Ayurveda

How to Choose a Vacation for Your Dosha Type

How to Choose a Vacation for Your Dosha Type
Knowing your Ayurvedic mind body type is about honoring yourself and your true nature. It also helps you learn how to balance your health and your life. Just as there are different types of foods and exercise to balance your dosha, you can also pick leisure activities and vacations to enhance wellness.

Here are some recommendations for choosing a vacation that’s right for your dosha.

Vata: Variety, Warmth, and Grounding

Vata types typically want the adventurous vacation, such as seeing a new city every day or exploring 10 different sites in 10 hours. While variety of sights, sounds, and experiences can be great for Vata, it can also be exhausting. When a Vata is constantly on the go on a vacation, he will come home and feel he needs another vacation.

Ideally, a nourishing vacation for Vata is an all-inclusive resort in a warmer climate. As a Vata type, you will have the feeling of being grounded by staying in one hotel while being able to foster your need for adventure by taking day excursions or trying different activities daily.

Vata types also do well with spiritual retreats and meditation retreats. In a retreat setting, you are able to nourish your natural ability to connect with people, honor your creative and spiritual sides, and enjoy activities such as yoga, meditation, and prayer, which will help balance out Vata.

Pitta: Sporting Activities, Cool Weather, and Bodies of Water

No matter what a Pitta does, he or she needs to feel a sense of accomplishment. Since Pittas don’t like to waste their time, he or she will likely maximize vacation time.

A perfect vacation idea for a Pitta type is a ski trip in the mountains. The heat of Pitta will love the cold weather. Skiing and snowboarding provides activity with a dose of healthy competition between other people or with himself.

A Pitta type might also enjoy organizing, planning, and executing a trip abroad. The planning would be exhilarating for a Pitta, as well as scheduling each day of the trip. If you are in this travel party and don’t mind someone else taking the lead, you will be happy with the results, provided that you like waking up in the wee hours of the morning.

Lastly, Pitta types do extremely well near bodies of water. Swimming and water sports are excellent for balancing Pitta. A fishing trip on the lake, a camping trip by a mountain stream, or deep sea diving in the ocean can make a Pitta feel right at home.

Kapha: Hikes, Movie Sets, and People Watching

Endurance and stamina are words that describe Kapha energy. However, you have to move Kaphas out of their comfy home first. Once you convince your Kapha friend to go on vacation with you, he or she is likely to be a great travel companion.

For one, Kaphas are easy going. They won’t get easily ruffled if a plane is delayed or the hotel room isn’t ready. Next, Kaphas are great to take to a national park for long hikes because he or she won’t get too tired, as long as you let them have their eight to nine hours of sleep each night.

Since Kapha types often like to cuddle up with a good book or watch a favorite television series, Kaphas might love going on a tour of a movie set such as the Harry Potter tour in London, the Lost tour in Hawaii, or the Lord of the Rings tour in New Zealand.

Your Kapha friend will not want to see a hundred different things in a day, but will enjoy sitting at a local café with a sweet treat and people watching. He or she will certainly help you slow down and enjoy your vacation by stopping to smell the roses or picking blackberries off a bush.

Tri-Doshic Vacations

Let’s face it, you will likely travel with more people than yourself. So, how do you keep all dosha types happy?

The first step is to recognize that you’re not all going to enjoy the same things in the same way, and to respect that. For example, if you’re a Vata type and on a ski vacation, it might not be your idea of bliss. Explain to your travel companions that you probably won’t ski as long as they will because you’ll get too cold. You might even bow out after an hour or two, get a hot cocoa and find a warm fireplace to enjoy.

If you’re a Vata type attending a yoga retreat with a Pitta companion, you might need to understand that your Pitta partner may enter into an unannounced competition with you. He or she might even attend every single meditation and yoga session from dawn to dusk, and then boast about how many sessions they’ve attended.

And if you’re at Disney with your Kapha family member, you may find them content to be sitting on the sidelines watching the parades, and you’ll need to believe that he or she actually is happy just sitting there.

Lastly, remember to enjoy your vacation, create memories, be lighthearted, and laugh, even in the difficult moments. Laughter is the one element that unites us all, no matter your personality or mind-body type.

Discover your Dosha