Travel Coaching

Travel coaching is the use of travelling experiences as educational material and personal development tool, enhancing critical thinking, innovative creativity and cultural empathy, providing powerful inspiration and insightful food for thought, exposing our minds to new possibilities, and challenging our perspectives.

Travel coaching can be learned and honed as a skill, the ability to critically observe the world around us, trying to perceive as many of its layers as possible, understand their relevance to us, and then use these discoveries for the betterment of our own self, our community, and the environment.

Simply put, travel coaching means applying coaching principles to inspire us into travelling better, trying to create meaningful and immersive experiences, rather than just another tourist trip. The travel coaching process will enrich our journeys, broaden our minds, and help us become more aware travellers.

Meaningful travel it’s not just about seeing the sights. It’s about how seeing these particular sights will transform you as a person.

Many of us have been asking the wrong questions. Travelling should not be just about the “where”, but also about the “how”, and even more importantly about the “why”. Why do we want to travel to that particular destination? What do we hope to achieve while doing so? And how this experience will transform us as a person?

Travel coaching is about unlocking our potential and enabling us to travel further of our horizons. It doesn’t matter how near or how far, what’s important is how deep. The objective is to discover the reasons behind travelling, define our travel goals, and then fine tune our trips to align with our inner needs and desires. But at the same time, we should aim to test the limits of our comfort zone and challenge our perspectives. And ideally turn every trip into a transformative journey.

We should always aspire to become better travellers. These days, most of us are looking for sustainable travel, being mindful about our environmental footprint and our impact to the local communities. We opt for slow travel, experiencing the destination at a relaxed pace, taking the time to let things sink in. We strive for more immersive travel, trying to get to know the daily aspects of the local culture, well beyond the monumental sights and the gastronomic delights. We have already stopped collecting souvenirs, and started collecting memories. And now we should no longer wonder about “what” we saw or did, but “how” these experiences will help us grow as a person and return from our journeys as better beings.

In a single phrase, Travel Coaching can be summarised as “coaching through immersive travelling”. Travel Coaching is an innovative way of thinking, exploring the world with eyes and minds wide open, discovering in every step something new, something meaningful, something unique and extraordinary inside the mundane. Travel Coaching, at least at its early stages, it is recommended to be assisted by a Facilitator, but as the traveller gets more experienced it should become a self-guided process and an integral part of any journey.

• The aim of Travel Coaching is to increase our awareness, reveal and challenge our own perspectives, learn to appreciate the uniqueness of each destination and individual, discover the similarities between people and places, and ultimately offer insights which stimulate growth and development, applied in personal, business, and community level.
• The process of Travel Coaching usually includes
  • an exposure phase, where the participants focus on selected highlights (“coaching breadcrumbs”) along a carefully designed route,
  • a discussion phase, where the topics are actively processed and openly debated, and
  • a revelation phase, where the findings lead to further insights, perspective awareness, and personal development.
• Note that it is not necessary to travel to the other end of the world in order to engage in Travel Coaching; the process can be activated as easily while exploring our own country, our own home town, or even while walking our daily route through our neighbourhood.

The principles and methods of Travel Coaching can be applied to any self-guided trip, no matter how near or how far, offering immense and multi-level benefits to every traveller. For larger groups and organisations, an interactive workshop led by a Travel Facilitator will provide the same benefits to all participants, and can be further tailored to better suit your own specifications.

• For individual travellers, a personal session is the best way to define your goals and needs, creating a unique trip, providing a much more wholesome and in depth experience.
• For any business or organisation, a trip, workshop or seminar can help think outside the box, unlock the imagination, and be used as a bonding activity between your members.
• For educators and institutions, students will get a better understanding of foreign culture, challenge their perspectives, and learn the complexities of our interconnected world.
• For life, personal, and well being coaches, the travel coaching process will help your pupils open their minds, increase their empathy skills, and facilitate their personal growth.
• For travel professionals, travel coaching can be applied to enrich any individual or group trip, or offered as extra service for high profile clients, creating added value for your agency.