Hey guys. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Amanda. I'm Laura. I'm Kendra. And today we have a special guest. We are so excited because Ari Rasori is here. She's a nurse practitioner who has worked in the emergency department before, and she's become a friend over the past couple of years. We originally met her at the ACEP Scientific Assembly a few years ago, I think after noticing her super cute booth full of so many relics from all of her travels and at the time we honestly had been talking like, "We need to do a trip or something like that," and then all of a sudden, boop, there was Ari. So we were hooked and started planning a collaboration immediately.
We are so happy to have her join us today to tell her story of growing up in the global health mission field to switching career paths to working in the ED to starting and building her own successful travel planning business. She's an absolute boss and we're honored to call her a friend. Welcome Ari. Thank you for being here today.
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Yeah. We're glad you're here today, Ari, and we're so excited about this podcast 'cause we're gonna have a special announcement at the end. Mm-hmm. But why don't you kick us off by telling us a little bit about yourself, your training, why you got into planning and hosting international and domestic retreats. But after you see the website, we don't ask those questions anymore, but tell us all about it.
Yeah. Sure. Well, thank you. I'm really excited to be on this podcast. I just wanna say I love what you all are doing. Especially just leading trips and retreats the last 10 years. There's such a need right now for wellness and all the tools we can get for burnout. So I just love what you're doing and it aligns so much with the heart of what we are about at MedTreks. So, yeah, my name's Ari Rasori and I'm a nurse practitioner. Grew up in California originally. Kind of had a unique background in this travel medicine, kind of cross-cultural collaboration.
My dad is a physician, my mom's a nurse, and so while they were working clinically, they also ran a side company that was a travel company with our family, a family business essentially. So I grew up in the eighties traveling to Nepal, Peru, Kenya. Had a pretty unique childhood doing things in a cross-cultural global health setting. My dad was a consultant for global health and slowly started kind of running his own trips a lot of the times for medical professionals. And so I grew up the last like 40 years spent traveling and really discovered my love for travel, but also travel that combines some type of purpose.
And I think when you are a medical professional, a lot of us are called to some type of medicine that is giving back, whether that's in the clinic, but also maybe in like a different country—humanitarian medicine, disaster relief or wilderness medicine. And so growing up in this, in this family that I did, I really just developed this passion for learning about all these different cultures and all these different ways we can do cross-cultural collaboration, but also the art of bringing medical professionals overseas and making them feel comfortable and safe and kind of hosting and creating experiences that are done really well.
So that's kind of my background. I was in pre-med in then 2006 I was in Kenya by myself, volunteering and kind of decided I knew that I wanted to create a little side business as well, similar to my family with like a little bit of a different focus. Definitely a wellness focus specifically to some of the retreats that we do. And it took me a few years to get it up and running. It took me about 10 years. Fast forward. I went to NP school and yeah, spent the last 15 years in the ER. I work on call now, but I was working full-time in the ER for 10 years as a nurse practitioner. And had my company very small—MedTreks—starting in 2017, we were running about three trips a year. I was using my vacations to run these trips 'cause I didn't get a lot of time off in the ER. I'd bunch my shifts up and then I'd go take people to Kenya or take people on a rafting trip.
And yeah, I think just over time really realized that there is a lot of excitement and enthusiasm from the medical community to do really cool things and use our skillset and learn. But also there's this like camaraderie that happens when you get a group of medical professionals on a trip together. No one really has to explain how hard my life is because we all get it, you know, the pressures from our work. And so it's just a very easy way into this like, like-minded community of people that just immediately get you. So the more I've done this, the more I realize I love it.
And specifically I was working full-time during the pandemic in the COVID tent and realized, "Oh my gosh, maybe now's the time to start building my dream" as I was also experiencing burnout for the first time. I've always prided myself on feeling like I knew how to deal with the stresses of the emergency room. You know, I always found ways to move my body and eat well, and I felt like I was starting to struggle too. And so I pulled back and started growing a travel company when the whole world was locking down. Wasn't the best business decision you could probably argue, but yeah, we slowly started adding trips and fast forward six years, we've got 22 trips across six continents, and take about 250 people across the world a year. And they are primarily, I would say 80% physicians. And then we get a good chunk of NPs, PAs, and some nurses, and some EMTs as well.
