Catherine Gleason is a young, successful women living in New York City, who offered to submit an entry on her personal experience traveling with Escape To Shape. Many thanks, Catherine!

I don’t know how else to describe Escape to Shape other than to say it’s like going to stay with your incredibly cool sister and her boyfriend in an exotic city for a week where they know everyone and every thing that’s worth knowing.  I’ve now done two of their trips (Cartagena and Marrakech) and while each one is different and unique to the location, there are some staples: a beautiful house, amazing food, great yoga, a packed itinerary, and fantastic company.  And despite the fact Erica and Francesco put a ton of effort into making sure each of their trips are flawless and that they’ve secured only the best of the best of everything, you’d never know it as a guest – they make everything seem just that easy.  Looking for a good spa in town?  They’ve been to a great one – should they make you a reservation? Want a hotel recommendation for your extra night?  There is a perfect one right in town and they know the owners.  Decided you want to take the afternoon away from the group and do some shopping?  They’ll get a driver to take you.  Want to do dinner in town one night? They know just the perfect spot – and when you get home, you’ll see it’s given five starts in every magazine.

The locations for Escape to Shape are always a big draw for me, but at the end of the day it is always really important to me who I travel with – after all what good is the location, if your company is aweful?  The only thing I can say is that so far I’ve met a number of incredibly smart, accomplished and adventurous women (yes, both of the trips I did were all women) from all sorts of backgrounds.  I’ve met women in finance, non-profit, law, consulting, design and decorating and each has her own fascinating story to share.  Most of the women come on their own, although the mother/daughter combo seems to be fairly common as well.  Whether you come alone or with a group though, I think the type of person who comes to a trip like this is very inclusive and if you’re on your own, you won’t feel ever feel like it.

Now about the “Shape” part…  this originally scared me – a lot.  I was a afraid I’d spend the entire week starving, so as embarrassed as I am to say this, I’ll admit I snuck a few snacks in my suitcase, just in case…  Luckily for me, Erica’s theme when it comes to the food part seems to be more about moderation and portion control, rather than starvation.  I’m not going to lie, there were definitely a couple of times when I would have killed for a piece of chocolate, but there were always healthy snacks lying around if we were hungry.  Some of the women seem to take the heath part of the trip very seriously, while others much less so.  As with everything else on the trip, it’s up to you which side you fall on…

Speaking of optionality, while every activity on these trips is completely 100% optional, there are some things not to be missed.  In each location Erica and Francesco arrange for the group to enjoy some of the local attractions.  In Cartagena, my favorite day was when we took a lava bath in a volcano followed by a scrub down by some locals in the near-by river.  I’ve never heard so many grown women giggle!  And in Marrakech it was a daylong hike through the Atlas mountains – complete with home-cooked French fries – that did it for me.  But really the stories I remember most were the unplanned things that happened.  There was the boat ride when we got stuck in a storm that left all of us huddled under a small canopy laughing as we tried to keep dry.  There was the rogue masseuse which spurred hours of discussion around the dinner table.  There was the guide who surprised us with a “Happy Congratulations” cake his mom had made for us.   There was an impromptu visit to a school in a small Moroccan village.  Each of these experiences is why I do these trips.

I signed up for my first Escape to Shape on a whim, and I am so happy I did!  So far I have been able to explore two fantastically exotic cities that I wouldn’t have otherwise had the nerve to travel to by myself and I’ve found the perfect balance of luxury, health and adventure that I know will always include a great group of people!