From My Five Acres To Adventure Yoga Around The World
My Five Acres & Adventure Yoga?
So who is this My Five Acres and what is this Adventure Yoga? I have to be honest Yoga has never really caught on to me.
When you say the words downward dog I can’t help but start giggling…(You can’t see me but I’m doing it now)
I mean no disrespect. And I totally get its importance when it comes to mind, body, and soul. Now, being inspired to take my own mindful journeys I can totally get behind.
Name(s): Jane Mountain and Stephen Ewashkiw
Travel Blog: My Five Acres | http://www.myfiveacres.com
Blog Content:
On My Five Acres, we focus on mindful travel — from how to be a responsible and sustainable traveller , to eco-friendly adventures, vegan and vegetarian food, and where to find the best places to practice yoga around the world. We inspire, encourage, and educate our readers and yoga students on how to make their own mindful adventures happen.
- How do you incorporate fitness and yoga into your travels? How do you prepare? Can you give us some tips?
Yoga is a part of every day for us, whether we are actually practicing yoga or just practicing the mindfulness techniques that yoga teaches us.
For the fitness side of yoga, we might seek out the perfect beach or park to do a morning practice. Or we visit the local yoga studios so we can practice there. When we’re travelling to teach Adventure Yoga, it’s easy to focus on doing our yoga practice.
When we’re travelling just for fun, it’s really hard to fit in a long yoga practice every day. We often just do a few stretches before bed instead. Long days of sightseeing or hiking and biking can be really hard on your body — a little yoga helps reset your muscles so you’re ready to go again the next day.
One of the benefits of practicing yoga is that we learn that our bodies can handle discomfort — like the discomfort of holding a pose for a long time. It also teaches us just how strong we are to face challenges of everyday life.
These lessons really help when we’re travelling. Because of yoga, we are better able to handle discomforts like being jammed in a crowded bus, navigating hectic city streets, rushing to catch planes or trains, or searching for food when we’re already dangerously hungry.
We started teaching Adventure Yoga to help other people discover those hidden strengths so that they are better able to pursue their own adventures.
- Share one of your favourite travel stories. How do these type of experiences change you as a person?
One day, while cycling in China, we needed to get on a local ferry.
As we arrived at the ferry dock, a ragged-looking man approached us and pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, waving it at us. He then told us, in Mandarin, that we should pay him for the ticket.
It was obvious that this man was a scammer, so we refused to give him any money. He told us again, louder this time, that we should pay him. Again, we refused. As he continued to ask and we continued to refuse, a crowd started to gather. For a scammer, the man was remarkably insistent. Each time he repeated his request, his volume increased, until he was shouting right in Stephen’s face!
The onlookers were talking and laughing among themselves, but no one was willing or able to help us shake the man.
As the ferry slowly made its way across the river towards us, we fended off his continued verbal assaults.
Finally, the ferry docked and, along with all the other waiting passengers, we boarded the ferry.
There, we found an official dressed in a brown uniform who showed us how much to pay him. When we tried to hand our money to him, he motioned to someone behind us. We turned around to find our “scammer” — and we quickly realized our mistake!
He was not trying to scam us but just to get us to pay for our ferry ride.
That day, we learned a lesson we’ve been learning over and over during our 20 years of travel.
As Westerners, we are far more untrusting and suspicious than we need to be. It’s OK to trust people when you travel — most people are actually nice, friendly, and sincerely want to help you out. The whole world is not out to get you!
- What are your top 5 travel rules that you follow every time you travel and why?
1. Go slowly. Cramming too much into each day is bad for your health and for your trip. Do less, see less — and experience more.
2. Buy local. Whenever possible, stay in small family-owned hotels and eat in local restaurants. That way, more of your money goes into the pockets of the local and less goes into multi-national corporations.
3. Say yes. When you travel, random strangers will approach you and ask you to coffee or for a selfie or just to chat. As long as you feel safe, say yes. You can truly get to know a place through its people.
4. Don’t compare. It’s tempting to compare all of your experiences to what you’re used to back home. This bed is too hard, those people are too noisy, this traffic is nuts. Instead of comparing, be interested in what you’re seeing. Let yourself enjoy the experience of something completely different without labelling it as “better” or “worse” than what you’re used to.
