The yoga travel frenzy caused by “Eat, Pray, Love”
In February, I asked around at the LA Times Travel and Adventure Show if people were seeing an increase in tourism related to the book “Eat, Pray, Love.”
I had a hunch that I could pitch an article about people going to India and Indonesia seeking the self-growth that Elizabeth Gilbert wrote about.
Most travel folks at the event were unaware or said it wasn’t having much of an affect. My trip to find these tourists myself has been a bit delayed but I was right on the story.
The movie release is a few weeks away and stories are popping up about “EPL” and yoga vacations.
USA Today and Time have both run articles in the past few weeks about hotels and tourism groups offering experiences based on the book. This is all in addition to the variety of products, from perfumes to clothes, that are being marketed around the buzz, according to this LA Times post.
Some of the yoga travel vacations take visitors to the healer, musician and shaman Gilbert wrote about in her book. Others offer self-discovery in surroundings unrelated to the book.
Little Palm Island off the coast of Miami, Fla., and San Antonio, Texas, are both marketing themselves as a place to find some peace, according to the USA Today article.
For Indonesia though, this has been a boon for tourism damaged by the 2002 nightclub bombing, the Time article stated.
My new copy of Lonely Planet’s guide to Bali and Lompok even has a pullout box titled “That Damn Book” about how some locals have benefited and others said it did not present a complete picture of Ubud, the town where Gilbert lived during her stay in Indonesia.
One could argue that I’m doing my own “Eat, Pray, Love” pilgrimage with plans to visit India and Bali. I think I’m taking a slightly different approach and going because those are yoga travel hotspots and well, that’s what I write about.
But all this clamor for self-healing makes me wonder, what is it we are missing in our day-to-day lives that would propel women to go to countries they might not have otherwise visited?
Yes, in travel you always learn something about yourself and getting away from familiar surroundings forces us to confront issues. But what is this cry for help? And does it matter if it’s helping so many people?
