immersive tour

Founder and CEO Susan Black joins Suzanne to share some amazing travel stories from Wowzitude. Vitual tour visits is part of intellectual wellness — expanding our minds, learning — one of the 8 foundational principles of wellness, featured this month as part of the Vitality Revolution podcast series sponsored by Humana.

Susan says, "One of my favorite ones was for Anna. Anna was in her assisted living home and she mentioned to her activity director, because she knew we were going to Paris next week, that she loves Paris. She's been there many times. And as a matter of fact, her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren were going to be in Paris. What a coincidence. Well, we got to work with her activity director and guess what we did. We made sure that our guide Patrick was meeting with her family. And even though we had over 400 people, all of a sudden, we had a surprise for Anna, and there were her kids, and her grandchildren, all waving in the background, saying we love you Nana, and we're so glad that you're on our tour with us. So that was a wow moment. I have to tell you, the activity director, Cheryl, made it all happen. So we worked with people, and we try to make these wow moments. We're always connecting anniversaries, and birthdays, and red letter days, and doing shout-outs. So we're encouraging people to tell us before or during a trip what is meaningful for them."

Here more Wowzitude stories in the podcast and see more at https://wowzitude.com/travel-stories.

Podcast listeners are eligible for a special promotion. Susan says, "If you sign up before October 1st, we will give a free Christmas market special tour, to all of your listeners, and only your listeners, as a special promotion on this podcast. Sign up at https://wowzitude.com/."

Learn more:
* Wowzitude: https://wowzitude.com/
* Susan Black: https://wowzitude.com/susan-black%2C-founder
* The Vitality Revolution podcast series: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/
* Intellectual Wellness: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/intellectual-wellness/
* Humana: https://www.humana.com/
* Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/welcome-to-answers-for-elders/

Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Making connections unites us all. Wowzitude's live-stream tours with licensed guides are able to zoom into areas that regular groups can't go to. Imagine going somewhere in real life with 40 people behind you and trying to hear what the guide is saying. You also have a front-row seat at every tour. Wowzitude's founder Susan Black joins Suzanne to describe some of the destinations. It's part of Intellectual Wellness — expanding our minds, learning — one of the 8 foundational principles of wellness, featured this month as part of The Vitality Revolution podcast series sponsored by Humana.

Susan says, "Community is the most important thing for Wowzitude, it is this sense of connection. We want to mitigate social isolation. We want to connect people, whether it's intergenerational, whether it's people in our travel club... you hear the questions from the people all the time. You get to participate. It's all about connection, and we're connecting with our guides from all of these destinations, 140 destinations around the world in all. So we're connecting, to learn about what's education like. Every question you may ever have is a connection. It's a warmth. You see the guy's face and then he flips it around. So you see the beautiful areas we're walking in. So we are all about and community."

Susan adds, "It's so important to us to honor different cultures here in the United States. So for example, Black History Month, Women's History Month, all sorts of demographics, communities and groups, we celebrate them. We honor them. We believe in heritage, so we do a lot of heritage tours of every ethnicity and religion that we can think of. We tie it in and with celebration, so there's a greater understanding. But when you're connecting people and you're connecting communities around the world, that gives us such a great understanding of where people are from, and where they're coming from, and the background, and it just unites us all together."

Podcast listeners are eligible for a special promotion. Susan says, "If you sign up before October 1st, we will give a free Christmas market special tour, to all of your listeners, and only your listeners, as a special promotion on this podcast. Sign up at https://wowzitude.com/."

Learn more:
* Wowzitude: https://wowzitude.com/
* Susan Black: https://wowzitude.com/susan-black%2C-founder
* The Vitality Revolution podcast series: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/
* Intellectual Wellness: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/intellectual-wellness/
* Humana: https://www.humana.com/
* Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/welcome-to-answers-for-elders/

Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Take virtual tours of 140 destinations at Wowzitude, expanding your mind through exposure to new cultures via immersive live-stream experiences. Founder and CEO Susan Black joins Suzanne to describe some of the destinations. It's part of intellectual wellness — expanding our minds, learning — one of the 8 foundational principles of wellness, featured this month as part of the Vitality Revolution podcast series sponsored by Humana.