That is amazing, Ari. I love it too because you pointed out something that I want to reiterate because while you said it best, you were moving your body, you were eating well, you were taking care of yourself the way that you thought was optimizing you, but you still felt the pressures and that's what's amazing about how insidious burnout can be. But I love how you said, "Well, I'm gonna take a step back and this aligns with my values and I'm gonna go full force." And it really wasn't about what it looked like on the outside because you said, "Yeah, everyone's shutting down for COVID and I'm planning a travel business." It doesn't matter, you know? It doesn't matter. It aligned with everything that brought you joy and lit you up and just gave you a new spark, motivation, whatever you wanna say. And now that seed that was planted back then, you have this amazing opportunity and we're excited to partner with you.
And I just wanna reiterate before we get into what is MedTreks International, this quote from your website, I love it. I feel like it hits the nail on the head, but "Being in medicine is very rewarding, but it can also be tiring and depleting. My hope is that these trips provide people with a fun and purposeful way to reconnect with the art of medicine and spark a new zest for life while discovering deep wellness through adventure and human connection across boundaries and borders." That's awesome. I love it.
So tell us about MedTreks International. Hmm. Yeah. So we are a, I would say small boutique adventure company designed specifically for medical professionals. Now you know a little bit about my background, you know, working in the ER and growing up in a family of medical professionals. So I kind of live and breathe and work medicine as well. And also have worked for a global health program in Kenya for the last 25 years. So I'm very passionate and feel very pulled towards humanitarian medicine and global health and volunteer work as well. But yeah, we're a travel company designed for medical professionals.
And then we pair those adventures with continuing medical education, CME, category one CME. So all of our trips have some type of course offered. We offer about five different courses now. And typically these are courses—as of right now, they're in medical topics that are, I like to say outside of the hospital walls. So it's like wilderness medicine, global health, travel medicine. It's learning how to take care of people with very limited resources. You get to learn wilderness medicine tricks like if you're out on a hike with your family and your child falls and breaks its leg and all you have is sticks and a t-shirt. How do you effectively assess that patient or your loved one or someone that's in your group without any crash cart or vital sign machine or all these resources that we're very used to in regular healthcare here in the United States, I guess I should say.
And so I find that people are really drawn to this type of medicine because it really falls back into that like art of medicine, of like, is this patient sick? I've got very limited resources. I've gotta think quickly here. I'm out of my element. And I feel like, especially emergency medicine providers feel very called to this type of training just because it's what they do day in and day out.
And so we pair the education side of things with a really neat adventure. I'll say we are definitely a travel company primarily. And we partner with a lot of expert faculty that teach these courses. So like for example, The Whole Physician, you guys are the experts in what you do. We're gonna partner with you, so you bring in your expertise. Specifically with wilderness medicine, we have faculty that write textbooks on wilderness medicine. They come in and they'll be one of the hosts and the faculty for our entire trip, and they will teach two to three hours a day. And then the rest of the time people just get to enjoy their experience.
We spend a lot of time designing these tours. We do not just purchase these tours as like bulk products. We don't sign up for a huge, you know, 5,000 person yacht and go and just reserve cabins, I'll say. They're very curated. They're very hands-on. We have a team of like four of us in the background that are constantly designing logistics and basically helping people from start to finish of their whole like vacation process, their CME vacation process.
I mentioned we do six continents, 20 different trips a year. These range from private yacht trips in the Galapagos to wellness surf retreats in Panama and Costa Rica to wildlife safaris in Kenya and hiking trips in the Dolomites and Peru. And so we kind of do a lot of different things and I feel very lucky that I grew up in a travel family that's been exposed to a lot of different types of travel. And also recognize that we work really hard as medical professionals. And I think that we also wanna travel in a certain way that's meaningful and purposeful. And I want people to feel safe and comfortable and know that we're doing our due diligence on the backend to make sure we're partnering with companies, whether they're women-owned companies or more sustainable companies, ecologically, you know, ecologically minded. But also that we keep our trips to a certain standard knowing that these are, sometimes, this is like the one vacation that a physician's gonna take in their year, and specifically we'll mention our retreat later on in this podcast. But, you know, these places are very, we keep 'em to a standard of like four and five star hotels, really good food, so people know when they come on a trip that they are very well taken care of.
