Did you see anything you had not seen before? Did you eat anything your had never eaten before? Did you feel anything you had never felt before? Did you do anything you couldn't have done at home?

If you answered "No" to any or all of the above questions, I recommend you fire your travel agent and contact StepOut Experience immediately.

I would like to share a personal experience with you. I spent some time in Holland a few years ago, and of course I toured around the Amsterdam. I walked to the main commercial district near the train station and I remember feeling distinctly disappointed at what I saw: McDonald's, the Gap, Calvin Klein, Gucci, Starbucks, and so on and so forth. The iconic institutions of my culture had followed me overseas! I remember thinking "I may as well be walking down Yonge Street in Toronto or St. Catherine's Street in Montreal".

Is this what travel is really for? Are we really meant to travel to foreign locations to experience the cookie-cutter institutions of our own country? In the opinion of this writer, the point of a vacation is to remove ourselves from what is ordinary and repetitive in our lives. And yet at the end of some of my vacations, I found myself asking, "Why did I bother to leave home?" It occurred to me that I had spent X amount of money, and had only succeeded in seeing things I could have seen at home. The only novelty was that I was buying the same crap using foreign currencies.

Add to that the fact that I am also a product of a consumer-culture-gaining-a-conscience-about-the-world-around-me, albeit slowly. Traveling to foreign destinations via package tours found me lounging in luxury hotels separated by fences and armed guards from the cultures in which they were situated. My conscience was aggravated by the fact that my experiences of the countries I was in was vastly different than the average person living immediately beside the resort. In short, I felt guilty that I was living a life of conspicuous wealth in the midst of sometimes extreme poverty. I felt as though I was exploiting the culture that I was in without ever really having touched it in its purest sense. Yes, some of my fellow travelers justified this to themselves and others by saying that the dollars we spent went back to the local communities, but nagging at the back of my mind was the fact that the actual communities likely saw very little of the money we were spending.

StepOut Experience is a unique travel company with a simple philosophy that focuses on three main elements: 1. Stepping out of our everyday routine, including the rut that most travel companies have fallen into with strictly-regimented package tours, 2. Sustainable, eco-friendly tourism, encouraging travelers to learn more about the fragile, complex and astounding ecosystems in other parts of the world, and emphasizing a low-impact method of travel that keeps abreast of environmental concerns and issues, and 3. Volunteering for local preservation and goodwill organizations, giving back to the larger communities that are traveled to rather than merely taking from them, leaving a few paltry dollars in return for the privilege of staying in their country.

OK, so that third point may leave some readers scratching their heads. "Why would I want to take a vacation and work?", I can hear the naysayer asking. True, you could spend two hours in line in the baking sun to get your picture taken with Mickey Mouse, or you could spend two hours on a beach in Costa Rica helping local organizations rescue baby turtles. Ask yourself the following questions: Which of those activities sounds more relaxing? Which of those activities would actually make for a lifelong memory? Which of those activities would make me feel better about myself and the planet I live on?

And such is the StepOut way. Visit unspoiled wilderness which will remain unspoiled thanks to our green philosophy; get to know cultures without the taint of pre-packaged travel itineraries; stay at a solar-powered lodge in an area which National Geographic has dubbed "the most biologically intense place on earth"; get out of the concrete jungle.

If you like bright lights, dance clubs and overpriced drinks, by all means continue to do business with your travel agent. However, if you are beginning to feel that your vacations have become as predictable and humdrum as your daily life, if you are not afraid to break a sweat, if adventure beckons to you, then I recommend you call StepOut Experience.

Tourism is only travel. StepOut Experience is a journey.

Labels: A StepOut Experience Vacation