Over time, I had slowly surrendered more and more of my attention, creativity, presence, intuition, and aliveness to screens.
Hi, my name is Laura.
For nearly a decade, I co-owned and operated an international travel company that brought hundreds of guests across more than two dozen countries around the world.
We crafted deeply immersive journeys rooted in nature, culture, awe, and human connection. I watched travel crack people open in beautiful ways again and again. The right environment could shift something deep within.
But as much as I relished in the experiences I was providing for others, the pressure cooker I’d created for myself began to take its toll.
Running an ambitious travel company, especially through the chaos of the pandemic years, pushed me into a level of burnout and nervous system exhaustion I didn’t fully understand at the time. I was living in Austin then, surrounded by constant stimulation, yet feeling strangely disconnected from my own life.
And like so many people, I could feel my relationship with technology making it worse.
Even after moving back to Costa Rica, immersed in a natural paradise and surrounded by rainforest and waterfalls, I could still feel the constant digital noise quietly chipping away at my inner world.
So I finally gave myself something I desperately needed: a full week completely unplugged from technology.
No phone. No laptop. No notifications. No endless stream of inputs.
And unlike many people who might feel apprehensive about unplugging, I felt practically euphoric handing my phone away.
I was so sick of the version of myself that felt compulsive, distracted, and constantly pulled away from the life directly in front of me.
I yearned for relief.
Like the proverbial lobster in boiling water…
Over time, like so many of us, I had slowly surrendered more and more of my attention, creativity, presence, intuition, and aliveness to screens.
I could feel how it was reshaping who I was.
My attention span felt fractured. My mind no longer felt fully my own. I hated how compulsively I reached for my phone, how often I would get pulled into loops that left me feeling drained afterward.
And underneath all of it, I began hearing my own inner voice again with a clarity I hadn’t experienced in years. The deeper knowing beneath the noise. The intuition that modern life had slowly drowned out.
After years of world travel, retreats, workshops, and healing experiences, that unplugged week alone in the rainforest became one of the most transformative experiences of my life.
I stayed in the same glass-walled treehouse where our Solo Reset and Couples Reset take place. And there, my days became beautifully simple. I walked to waterfalls each morning. Started the day in cool river water. Read voraciously. Cooked nourishing meals. Practiced guitar. Drew. Wrote in my journal. Sat in silence for long stretches doing absolutely nothing.
I remembered what boredom used to give me: imagination, reflection, clarity, intuition.
The idea for Unplugged Travels had already begun taking root before that week. I already had a sense how desperately this kind of experience was needed. The world was becoming louder, faster, more distracted, more exhausted, yet almost nobody was creating spaces specifically designed to support people so they could truly unplug for long enough that deep shifts could take root.
But during my own screen-free week, it fully landed in my body. I knew with absolute certainty that this was medicine people were starving for.
A week devoted not to escaping, but returning to yourself, your relationships and the world around you.