Every year I am privileged to attend PURE Life Experiences, a travel conference that stands heads above the vast array of travel conferences held around the world. This is a time when 1000 of us – buyers (like me) and sellers (like Zapata Ranch above) – convene for three days of face to face meetings and conferences. To date, the meetings have been assembled in Marrakech, Morocco.
PURE is a moving display of talent and passion and the three days of meetings afford one a glorious means to travel (virtually) to all corners of the world. I meet privately owned haciendas whose owners have stories to tell about their forebears (http://zuleta.com/),tented camps (http://www.theultimatetravellingcamp.com/), charming inns like Puerto Valle in Argentina’s northwest (http://www.puertovalle.com.ar/en1/), flying safaris across the face of Africa (http://soaring-safaris.com/) and authentic, culturally and ecologically friendly African camps (http://www.maasai.com/). At every turn there is something with a new twist, a different vision.
And what do I come away with? More than information, I am inspired all over again. And I find, on my return, that my own view of travel and its importance shifts ever so slightly, as when you shake a kaleidescope. I see the world and what I do with a new perspective.
Today, it is a return to the simple, to the values that have become so scarce in our lives: space, silence, and time to spend learning about and approaching the unknown.