Flightster

The Soul Searching Travelers of the Pura Vida Hostel

• by Srinivas Rao
• on March 15th, 2011
• 1 Comment

At the age of 32, there’s only one thing I’m truly certain of.  At the age of 22  I saw the world in a completely different light. Lauren Rain’s once asked if the world travelers were running from something and concluded that they weren’t.  You’d think at my age the last place I’d want to be is in a hostel. But, when you consider that fact I’m a solo traveler, even if I wasn’t traveling on a budget, I’d probably still stay in a hostel because it’s the most social environment accessible to any traveler.

Hostels seem to bring  different breeds of travelers, especially the Pura Vida Hostel in Tamarindo, Costa Rica.  There was me,  the 32 year old blogger/digital nomad, the HR professional who decided to unplug from the corporate life, the recent college grads who were lost, uninspired and looking for answers through their travels, and the hostel manager who had been hanging out in Costa Rica for the last 10 months.  The surfers were immediately drawn to each other as you’d  expect given the tribe, its members and their subculture.  When most people think of hostels, they think of sleepless nights, loud parties, and rowdy travelers.  The Pura Vida seems to be on the other end of the spectrum where  the party centers around a few beers and exchanging stories, with the wild nightlife going on outside its doors.

As we opened our beers and started to exchange stories, one thing became clear. Everybody, whether they were there for a short stint or  long term travel was there to do a bit of soul searching.  Sometimes in life we lose our way and even along the scenic route we can’t help but wonder if we’re really going to find any answers in our adventure. It’s been said before that the journey is the destination  and in all my travels the the best of stories rarely have anything to do with the destination, but everything do with journey itself.  I can’t help but wonder if the travelers will find the answers and return home inspired, and ready to take on the world with a different view on life, or this just was just a momentary escape, unplugged from the matrix that we all live in. I’ve unplugged with all my travels and for some reason I’ve been driven by a desire to completely pull the plug on life inside the box in pursuit of a greater purpose. What is that purpose? I’m not sure. But I know it involves, waves, warm weather, people from around the world, and stories that leave footprints in the imagination that will last a lifetime.

Srinivas Rao

Srinivas is an avid surfer and personal development blogger at The Skool of Life. He's also the host and co-founder of BlogcastFM, a podcast for bloggers.