India pushes spiritual tourism

Finding inner peace is important in times of stress and economic turmoil. As a culture of buyers, when money’s tight, we have to look for other ways to get happy besides purchasing. A big-screen TV or pair of Manolos can only take you so far.

India’s tourism ministry has decided to spin their own holy land attributes to attract visitors: yoga, temples, places for a spiritual pilgrimage, vast desert landscapes for contemplation… A yoga aficionado that I know holidayed for six weeks last year and spent some time at a fabulous yoga eco-retreat where you stay in rajasthani hunting tents individually lined with hand block printed cotton, each a different colour according to one of the charkas (energy centres) of the human body. The showers are solar-powered and you can do your handwashing in clay pots. This gives camping a whole new meaning. Read Article

By Karen Hawthorne