Lake Tahoe native Nichole Hull explains how she maintains her yoga practice while traveling. Also with tips on ways to use a Mexican yoga blanket.
I love to travel! This may sound wacky, but I even find joy in airports. The excitement of exploring somewhere new, a new geography, language, and culture. To me, it brings a way to open your mind and learn. It starts for me when I first choose where I am going. Then the fun really begins, I geek out on studying up on the area, cuisine, language, and cultural traditions that I can learn.
One of the “challenges”, which for me has a good and bad meaning, is continuing my meditation and yoga practice while traveling. I enjoy the challenge of exploring a beautiful location to either practice yoga or a place to sit. I truly feel more open minded and more love for the world by absorbing as much as I can before I even board a plane. I can remember the smell, colors, expressions of the people faces for all the places I have been.
I research yoga studios where I am going. I almost always carry pieces of my alter to ground me and to create a place to meditate. I also bring an IPad or device that I can stream or download a yoga class in case I can't attend one or lack the motivation on my own. I have many times used hotel towels and pillows for meditation. As well as a towel on the floor for a yoga mat. These all work out just fine, but I have found this one item that is so multi-functional I can rationalize finding a space in my backpack or in my luggage. My sweet, warm, comforting Mexican yoga blanket. It's a kind of blanky if you will.
5 ways I use my Mexican yoga blanket for my yoga practice
- I fold into a rectangle for a cushion to sit and meditate.
- I roll it into a log for a bolster under my knees in yoga poses or horizontally across my neck and shoulders for support and gentle traction.
- I can wrap myself up in it as I sit on some stunning rock cliff, like high in Desolation Wilderness.
- As a mat on a grassy meadow to practice in places like Page Meadows in Lake Tahoe, California where I am surrounded by mountain peaks, Aspens, Pine trees and more wildflowers than I can handle without my heart feeling so full I might explode!
- For an oceanfront yoga class. One of my favorite places for beach yoga is Sayulita, Mexico. Either laying on the beach or using the blanket for sandy yoga.
Exploring new and familiar places that inspire me to practice is so fulfilling. I was just recently in Budapest for business. There is nothing more centering than having a space in your hotel room that you can make feel like a sacred space to ground and fill yourself with energy to be your best self.
Where will I go next and make a new memory of practicing meditation or yoga? Maybe Thailand where I can sit on a crystal blue shore in a magical lagoon or Guatemala at a retreat center with jungle surrounding me as I sit in meditation listening to the sweet sounds of birds high in the avocado trees.
Or even curled up somewhere with your sweetie.
Go grab your blanket, roll it up and plan your next adventure!
Article by Nichole Hull. Nichole is a massage therapist, yogi and world traveler. Her home is beautiful Lake Tahoe where she can be found stand up paddling or exploring the mountains.
Leave a comment