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Cobra pose By Susan Gill

Adding a new feature today. The last Thursday of every month will be a monthly roundup of cool stuff in the yoga-travel world. So read on for yoga travel for new moms and Costa Rican getaways.

For those of you traveling but not to a yoga destination, the makers of Toe Sox have now come up with Grip Gloves. This way there’s no mat required and your hands aren’t clawing bear handed into carpeting while noticing stains and crumbs you can’t account for.

If you’re looking for a fall yoga getaway, it’s pick and choose what you want.

The Guardian had a story this month on a yoga retreat for moms and babies. That’s right, tote the toddler along and you get a vacation. Oh yeah, and it’s in Tuscany. I’m thinking of a few friends who just might love this.

Then there’s the Richard Gere designed yoga shala at a small spot in New York state. He and his wife own the Bedford Post Inn but you don’t have to stay there to take a yoga class so Westchester Co. residents take note and tell me how it is.

Warrior II pose by Susan Gill

Or a discounted splurge in Costa Rica. The Red Palm Villas is running a late summer yoga special for $1,195 per person. The 6-day, 5-night yoga package includes twice daily asana practice, morning meditation, breathing instruction, asana theory, sunset chanting as well as two massages and two jungle canopy tours.

Maybe I need to be watching hotel deals to Costa Rica.

Then for all that travel, CheapFlights.com interviewed yogi author Elaine Masters on getting people to stretch out while they’re driving and flying. Her book and recommendations on getting your body unstuck in traffic and on board are being implemented by cops and business travelers alike.

And after you’re there, maybe it’s time to relinquish your iPhone. Many yoga places are now offering an option to put your technology in a safe upon check in, according to a Wall Street Journal article.

Are you up to the task? Could you do a technological detox?

After figuring out what you want to accomplish in 2011, it’s good to look at what experience might help with that.

Do you want more balance and creativity into your life? Maybe a summer yoga and writing retreat. Learning yoga at all and enjoying a different culture? Possibly a beginner yoga week at a spa in Thailand.

So far in my checking around for 2011 ideas, I’ve found a Summer Writing Retreat that includes poetry, breathwork, painting and yoga. All in Italy’s Umbria region. Who wouldn’t be inspired that scenery?

But similar sessions can be found in the U.S. in equally fascinating surroundings.

In the U.S., a few groups offer yoga and writing combos in Yosemite that I wrote about last year. It has become one of my most often viewed stories.

Thinking farther away, not closer to home.

This story in Australia’s Sidney Morning Herald extolls the value of a yoga village in Sri Lanka sans electricity but full of life-learning experiences.

This weeks, I’ve been checking out yoga spots in Thailand because I’ll be there oh so soon and found several promising locations. I might be able to fit in a short massage course and take a few yoga classes at Namo in Chiang Mai.

More and more, getaways have been developed to allow visitors t0 learn whatever it is they want to accomplish. I understand this is all in an effort to provide people with something more than the experience of going somewhere. I read an article in India about people not reading novels because those do not teach them how to improve themselves.

No matter how much I may want to be a “yoga slacker,” I won’t be able to do yoga on a tight rope in one vacation. (Or several vacations.)

But The Omega Institute will be holding retreats throughout winter and spring in Costa Rica with some more daunting but accomplishable goals from “Repacking your bags at midlife” to “How to write a memoir.”

Sometimes we want the classes, sometimes just experiencing a new place is the learning we need.

With all those classes, just don’t forget to pay attention to the lessons life brings naturally from experiencing nature and new places.

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On a side note, I wanted to mention two stories I saw last week about yoga and India. Both look at expectations and our views on what something should or should not be. One on NPR was by an Indian man who lives in the U.S. about attending his first yoga class. The other in USA Today was by an American woman who attended a yoga class in Mumbai. What links the two is that neither found the classes to be “Indian.”

For me Labor Day marks the speeding up to the end of the year.

Weekends steadily become busier until Halloween and then it’s a straight rush until Christmas and New Year’s Day.

This in between time is also a good time to make travel plans thereby forcing you to take a yoga break. Pre-holiday yoga vacations may seem to cut into that limited time for cookie baking and present buying. Then again a trip to Mexico or India would take care of presents.

Whatever kind of trip, it should leave you more relaxed to tackle whatever else the holidays require. But a yoga retreat might give you some pause about what you really want from the holidays.

Or you could plan a post-holiday yoga vacation to re-center yourself after the indulgences of the holidays.

Tourism groups are marketing such trips more and I wrote about some offerings several months ago. But now you can actually buy the tickets or sign up for that yoga retreat so you have no excuse but to go.