Well, and I love it that this is probably the recipe for success 'cause like you said, part of burnout is making too many decisions. So the only decision you have to make is go to the website and put your name and credit card in and boom. So that is definitely promoting wellness, I'm sure. And I would say it's so cool to see that you have created this 'cause I think a lot of us would look at what you're doing and "Wow, like what a dream job you have created for yourself." It's just really inspiring Ari and for listeners, I'm sure you can pick up on Ari's vibe. She's just amazing. And I just, no, like, seriously, that's one of the things that attracted—we're very sensitive to vibe people—that attracted us to her. You know, she's just got such a great light and warmth about her.
So I haven't been on any of her trips yet, but I'm so excited. And I'm just curious, what are some of the benefits that you have either heard or noticed or know about that people experience going to a retreat?
Hmm. Yeah, we kind of talked about it earlier. I think a lot of us in healthcare know how to take care of ourselves. We've studied it, right? We know like how to eat well and I think that there is a little bit of a disconnect when we are in the medical profession because we're trained so much to take care of other people and put ourselves second and it's a good thing because it makes us really good at our job and you know, we show up so well for other people. And when we are asked to show up for ourselves, I think a lot of us in healthcare really struggle with that, even though we know kind of how to do it. It's hard to really take that step and not feel guilty or feel like, "Oh no, I'm fine. I'm strong. I can deal with this. I can show up for work, I can show up for my family. I can juggle all the things with life." And then it does get to a point, and it's kind of a slow creep, you know, of like creeping in, of like little things over time where you're like, "Oh, wow."
So I say that because having lived it and watching on these trips, people that come, it's just this really awesome opportunity. It is just this invitation to completely remove yourself from your environment, which I think is a really potent like container for people to like just completely reset. And especially speaking of like the retreat experience, like you've got seven nights, eight days in like a tropical place to like really work on yourself. All you really have to do is like sleep, eat and choose what workshops you wanna go to and if you wanna go to the beach or not. And you know, when you start blending these like vacation experiences with some type of like purpose, whether it's like coaching or learning, continuing medical education, I think it's a neat twist that kinda like anchors people to the experience so they just don't feel like, "Oh, I'm just going on a vacation." "I'm also like doing something professionally and personally" and it just has that like added benefit.
So I think a lot of people first say, "I'm so glad that I did this for myself." We hear that all the time—really hard to take that time away and really give themselves that reset. Like maybe, yes, you've got yoga class scheduled, you know, on your book, on your calendar for the week, but then like, you know, life comes up and maybe you have to cancel, and this is like an eight day opportunity for you to fully just work on yourself and show up for yourself, whatever that means. It could mean just, you know, sitting by the pool all day and reading a book and some people do that and that's great. Everything's welcome. But I think really having this like dedicated time is super potent for people and I find that it shifts a lot of people.
And it's been really fun to see that benefit and to see people roll into these retreats on day one, kind of seeming pretty fried, running on empty. I've been there so I'm not judging, but I see it all the time. And then slowly throughout the days you'll see like their facial muscles are like relaxed and their shoulders drop and the smile comes more spontaneously. And then by the end of the retreat people are often saying, I hear the quote like, "I feel like I've come back to myself," is what I hear like a lot more. I love that. Especially I think physicians, especially women, especially mothers, you know, again, having this like unapologetic time for yourself when other people are doing it and also saying, "Yeah, this was hard to do. I had to like say bye family," you know, and things. And so like there's again this shared understanding with the group of other people being like, "Yeah, this was kind of at first hard to take and we're so glad we did it." I love that.
So what are some things that people say? What's some of the feedback that you've received from people after you've hosted these trips?
Yeah, I think a lot of comments are around "coming back to myself," and I find that a lot of people are coming on these trips feeling like they just lost—they say they either lose like a little bit of just who they were or they lose their spark or their joy for medicine. That like zest is not there when they started, when they graduated from medical school, you know, they had all these big dreams. And then, you know, 10 years into it, it's just like, there's just not that same feeling. And kind of just like I think the spark is what a lot of people refer to. They maybe say it in a different way, but just kind of feeling like a little bit in a rut. And I think this like out of their normal physical environment and out of the daily grind is like a really unique reset for people. And they'll often say you know, "I didn't think I needed this as much as I did." That's another one that a lot of people say. Had no, you know, kind of, again, kind of thought they were like keeping it together pretty well, but it sounded like a cool opportunity. And then wham, they're like, "Wow, I actually really needed this."