5. Smile. Humans are naturally a little suspicious of strangers. If you find yourself surrounded by grouchy looking locals, just try giving them a big smile and maybe a little wave. By making the first friendly move, you’ll soon find that your efforts are reciprocated from those locals.
My Five Acres & One HappyCow?
- What are your top 5 travel hacking tips and tricks?
- Pocket Earth app. We have had so many amazing adventures because of Pocket Earth. It’s an offline map app (for iPhone) that doesn’t need WiFi to work and uses your phone’s GPS chip to tell you where you are. Having this map in our pockets without
needed an internet connection means we can wander aimlessly in cities or on hiking trails without getting lost. It leaves us free to adventure wherever we want. - Rome2Rio. This is always where we start our transportation planning. Plugin any two destinations and Rome2Rio will spit out all the various ways of making the journey, plus the approximate cost. It’s a great way to find out about unexpected ferry routes, trains and busses, and even ride-sharing.
- Booking.com It’s not exactly an unknown site, but I rely so heavily on Booking.com that I had to mention it. When looking for a hotel, I usually filter the results to show me everything rated 8.0 and above, plug in my price range and location, and then sift through the results. The Booking.com app also tells you how close a given hotel matches the type of hotel you normally book… a feature I love!
- HappyCow. We are vegans so we’re always looking for the best veg-friendly food in town. The HappyCow app lists and rates vegan and vegetarian restaurants and is always our starting point for finding food.
- FaceTime. Because we travel full-time, we often feel disconnected from our family and friends. I remember when we were kids, we would always fantasize about video phones! Now that they’re real, it’s a great way to feel close even though you’re far away.
- What are your top 5 travel things you must bring in your carry on, purse and/or satchel?
- iPhone. It’s the only thing I will never leave behind, whether I’m going out for five minutes of five months. We rarely have cell service but still use our phones as a travel camera, a map, a source of entertainment (music, podcasts, books) and a way to stay connected to the world. Now that you can use Apple Pay in so many countries, I can picture my phone taking place of my wallet, too.
- Earplugs. On any journey, earplugs are essential. I go a little crazy when I’m in a noisy environment, so whenever things get overwhelming, I stick in my earplugs for a few moment’s peace. They are also essential on the plane or bus to help me sleep, and sometimes necessary in a noisy hotel room. I’m not sure I’d be able to travel without earplugs.
- Travel pillow. There was a time when I thought travel pillows were only for wimps. But now that I have one (a Thermarest Compressible Pillow) it makes buses, planes, and trains so much more comfortable. When we get to our hotel, we pull out our travel pillows and throw them on the bed which makes it feel a little more like home.
- Handkerchief. We picked up a couple of 15-cent cloth handkerchiefs in India and they have become an essential part of our travel kit. We use them to dry our hands (instead of paper towels), wipe sweat on hot sticky days, soak up unexpected spills and, every once in a while, even to blow our noses.
- Bottle opener. If you want to be the most popular person at the hostel, a picnic, or a party, always carry a bottle opener. Mine doubles as a keychain, so I have it handy whenever beer needs to be opened!
- What is your most prized souvenir you brought back from abroad and what’s its story?
Since we travel full-time and pack light in our carry-on suitcases, we hardly ever buy souvenirs. But we do carry around small items that have been given to us on our travels. I have a Buddhist good-luck charm given to me by a man in Beijing, some woven bracelets from a Hmong guide in Sapa, Vietnam, and a tiny stuffed teddy bear I got as a gift at a Vietnamese wedding. None of these items are worth more than a few pennies but they are filled with meaning.
- Where are you off to next and what are hoping to experience, eat, see and/or learn?
We are in Vietnam right now and will be heading to Lombok in Indonesia, where Stephen is teaching yoga next week. We’ve been to Indonesia before but never to Lombok so I can’t wait to see how this island is different from Bali and Java. I also can’t wait to eat more tempeh, which is a fermented soy bean dish that originated in Indonesia. Trust me, it tastes better than it sounds!
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