walk of a hike.
There are no four cities in seven days tour of Europe. Instead, you’ll see new places explore new cultures in a way that’s less stressful for you, more respect for the locals their economy.
Why is “slow travel” so popular?
It’s increasingly more popular for people who looking to enrich their travel experiences; it’s not for everyone. For one thing, slow. If packing a lot of sightseeing into each day makes you feel excited and energized, then you may find a more laid-back pace frustrating or dull. And while there’s always another Slow Travel trip to see dive deep into another part of a beloved country… this mode of travel is slow. I also understand that If you think this may be your one and only trip to Italy to France to Spain to Morocco, then you may need to decide what type of trip is more important for you. A traditional sightseeing trip or the ultimate cultural experience of slow travel.
Hybrid Slow Travel; When you mix in a little travel before you arrive at our “Slow-Travel” Event;
This is a way to travel and have the best of both worlds. Many of my clients enjoy coming a few days before or staying after our events. They Hit the highlights in one of the major cities before we head out to our destination. For example, on a recent trip, three women spent several days in Barcelona, enjoying the sites then top off the back end of their tour in Madrid shopping before flying home. (By the way, one of the women meet the other two in our Private Trip Facebook Group!)
Who is Slow Travel for?:
- Those who love stepping out of the familiar with local guidance.
- Those who find interest and joy in traveling in a small intimate group of like-minded women.
- Those who appreciate experiences that open their eyes & their senses.
Taking that same attention to details that you are experiencing in a new country back to your life.
Who doesn’t wants to have a real transformational, cultural experience? It acts like a mirror to your soul …if you let it. Helping you to realize the depth to which your own culture colors you-own-intubation / experience of the world.
Helping you to return and reflect back. Looking at your own culture as something you can investigate, making it your own and not a fixed norm. Asking the questions, what is my culture? Why do we eat these foods? Why do we eat them when we eat them? Why do we work and rest the way we do?
I always return from travel with so much more energy and desire to be really present in my own life when I come back from a Slow-Travel Trip.
As a Westerner, I can’t help but come back with questions.
For example, “Why do we separating ourselves so much from living the joy “of Now” in our lives? We tend to be so caught up with … managing our time and getting our lists done and ignoring what we have today. We wait in the hope for some hidden goal/reward in the future when we all feel like we’ve arrived, and now we can live & life will be better.”
When I realized that so many cultures don’t live that way, I began to make that message my own. I now live my life each and every moment. “
—There is feeling and a hidden promises in-the-slowing-down & the noticing of experiences. Especially with the noticing of the space of time and intention. Â The Japanese call this WABI SABI
If you have any questions, contact me at KathyCamp.com
Click Here To See Our Next Women’s Getaway Trips!
I’m having a hard time.
So my friends, in complete honesty, I’ve not known what to say these last few months. So I’ve said very little. Instead, I’ve been watching, reading, being regrouping.
And I’m OK with that.
There was a time in my 30’s-40’s when I was living the competitive business & lifestyle; I couldn’t be comfortable with just being “OK.”
(Nor would my clients, employees, friends, and family be comfortable either.)
Yet I find I still feel like I need to explain myself.
It’s difficult to change deep cultural or learned behaviors/beliefs, especially when you’ve created your entire life’s definition of success on them.
_________________
These days it’s even more uncomfortable & challenging not to know what’s next, have a solution, have a goal, or even a bread crumb of a direction to go in.
Life is feeling very unanchored.
…But maybe this is precisely what we’re meant to learn in this pause.
YET We RESIST! Even knowing confusion, setbacks, changes, feeling bad & good are all a part of everyday-reality. Life is rarely predictable or steady for very long.
If all our years left on this planet had one accumulative voice, I believe it would be SHOUTING at us ALL to get this, FINALLY & move on with living the life we have!…
I’ve come to understand in these times that the sensation of feeling “LOST” is just my mind and body asking me to STOP & process what is going on in Real-Time.
And that Real-Time maybe… weeks, months, and as it looks, all of 2020 &+!
Are we ever going to figure this thing out?Â
We may never know the TRUTH anyway …or anytime soon? Can you & I live with that? Can we continue to create a life worth living right now without a plan?
“Shed yourself of all that’s not aligned with the truth of YOU! … And if all goes to the divine plan, you will be unrecognizable on the other side of this FIRE– That’s what happens on the other side of Phoenix Rising.”
~Danielle LaporteÂ
Our position in society is needed now more than ever. As a viable part & in the fabric of our culture!
I talked to my 20 something nephew the other day, and he so wants to hear from me, from us, from our generation and, in some way, feel, “It’s all going to be alright,” as told to him by a wise soul.
The place around the fire was where we had that power to share & promise in ancient days, where we shared our lived knowledge and created a place for the younger members of the tribe to learn, think, be, and hold. To grow feeling like they belong, they are safe & appreciated in their gifts & place in society.
Have we been shut-up, & scared off from sharing our gifts by our society’s belief of our worth in this role? Retreating to stay hidden away rather than draw attention and be rejected again?
Maybe we can start by getting clear & asking; Who are we? Who are we without all the things we typically have access to now? Who are we without your job, less money, less health, relationships, smartphones, technology, the internet, supplements, and injections?
Who are we without fear, anxiety, in love, hope, appreciation, in prayer, meditation, and gratitude? Who better to share these truths than you and me to our youth?
Show up for the opportunity in what’s happening now. I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
BELIEVE you have enough to say, to stumble over and share with the youth in your family, your community.
