Carol Dimopoulos, the colorful CEO of Learning Journeys, recently returned from India. It was the latest of a dozen previous trips to India, but only the second to southern India. She came back super jazzed.
“They were happy to see foreign guests,” she said. “They believe the guest is God, you know. That’s their motto.”
Carol’s group in India received even more attention than they might have otherwise because foreign travelers are still somewhat rare in post-lockdown Southern India.
The post-lockdown recovery has been selective. Travelers are tentative as they venture out to the world again. Europe’s travel industry is well recovered. Americans are comfortable in Europe because it’s the most familiar destination outside of North America. Other regions, such as most of Asia and Latin America are lagging behind, and that includes India.
Learning Journeys’ business model is to provide educational programs that take place en route while traveling. They are classes unrestrained by classroom walls. They take place out in the world, going to the sources of things.
Founding Learning Journeys in 2012, Carol Dimopoulos married her two careers: travel and academia. She’s worked in the travel industry putting together travel groups for decades.
She also teaches college as an adjunct professor at Empire State University (formerly known as SUNY) and as an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at East Stroudsburg University. For many people, traveling is about learning. In founding Learning Journeys, Carol wanted to lean more heavily into that side of things than traditional commercial tour operators do. It is travel with an educational orientation.
Learning Journeys is well connected with travel industry networks around the world on one side and firmly based in academia on the other, with connections to a network of teachers in various specialties.
Yet, to say Carol Dimopoulos is an academic could be misleading if it causes you to imagine a stodgy professorial type. She is anything but. Her first travel experiences were as a fashion model in New York and Europe. Later she worked as an airline hostess. On her adventures around the world, as portrayed on Facebook, she cuts a dashing figure. For Carol Dimopoulos education is adventure.
On this last trip, Carol was traveling with one of her groups. Like all Learning Journeys, it was custom-designed. The company has basic tour templates, which can serve as a starting point. The basic itinerary is then modified and built to fit the needs and desires of the specific group.
“I was traveling with a group of nurses,” she told me. “I joined them because I wanted to really experience what they experience, to know what they’re looking for as learning experiences at a destination, alternative experiences.”
These were hospice nurses. “They were looking at ayurvedic medicine,” she said, “at alternative medicine, better ways to help people cope with mental health issues.”
The nurses decided to go to Southern India. That fit well with Carol’s own inclinations at the time. Learning Journeys is all about restorative travel, and Carol was due for some restoration.
“It was an incredibly moving experience,” she said. “I hadn’t been to India since the pandemic started. It was a level of excitement and joy that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I knew I had to transform or restore. In order to do that, India is my starting point.”
Carol Dimopoulos is a dedicated practitioner of yoga and a student of Asian culture and spirituality. Those, along with healing and wellness, are strong elements of the Learning Journeys culture and its offerings.
Going with the Flow
Typically, for a Learning Journeys program, the tour was based on an itinerary but, when something came up that seemed worthwhile, it would often go with the flow.
On the first night of the tour their guide, Raj, drove them up to a bunch of tents.
“We’re going to a local festival for the goddess Lakshmi,” he said. It was not on the itinerary.
“We could hear the music and smell the incense from the outside,” said Carol. “When we went in people rushed to us, the local people in the tent, to see who we were, and greeted us as if we were gods and goddesses; because they felt that our visit to this local festival was a good omen. We walked in on a very auspicious day.”
There were two tents, one for music, dancing and entertainment, and one for religious ceremony.
“In one room they had beautiful music, and a dance troop of older women were dancing these beautiful dances to the goddess in the traditional Kerala sari, which is white and gold. They were just so rhythmic and full of life.
“In the next tent, there was a priest doing puja rituals. We were invited by the priest to take part in a ceremony that involved pouring puffed rice into a bowl, which signifies abundance, good health and happiness.
“It wasn’t on the itinerary, it just popped up, but it was one of the most meaningful things. It was like this harmonious symphony of energy and lights, and faith in something unseen, yet so much part of their culture and life.”
The next day, the group went into the mountains and visited an Ayurvedic health center. Like her fellow travelers, Carol was there to learn about Ayurvedic medicine.
“I was there to heal,” she said. “We’ve all been battered by the last few years, and what we do at Learning Journeys is all about restorative, transformative travel. I am interested in spiritual work and the ayurvedic treatments that they do in Kerala.”
Amma’s Ashram
The whole program seemed serendipitous. “We wound up where needed to be when we needed to be.”
They turned up at Amma’s Ashram and got to see up close a popular spiritual leader that has hundreds of thousands of followers.
“Amma is known as the loving mother,” said Carol. “She’s known internationally. I wanted to go to her ashram, experience what life was like at Amma’s Ashram.”
And serendipity, it happened, an unplanned event.
“We were graced to be there,” said Carol. “The whole program seemed serendipitous. We wound up where we needed to be when we needed to be there.”
Amma happened to be at the ashram that night.
“We got to see her up close,” Carol said. “She’s got hundreds of thousands of followers, but when she entered the hall she was right in front of us. She was a little woman with a huge aura.
“She walked up on stage and told the story of the problems we have, of why the world is in a pickle because we forgot to listen to each other. We’re so caught up in materials and hating and separation. Unity is the only way to peace. She had a lecture on that, that lasted about two hours. It was so powerful. The impact that all of these experiences had on the nurses was great. It helps them to treat their patients, with all of this in mind.”
Learning Journeys plans to offer five India programs for 2024, five basic templates that can be used as the basis upon which to build custom programs.
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David Cogswell is a freelance writer working remotely, from wherever he is at the moment. Born at the dead center of the United States during the last century, he has been incessantly moving and exploring for decades. His articles have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, Fortune, Fox News, Luxury Travel Magazine, Travel Weekly, Travel Market Report, Travel Agent Magazine, TravelPulse.com, Quirkycruise.com, and other publications. He is the author of four books and a contributor to several others. He was last seen somewhere in the Northeast US.