I think that we get a lot of people just sharing that this shouldn't be something that's just like a one-time thing. This should be a regular, almost like a maintenance thing for people. Yeah, and I'm speaking more specifically to retreats, but in a way, a lot of our trips are like, even though they're not retreats, I think of them as a retreat. They're like a way for people to step outside of the hustle of medicine and like, you know, kind of be in a different environment, a different culture, get a different perspective. And I think a lot of people just return home being like, "Okay, like, yeah, where are my values? Where do I wanna put my energy forward or my next foot forward?" I think a lot of people also realize like maybe they don't need to be working full full-time in medicine. Maybe they can still bring in like a side hustle or a side passion, and that's been kind of fun for people to discover a little bit on our trips as well.
So yeah, I think those are just like some of the comments and really people just being like, "I need this regularly, like at least once a year." And so that's reassuring. We get a lot of people returning, which is great. We get a ton of alumni coming on our trips over and over again, which makes me feel like we're doing something good or we're doing something well. Right. Yeah. But I also just wanna say, you know, going back to this burnout and back to like me running my dream job—also hard and I also have like been up against burnout in this business because I am a medical professional. I don't have a background in business. And I will just say again, I love what you all are doing. Early on, I hired a coach to kind of help me, you know, and that has been instrumental in keeping me like focused and aligned with my values and running my company in a way that feels good and doesn't burn me out.
And so again, I love like the idea of a retreat, but also having that continuity of like coaching and care afterwards because I will say one of the things that people do sometimes need help with is after the retreat, they often feel okay, "But now what?" We had this amazing experience together—usually the groups bond so well and then, you know, they go back to their lives and they need a little bit of help to kind of figure out how to like integrate back into their normal lives. And I just feel like, you know, fast forward to our retreat together and having The Whole Physician team being there as a support after the fact, not just during the retreat, it's gonna be really special and very much needed and appreciated for people. So we're so excited. So it's a good segue.
There's a quote that we refer to often, it's by Alexander Heyne: "You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you." And I don't know if getting the CME or the purpose behind the trip is what enables people to finally let themselves do something for themselves. But what I'm hearing you say is that people come back from these things having found a spark, having found themselves again, getting that light back. And I love that.
So when we met you several years ago, we all thought to ourselves, "We have to do something together. We need to do something like that." And I'm excited because it's happening. Yes. I feel like I've already been talking about it. I'm like so excited. Yeah. Gosh, I feel like this has been almost, I feel like it was three years ago maybe, that we met and have been planning this, so finally happening and so exciting.
We are doing a Whole Physician retreat in Nosara, Costa Rica this November, November 7th through 14th. So it's a seven night retreat, all inclusive but not your typical all inclusive resort. This is in a very neat pocket. It's on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica, about two hour drive from Liberia Airport, which is a really sweet small, easy airport, direct flights from LAX. And very easy to travel to. Nosara. We take care of all the logistics and yeah, this is gonna be a really neat experience. It's hosted at Bodhi Tree Yoga Resort which we have had several years. I should back up and just say MedTreks runs a trip here every single year. And that says a lot because we don't often return year after year. We kind of cycle through our destinations and there's very few destinations that we run every year, and I just find that Nosara has this perfect balance of feeling like it's just total vacation, tropical, wonderful vacation, but also a lot of comfort. It's got a lot of great like restaurants and cute shops and just like a nice surf vibe, but also it's got a very nice expatriate community there as well. And just people feel really comfortable and they feel like they could just kind of come alive in this community.
