Romania and Beyond Dracula at PURE Life Experiences 2014

We’ve been preparing for it since we got the invitation to come. We were both excited and honored to be the ones representing Romania for the very first time at PURE Life Experiences, a one of a kind fair focused on experiential travel. November came and we were ready.

Smiling after 4 amazing days at PURE (not the best quality picture but the smiles make up for it:))

To clarify experiential travel I will paraphrase one of the PURE Conference speakers, Pico Iyer: “Experiential travel is what happens when real people have unreal experiences”. Real people are us all while unreal experiences are those encounters than change one’s life. Unreal experiences are luxurious, where luxury nowadays is peace of mind, stillness. Unreal experiences are true and authentic conversations, encounters with genuine and unassuming people that we normally don’t have the chance to meet during our busy lives. These moments when we lose track of time and feel free to discover, almost lost in a way, those are moments that transform us.

While Pico Iyer was speaking, I could not help and think that Romania is one of the countries that can offer exactly that, plenty of experiential travel. A friend nicely put it a while back when she said that being in Romania is like living in two centuries at the same time. And it’s true but to fully get this, one needs to venture into the middle of it, travel around, talk to people, and let oneself be surprised.

Our own definition of experiential travel

The question of how to keep such “luxury” for the generations to come also rises. We wonder and fully believe that it’s our responsibility to also protect and preserve Romania’s resources whether they are forests, villages or ancient traditions.

Sustainability and adventure was the topic of the second speech we heard at the conference. Most know him for his four-month journey crossing the Pacific in Plastiki, a catamaran made entirely out of recycled plastic bottles. David Mayer de Rothschild is your true explorer, not afraid to take a stand in the debate on climate change and actually, rightfully claiming this is not a debate. Nature is not something outside of us, the link between our planet and our lives is not something to question, it’s there and it’s strong.

Fully inspired by the speeches and taking example of how other countries around the world promote themselves, we started our marathon of meetings with batteries fully charged. And what a marathon it was! Romania on the list of countries represented drew a lot of attention and from curiosity to genuine interest and desire to get to know the country and Beyond Dracula, we spoke to around 100 people. For these people Romania became a country about which they either found out for the first time some important characteristics or they understood that it’s a country that has more to offer than some of the stereotypical associations made with it.

Honored to be among so many like-minded travelers

Tired but with the humble satisfaction that we did  our best for Romania and for Beyond Dracula, we’re soon packing to go back home and work on having as many as possible visitors from the agencies and travel agents we met at PURE come to see for themselves what Romania is all about.

And until next November, a bientôt and Insha’ Allah, as they would say in Morocco!