Regenerative Tourism

Going beyond sustainability to regenerate planet, culture, and self.

“Every living thing has its own creation song, its own language, and its own story. In order to live harmoniously with the rest of creation, we must be willing to listen to and respect all of the harmonies that are moving around us.”

— Sherri Mitchell, from the book “Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change”

What Is Regenerative Travel?

First and foremost, it is a verb. As regenerative thinker and founder of Conscious Travel Anna Pollock says:

“Regeneration is the constant coming into being that is life. The endless cycling of renewal that is nature. The essence of regenerative is that it is regenerating.”

Regeneration in travel is about starting from a place of the innate value and power of all living things and working toward tourism supporting and caring for those living systems.

How Does Travel Life Adventures Strive For Regeneration?

The organization Conscious Travel outlines 8 key areas and methods to transform tourism into a regenerative partner in a thriving world. Here is how Travel Life Adventures is seeking to embody these principles.

Consider The Whole Picture and Address Root Causes

  1. We intentionally seek out less-travelled and lesser known areas in the destinations we work in to both reduce over tourism and to spread the positive impacts of tourism to more communities

  2. We work with local partners and leaders to ensure that those communities who do interact with tourism own the relationship from the very start

  3. We never design trips or send travelers to a place we have not first built a relationship and trust with.

Tap Into the Deep and Potent Yearning of all Humans to Simply BE More.

  1. All trip designs, projects, or interactions are initialized and co-created with local people and communities

  2. Reciprocity is at the heart of all our trip designs, opening up a pathway for deeper interpersonal connections and the interweaving of narratives of both traveler and local people

  3. Our role is to be a conduit between people and a higher sense of belonging and connection to each other

Start with the Individual Because all Change Come From Within

  1. Every trip design starts with the travelers why, their innate reason for embarking in the first place.

  2. Our travelers engage in a pre-trip program that includes education and learning about both the destination, the issues at play there, and how they can be a more regenerative traveler.

  3. We seek to amplify every voice during a travelers experience, no matter if it fits a status quo or narrative that tourism decides.

Focus on Changing the System by Changing its Purpose

  1. By shifting the relationship between tourism and local communities we seek to re-imagine what role tourism can play in the thriving of people and planet.

  2. By identifying the travelers why, creating an experience that honors that deeper motivation, and creating a pathway for continued connection and support post trip we are placing travel in a new role as “partner” in thriving.

  3. Through education, writing, and speaking at events and conferences we aim to expand the understanding of what travel can be in the world.

Shifting from Extraction to Regeneration Best Occurs one Place, one Living Community, at a Time

  1. We have chosen to limit where we work to 4 destinations and to specific communities within the destination to focus our impact.

  2. We take a “quality over quantity” approach to our work even when that limits our economic opportunities in order to ensure the depth of our work creates the best possible outcome for all involved.

Return to the Heart and HEARTH of Experience

In every design and project we work on we assess the place and impact of each of these principles:

  1. Health, Vitality, Aliveness

  2. Encounter of Hearts

  3. Aware, Awake, and Attuned to Each Other

  4. Reciprocity, Respect, Dignity

  5. Transformation

  6. Home - Opening and Sharing of Home

Harness Collective Intelligence by Working In and For Communities

  1. Simply put, we don’t exist without our community partnerships.

  2. Everything begins and ends with the local leaders and people we work with, our products, our knowledge, our impact.

Encourage Full Integration and Inclusivity with Other Community/Localist Initiatives

  1. In every destination we work in we partner with a local organization, nonprofit, or grassroots program to ensure our work is not just neutral, but contributes to the continue thriving of the place.

  2. We give 7% of all revenues from every trip to those local partners.

  3. Our partnership goes far beyond economics, it is an energetic and passion based sharing of the desire for beautiful travel experiences.

 

Our Commitment To Regeneration

We engage in tourism creation and execution that honors the value and worth of all living things present on Earth

We measure our success by a triple-bottom-line set of metrics considering people, planet, as well as profit

We return 5% of our revenues to support regenerative projects in the communities we work in

We educate travelers on their role in the living system of tourism and how their choices have ripple impacts for all living things

We strive to create access and inclusion in everything we do in order to offset the historical and modern injustices present in the travel industry

We listen first and foremost to the local communities and people who are most impacted, both negatively and positively, by tourism as an industry

We continue to educate ourselves and learn from experts, leaders, and elders in order to play a positive role in tourism worldwide

 
 

Want To Learn More?

We are always open to and eager to hear from others. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions or just want to learn more, please reach out and let us know.