The trips come with trip kits. Susan says, "We love our trip kits. First we started with recipes. Each of our recipes is submitted by each of our guides, our, our 97 guides. So it's a family recipe, or it's a recipe that they have from one of the restaurants they bring us to. Can you imagine we actually go to a bakery in Porto, to see how they're making the very famous custards that they're known for? The baker has given us this great recipe to follow. So we try to tie this in, because who doesn't love to eat and tour at the same time? We have downloadable music, and by the way, the music can be upbeat or it can just get you in the mood, and we always start our tours with music, and slide shows, and everything else to get people in the mood. But we give that music in our trip kits. We also have book recommendations, so that you can do a reading group around it. You can have book club around it. We want to get groups together... movies. If you just want to have an immersion, that it's either filmed in that location, or it's about that location. And of course, fun facts. Some maps, and we love sustainable travel. So what that place is doing in terms of sustainability, and responsible travel, all that goodness in a single tour."

Wowzitude is working with research groups to assess the benefits to our wellness, our curiosity, and sense of purpose. Susan says, "We've actually done surveys and we're working with two different research groups right now to see what the benefits are, what all this good stuff means to people. Once they go on a live-stream tour, they're able to engage. Even if you listen to other people's questions — you don't just have to ask your own — oftentimes your question's being asked, but it's very immersive and engaging, and what that level of group engagement means to wellness, to your mood. We're in the process right now of doing a full evidence-based research about the effects, particularly on older adults."

Podcast listeners are eligible for a special promotion. Susan says, "If you sign up before October 1st, we will give a free Christmas market special tour, to all of your listeners, and only your listeners, as a special promotion on this podcast. Sign up at https://wowzitude.com/."

Learn more:
* Wowzitude: https://wowzitude.com/
* Susan Black: https://wowzitude.com/susan-black%2C-founder
* The Vitality Revolution podcast series: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/
* Intellectual Wellness: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/intellectual-wellness/
* Humana: https://www.humana.com/
* Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/welcome-to-answers-for-elders/

Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wowzitude Founder and CEO Susan Black joins Suzanne to talk about continuing to be culturally curious in our senior years, by taking virtual tours to 140 locations across the world. It's part of intellectual wellness — expanding our minds, learning — one of the 8 foundational principles of wellness, featured this month as part of The Vitality Revolution podcast series sponsored by Humana.

Susan says, "These are live-stream guided walking tours. The way we work it is, our guides have a stabilizer called a Gimble and a camera, and everything that they see you see live, while it's happening. It's not a television program, it's not video. It is a live-stream walking tour. And to make it even more immersive, everyone can ask questions in real time. We only do group tours. We have the same people on our tours all the time, because it's a subscription service. We go to 140 different locations, places from cities that everybody loves. Rome, Paris, New York City, all the way to off-the-beaten-track. As a matter of fact, we're doing a tour to Machu Picchu. So if you didn't think you could climb Machu Picchu, we'll be in Peru doing that. So all the places that people have perhaps visited, and want to revisit, or places that they've always wanted to go, and ask questions about... And it's doing it with a group, so you're always hearing other people's questions. You're part of this great travel club and we meet twice every week. We do eight or 10 tours every month, whether it's four weeks or five week-months. We have trip kits that go with each one. So there's book, movie recommendations, recipes, maps, fun facts, all things to become even more immersive, but to really, really inspire you and get your mind clicking.

Susan explains how the trips stimulate our minds. "We always say, we really cater to the culturally curious, which never ends at any age, because we talk about food, and we talk about what it's like to grow up there, and we ask questions, and we're learning from the locals, and we're hearing them. And they're the questions that our audience wants to ask. No two tours are alike, they're all unscripted. So we are expanding the mind in terms of learning something new every single day. So every trip, you're always gonna learn something new: politically, what's happening with the economy... You might read about it in the papers, but isn't it fantastic to talk to a local about what's happening now?"

Podcast listeners are eligible for a special promotion. Susan says, "If you sign up before October 1st, we will give a free Christmas market special tour, to all of your listeners, and only your listeners, as a special promotion on this podcast. Sign up at https://wowzitude.com/."

Learn more:
* Wowzitude: https://wowzitude.com/
* Susan Black: https://wowzitude.com/susan-black%2C-founder
* The Vitality Revolution podcast series: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/
* Intellectual Wellness: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/intellectual-wellness/
* Humana: https://www.humana.com/
* Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/welcome-to-answers-for-elders/

Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.