There's a huge theme of wellness. It has had a lot of yoga history there, so it's very well known as like a yoga wellness location in the world. It's also in the blue zone of the Nicoya Peninsula, so people are often drawn there because of it being in a blue zone and it's just a really special place. So Bodhi Tree I'll talk quickly about is our venue there. It's a lovely yoga resort. It's about a five minute walk from the three mile white sand beach. We're tucked up in the jungle but very close to the ocean. And it's just this beautiful kind of Balinese inspired venue that has just beautiful rooms. It's got about three pools. It's got four beautiful yoga shalas all throughout the jungle. Some have ocean views. Just an amazing way to wake up and practice yoga or do a workshop. It's got a fitness center. It's got a spin studio, Pilates studio, a med spa. So it's got like everything, but it doesn't feel like it's this huge resort. I feel like they've designed it really well. I know the owner and he's just done a phenomenal job with it and the service and the attention to detail by the staff, you'll just feel so well taken care of.
And yeah, this retreat I'll let the team share a little bit more, but really excited after running this for so many years. Again, I think there has been a request to have even more deeper workshops and like wellness and burnout and like how do we kinda reset ourselves a little bit and then how do we continue that after the retreat? And I think that's where The Whole Physician team is gonna come in and just be amazing. And I think it's gonna be a very valuable experience for people. I will say that the CME is an important aspect. I think it can help with reimbursement, it can help with whatever write offs, whatever people need. But I have people returning over and over again that don't get CME. This is really an investment for yourself and I think that that's really important to point out. I started now going on once a year yoga retreats just for myself and business and like taking that time and I'm not able to, you know, get CME for those, but I realize this is an investment for myself and that's what it is. And if you show up with just like an open mind, I can pretty confidently say it's gonna change your life one way or another and usually always for the good. So, yeah, very excited about this retreat.
Yeah, it's gonna be amazing. It is going to be amazing. Some logistics though is like food and shelter is provided, yoga is provided, physician wellness topics we will be touching on while we're there. CME. Yes. Trying to think of any other logistics people would need to know. How about this? We'll include in the show notes, the link where people can go to learn more and sign up, reserve their spot if they want to. But yeah, I'm so looking forward to this. This is gonna be amazing.
Before we wrap, this is gonna be amazing just from the standpoint of obviously we have collaborated with a world traveler that definitely can nail all the details. But what is gonna make this one special for all of our listeners is just that part that Ari was talking about. We will connect during this week. We are going to provide some, you know, workshops and learning opportunities and share some real time relevant stuff that you can go back home with and, you know, every person that signs up for this trip will have access to our Wellness 911 course. And that's the piece I think that's really gonna benefit you once you leave, because you'll have access to the course which is an amazing amount of material. But the good news is you get to pick and choose. You'll have, you know, plenty of time to go through it. But what is so neat is from that you'll realize, you know, "Okay, I was awakened on this trip and I have reconnected with myself," and then you will have your guidebook and that is what our course will offer or will add to it. And then, you know, a chance to meet up with a coach and just explore these opportunities, but more so not just the accountability, but then just that continuous, you know, connection with what you experienced that week in Costa Rica and carry it through so that those new awakenings, maybe the side hustle or that business you always wanted, or whatever, that will be nurtured and you will have someone guiding you along the way and walking you through the process and just keeping everything on track. Super cool.
So Ari, before we wrap up, are there any last thoughts?
I will just say if there's any listeners that's like, "This sounds good, I just have some more questions or anything," feel free to share my information. You guys will share the link to the retreat page, but I'm always happy to chat. Like I said, I've been down to Costa Rica, you know, yearly for the last 15 years and it's just a really, really special experience. So if you are sitting here listening and thinking, "Gosh, it'd just be great to have like an opportunity to kind of reset," this is a really unique opportunity and I do think with The Whole Physician team it's gonna be such a valuable opportunity to kind of just like look at life, work, everything, and reset and have some support with that. And a community of people that understand and get it as well, which is really important. You don't often get that on other retreats that don't have a medical community.
So yeah, I'm just really excited, but happy to answer any further questions that people have. And yeah, I think we're also gonna do a $200 off discount, right, early bird that we'll put in the show notes as well. So Restore26. Yeah. Yeah. So if you have listened to this podcast and you're like, "Sign me up, where do I click?" We'll run this special for all of February, and like Amanda said, we'll include the link to the website so you can learn more about the trip and MedTreks International on their website and then Ari's contact information. But yes, if you're ready to go, we'll have an early bird special. The coupon code is RESTORE26, and you can get a discount for the month of February.
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