
Photo by Chris Eckert
Ten years. It’s not accidental that we humans are fascinated with years ending in zero. A decade is long enough to have a perspective, and usually one that stands the test of time. Now, with more than 20 percent of my life spent enthralled by (and sometimes in thrall to) Wanderlust, I have a perspective. Unsurprisingly, it’s not the one I started out with.
Wanderlust (the concept) was born out of a few currents swirling around my fellow co-founders and me back in the late aughts. Schuyler (Grant)—my college friend and spouse of Jeff (Krasno), my partner in a startup music company—had gotten the yoga bug years earlier, after dance and a childhood injury left her with a wonky back. Yoga worked its magic, and she launched the quirkily-named Kula Yoga Project upstairs from our Tribeca music offices. Upstairs yoga led to destination yoga retreats in Costa Rica, where, much to our surprise, a jungle yoga retreat turned out to be just like a festival, only with more fauna than actual attendees.
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The co-founders in 2009.[/caption]
Though Schuy’s retreats were the spark of the idea, Jeff and I had been dying to try our hand at a festival of our own since watching our good friends successfully launch Bonnaroo, Outside Lands, and other next gen festivals. Around the same time, our friend Scotty Nichols floated the idea of doing a music festival at a ski area in the summer. He had in mind something traditional, but the idea of a festival built around yoga, music and nature, in an incredibly beautiful setting, with blissed out yogis and no fences required, seemed more compelling to all of us than another beer-fueled slopeside reggae smokeathon.
I will fast forward past the many eurekas and tribulations from there… Jeff’s couch-borne epiphany that yielded our name, Wanderlust… the ill-fated decision to book a full lineup of music during the heart of the yoga program… the delicious irony of raising money for a progressive wellness business right after the crash of 2008… the wonderful support Jeff and Schuy got from Shiva and other top teachers when they pitched the very unproven idea for a yoga+music festival… the hilariously bad decision to truck a stage up to the top of Squaw’s funitel, recreating a mountaintop concert experience that even Bill Graham never dared to repeat. Then there was Michael Franti’s appendicitis, taking out our dream year-1 headliner (he returned several times a few years later)—and Common’s amazing willingness to fly in to replace him. The first one is always the hardest (as we learned again from Wellspring this year), but this was a beast.
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The co-founders in 2017.[/caption]
We learned a few things right at the start: yogis loved the event, but didn’t want to have to juggle their favorite teachers and bands. People who weren’t into yoga hated Wanderlust, and simply didn’t show up. And pretty much no one, including ourselves, had any idea how to explain the event. This festival where you practice yoga, hike, meditate, eat local food, then get down under the stars? Maybe it was something for Burners heading past their youth, but it sure wasn’t for the rest of us.
As our current would have it, the rest of the world drifted towards us in ways that we didn’t anticipate. Yoga went from a burgeoning fringe activity to a Gwyneth-induced frenzy (ask her) in only a few years, growing at an annual rate of more than 30 percent. At the same time, the financial crisis of 2008 had a profound psychological impact on our nation. Many people turned to yoga and meditation for solace, and many more decided that the whole cluster was an opportunity to rethink their entire career path (which is always easier when you don’t have a job). The ongoing wars (still ongoing) and political dysfunction of the early Obama years also played its part. Perhaps most importantly, the stunning rise of Facebook and other forms of social media—perhaps the only industry to grow faster than yoga since 2008—led to a surprising dark side that’s only recently been understood. Turns out that social media replaces in-person human contact in about the same way as cocaine replaces the need to eat.
The late renowned author and speaker Wayne Dyer speaking in 2012.[/caption]
So whither Wanderlust in 2019 and beyond? I’ve spent a decade thinking about that, and a few days ago I sent around some musings to our tireless, dedicated and truly amazing team, if only to distract them from their post-NYE head throbbings.


The idea of a festival built around yoga, music and nature seemed more compelling than another beer-fueled slopeside reggae smokeathon.As we floated along with the zeitgeist, we began to think more and more about our role in it. In truth, we reverse engineered our mission from our guests, rather than creating it. True, Jeff brilliantly crystallized our mission with the aspirational phrase “find your true north,” but that moment (in 2014) took place years after we’d realized our place as part of a tribe characterized by a singular trait: we are all seekers. Seekers are people who live in state of perpetual motion towards an elusive goal, that of becoming our best selves. One’s best self isn’t a destination—it’s a journey. It changes, so we are restless. We wander not because we are uncomfortable, but because we will not accept complacency. We yearn. In short, we have wanderlust, both literally (as that word has been passed to English from its romantic-era roots) and figuratively. We have an innate desire to travel or roam within our own consciousness. Heady statements aside, I think we can all agree on some things that the world could use a little more of. Practice, because any meditative practice reduces stress, increases compassion, and makes us healthier and happier. That’s just hard science—no woo-woo or 9-day stays on the Playa required. Community, the in-person kind, because so many of the institutions that corralled us around the proverbial campfire have fallen victim to scandal, science, clannishness, or mistrust. Purpose, because it turns out that humans literally can’t live without it (ask our friend Roy Spence). Inspiration, because, with all due credit to Margaret Mead, a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens is the only thing that ever has changed the world. And celebration, because who doesn’t need more of that?
We realized our place as part of a tribe characterized by a singular trait: We are all seekers.We at Wanderlust are trying, however imperfectly, to satisfy those very basic human needs. Over the years, we’ve become very clear on how we are doing it—and it’s not in the way I would have expected a decade ago. We are trying to build the world’s most beautiful, spacious, delicate container (let’s call it a cup), something worthy of housing the incredible people that have been willing to fill it. They’re my guides and yours, teachers like Seane, Shiva, Rod, Elena, Eoin, and our co-founder/muse, Schuyler. They’re musicians who do so much more than play: Michael Franti, Moby, Nahko, Drez, MC Yogi, Garth. They’re speakers, from Wayne Dyer to Deepak, from Russell Brand to Paul Hawken. They’re performing artists, from Quixotic to Shakti Sunfire to the homegrown Wanderlust Spectacular. But most of all, it’s all of you, because Wanderlust has always been, and always will be, a participatory event. You don’t fumble your way towards true north by passively observing as life passes you by—you fumble your way along by doing. And almost everything that exists at Wanderlust is something you can do, and do with others. That’s a full and tasty cup. [caption id="attachment_113589" align="aligncenter" width="768"]