Women of our beautiful age, I believe, are being called to come back to our place of wisdom around The Circle. Called to share, in society, our knowledge, compassion, and alchemistic abilities in our experience & long perspective. Let’s say, yes!
So this is how I’ve been doing my human-ing, creating, & crafting my passion these DAYS! I am sure it’s going to look different from how it did before, but I’m trusting it has the potential to be better with our help.
How are you, my friends?
______________
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Aging & Our Society; The New Story!
( A sweet lucid dream of an age inclusive future.)
“Once upon a time, a great Tribe of people lived in the world far away in time from our present-day world. Â
They lived in the state of enchantment enjoying what many recent generations dare to believe possible, except in few & exceptional moments. Like moments when one sees the real reason and potential of humanity.
One day the elder of this Tribe called a meeting. They gathered around, and one of them spoke very solemnly. “My friends,” she said, “there’s a world that needs our help. The knowledge we have from the experiences we’ve lived will be a vital part of creating the solutions our world desperately needs now.  The lives we’ve lived, the failure and success we’ve had now have a chance to serve their purpose.  It’s become evident that we need a more balanced approach to finding solutions.  Bigger, better, technology could definitely use a graceful dose of experience, prior knowledge, in their innovating.”
It will take strength. Â Strength to ward off whatever insecurities you’ve come to believe about yourself, or been told of your worth, your age. Â It’ll take courage & tenacity to continue to stand up in your knowing, your experience as a “first-hand,” witness of how we got here. Â
What it looked like before.Â
How many fish swam in the oceans. Â
How a wild forest smells. Â
The value of making things from your hands. Â
The learning from our mistakes, the remembering of the potential we had in another time will be vital in where we go from here. How we will find solutions that heal our culture… our world.
BUT Your power will only come from clarity in your unique seeing (which we all have) & clear communication of what you’ve experienced & seen from a heart-space
bigger than your own personal agenda.Â
You will remember and tell the love, incredible beauty & grace that you know to be the norm, they will recognize what you are saying is TRUE by the stir & longing-in-their-hearts.  Your memory will take the physical form as a wise-person & an intuitive resource in the community. Â
A valued, irreplaceable citizen in our culture.Â
Gracefully you will measure your telling with equal listening, never preaching, and never using fear as a default. Â Painting a beautiful picture with your word that encompasses all ranges of emotions, pains, joys, & setbacks… All that you’ve known first hand.Â
People will find calm in your presence.. in your first-hand witness-bearing of what was. Even feeling safe when you occasionally have to plunge into the painful narrative of what exists today and what your HEART knows as a more beautiful world…
As they have matured with your sharing and now have a much more balanced perspective of how life ebbs & flows.Â
In your exquisite, remembering & sharing… communities will grow, and families will heal. Â For it is LIFEÂ that has been preparing you for this! Â
In the beginning, as you start to be seen and as you share this with the world, know that you & your knowledge, will be under attack. You will be called an “old” buried in “old-ideas,” and an irrelevant voice. You’ll be told in 1 million ways that a world of destruction, violence, drudgery, anxiety, fear, and segregation is normal. You may go through a time when you are entirely alone, with no allies to affirm your knowledge of a more beautiful world that is possible. You may plunge into a depth of deep despair that is meant to extinguish the SPARK you’re MEANT to put into the world… from your experience.
But you see, even though you will feel, for time, utterly alone, you will not be alone. You will have assistance when you look out and search for it as our enlightened Tribe is growing. It’s in a tribe where you will experience …marvelous others who too have experiences to share that add to the waters of the growing floodwaters of our message.
Because it’s in the awakening & harvesting of your experiences, you will know the value you bring to your next chapter, your future Life’s mission. And then it’s there you will meet more from your Tribe. You will recognize them by your common purpose, values, and intuitions.
So Dear Friend … times of thinking your age & life’s experiences make you an unwelcome member in our society are … are gone! And instead you are needed now more than ever in our culture and our planet’s future. It wouldn’t take a tsunami but a consistent ripple from each in our Tribe.
What do you say are you in?
Love to have you at our Next Ageless Wisdom Women’s Circle
(Adaptions and from; The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. By Charles Eisenstein “A Gathering Of a Tribe.”)
Happy Monday, my friends.
Kathy
What I could tell my 21 year old self!
(A Poem)
I have to tell you that this time in my life… here at this AGE…
I’ve come back to myself.
I have to say… it out loud so that I can feel the words take shape in my mouth take shape in my thoughts and know that they are REAL.
I have to tell you… that this version of me is one who has given herself over fully, who has surrendered, burned it all down and survived to danced in the flames.
I have to tell you… that I saw all this possible from years and miles away, and while at first I turned and ran…packed bags with weapons drawn, I chose instead to STOP and let-it take me.  My Dreams. Without a conversation of do I deserve it, could I really have it.  Will I be happy. I just continued to walk forward and let-it happen & at times with open wounds and all.
I have to tell you… in all these years I’ve shed more skins than I knew I had. With each shedding showing me a glimmer of my authentic self, to keep as a light to find my way through the shadows.
Now to have arrived it feels like all those experiences are mine…
Forever in my memory.
Forever in my tool kit.
I am ready for whatever comes next.
And I just wanted to tell you.
Do you ever doubt that too much has happened, that you can never move past, to get what you really want?
I’m here and I just have to tell you
IT’S NOT TRUE!
What would you tell you 21 year old self if you could?
XX Kathy
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