When I was ten years old,  I stumbled upon a box of National Geographic Magazines. I was so engrossed that for weeks I could think of little else. What caught my attention were the travel ads in the back. The places themselves were secondary, but the idea that you could actually visit strange fascinating places had me spellbound.

At the bottom of each ad was a coupon for a brochure. I got them all and poured over them for hours. Had someone asked me why I wanted to visit far-off places, I would have been at a loss for words.

Flash forward 27 years:  My wife Yolanda our 5 and 7 year old children and I moved from on the brink of civil war El Salvador to Costa Rica and started Costa Rica Expeditions.

Three years later I wrote, “Our dream is to promote the type of tourism which is mutually beneficial and nourishing to both the visitor and the visited.”

That still says it.

Now,  I would add that what is beneficial and nourishing varies greatly from traveler to traveler. Our challenge before we design and provide the experience is to work with our prospective guests to discover the ideal experience for each individual, couple and family.

What I personally find most beneficial and nourishing about traveling is that by reawakening in me a sense of awe and fascination, traveling immeasurably enriches my daily life, the majority of which is spent not traveling.

It was until this past March, almost 6 decades since I devoured travel brochures in dull indoor light that I came up with a succinct way to say it:

“If you live every day of your life as if you are on a wonderful journey through an endlessly fascinating, strange land — you are.”

But that does not quite capture it. “Our ability to perceive in nature begins, as in art, with the pretty.  It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.” Aldo Leopold