For more of a getaway, the Milan, Italy, YogaFestival takes place in early October. I’d love to see what the Italians bring to yoga.

Or the Hotel Eco Paraiso in Mexico is having Kundalini yoga master Jai Hari Singh visiting from Mexico City between November and January. Several workshops are planned at the hotel in the Yucatan for those looking to escape the hustle and bustle that will be the U.S. during those months. While this would be a warm and transforming trip, I’d suggest it only for those who have taken Kundalini classes in the U.S. and are familiar with this style of yoga.

I’m guessing the release of the “Eat, Pray, Love” movie this weekend is going to be the biggest event to date for the yoga travel industry since The Beatles visited a guru in India.

With all the hype surrounding this movie, more and more articles have come out too. One in the Louisville Courier-Journal discusses how “eat, pray, love” is good advice for anyone post-divorce. It’s good to try new things, reconnect with oneself and find an independent identity, said Eli Karam, assistant professor at the University of Louisville’s Marriage and Family Therapy Program in the Kent School of Social Work.

And how does yoga fit into that.

“Yoga is all about self-reliance, learning to have faith in yourself and your own abilities,” said Sarah Ayers, owner and trainer at Inner Strength Fitness in Louisville.

This seems to fly in the face of what some people have experienced at ashrams. In a New York Post article Marta Szabo recounts how she mostly had friends who went out and found nothing but spent all their money trying.

Reading this article reminded me of another article I just read in the New York Times Magazine about chronicle depression. The author spent years going from doctor to doctor always hoping for some fix until she finally realized she needed to stop.

I’m not sure the two are really all that different.

But what’s the reality of these countries beyond the eating, praying and loving?

The Washington Post has articles on each location – Italy, India and Indonesia. The former and current reporters who have logged vast time and sometimes lived in these locales explain that the book and the movie provide a romanticized version of reality. Or maybe it’s just taking the most positive spin on what’s happening. Regardless, countries all have a personality. Some of it that comes from generalizing, but just like people, countries have idiosyncrasies and baggage.

The write up on Italy described it as clichéd but “lovingly filmed” but the book gets honest when describing how the city has struggled, but remains alive.

India’s a bit more complicated. In the book, Elizabeth Gilbert confines herself to an ashram. Maybe necessary for her purpose, but reveals little about India as a country. It’s actually something I want to avoid when I visit this fall and find a balance between ashram time and seeing the India the actual Indians know.

“If I were advising Gilbert (or any other traveler seeking a spiritual India), I would order them out of the confining ashrams and into the streets and neighborhoods of India’s feast of religious festivals. That is where you’ll find the true soul of the country,” wrote Molly Moore, who served as the India-based correspondent for three years.

Then there’s Bali. This was my favorite of the three Washington Post pieces. Gilbert didn’t gloss over the island’s violent history in her own writing. Maybe in personalities it’s what one would call a “hot mess.” But so many countries are. Beautiful, but replete with poverty and problems. A good vacation spot, but tough to live there.

“Besides, destinations are the least important aspect of Gilbert’s journey; it’s the people she meets in them that push and teach her,” the article stated.

Now, in Bali, those people have become mini-stars. The healer she spent her days visiting with has been hospitalized, according to the AP and this USA Today post. His family said he was overworked.

Even in these days of smartphones and DVRs, daydreams remain synonymous with warm August days.

During a yoga break under a shade tree in my backyard, I started taking a little pretend yoga trip to Italy. Thankfully the Internet makes it very easy to extend daydreams into hours of Googling.

Maybe better known for the indulgences of pasta and wine, the laid-back atmosphere and romanticized vistas have made it a popular spot for yoga vacations. Though, from the prices, one most of us will only daydream about.

Sting’s 900-acre ranch, Il Palagio, combines grounding views and local food with yoga vacations. Gardens, pools and a historic monastery dot the acreage, according to the website. The location made the news recently because the honey, wine and oil made on site will now be for sale at a stand by the ranch gates southeast of Florence.

Farther south, an hour outside of Rome Sunflower Retreats also offers stays in houses, yoga classes and bike use. The website says the homes have kitchens allowing visitors to cook for themselves if they prefer. That would just make my week. A yoga class, shopping at a local market and making an Italian feast. Really all I need is some bread, tomatoes and basil but I’m guessing I would buy more than that and have to build a meal around it.

But what does it really take to feel like you’ve gotten away and not just a daydream?

Budget Travel interviewed Eat, Pray, Love author Elizabeth Gilbert on how to experience a place instead of just passing through. Her main piece of advice, stay a little longer in one place and meet people. Those experiences and conversations are what you will remember.

The same can be said for making new friends next door or around the world.