The Learning Lens is a series within Between Here and Benin, published every other Thursday. It’s where I think out loud about transformative learning theory. What it is, why it matters, and how it shapes everything I’m building with Hello West Africa. No PhD required. Just curiosity.
A while back, someone connected with me on LinkedIn and asked me a question I didn’t quite know how to answer.
She was building a newsletter about transformative travel, hosting virtual gatherings for people in the industry, and thinking about what travel could be at its best. She had read my story, seen what I was building with Hello West Africa, and wanted to understand the theory behind it.
She asked if I could recommend academic papers or books on the subject.
I didn’t know what to send her.
I mentioned Jack Mezirow, the researcher who essentially built the field. I told her she could always read my dissertation, specifically chapter two, where I lay out the theory in full. But even as I typed that, I knew it wasn’t really an answer. How many people want to spend a weekend with an academic literature review? (I mean, I know I am one, but…😂)
I filed it away and kept writing. That is actually part of why I started the Learning Lens series with Between Here and Benin. To bring this theory out of the academic sphere and into plain language, as we were told during graduate school, sharing was an important part of becoming a practitioner scholar.
A few months later, someone here on Substack asked me the same question. And I found myself in the same predicament.
The Gap
Transformative travel is gaining traction in the industry. Joe Pine’s recent publication of The Transformation Economy has put language around something that the industry has started to resonate with. People want to design experiences that actually change something in the traveler, create value, not just earn points on their credit cards. They just don’t know how.
And here is the problem: the research behind it lives almost entirely in academic journals and doctoral dissertations. There are very few resources outside the academic world that explain what transformative learning actually is, why it matters for experience design, and how to intentionally build for it. Especially for travel, where transformative learning theory is really starting to take hold (and may one day become the basis for an actual theory of transformative travel… maybe I’ll help create that??!!).
That is the wall I kept running into. And well, I just decided to climb over it myself.
The Guide
I have been working on something for a while now, and today I am sharing it with you.
It is called Transformative Travel Can Be Designed. Here Is How: A practitioner’s guide to designing transformative travel experiences — and the learning theory that makes them work
It is a sixteen-page PDF guide, written in accessible language for people who are out there creating: tour operators, retreat leaders, educators, experience designers, and anyone who believes that travel can do more than create a memorable moment.
Here is what is inside:
What transformative learning theory actually is, explained clearly, not a literature review, not an academic paper, just the core ideas in a language you can work with.
Mezirow’s ten phases of meaning, with real examples of what each one looks like in practice.
The five conditions that have to be present for transformation to occur, and the most common reasons experiences fail to produce lasting change, even when the intention is there.
The Transformative Learning Arc: the four-step framework I developed from my own doctoral research, grounded in a study involving real participants whose perspectives shifted in documented, meaningful ways.
This is not theory for theory’s sake. It is a map you can use.
What Dr. Suzy Ross Said
Before I released this, I shared an early version with Dr. Suzy Ross, whose research on the integration phase of transformative learning, what happens when travelers return home and try to weave their experience back into daily life, is some of the most important work being done in this space.
She told me she found it beautifully built, designed, and easy to understand. And that she doesn’t know of another woman academic doing this work in this way.
I was incredibly honored to hear those words.
Why I Made It
The last Learning Lens issue, Can Transformative Travel Be Designed?, has close to 1,100 podcast downloads.
That number really caught my attention. It shows there's an audience out there eager to learn more. People don't just want to hear that transformation is possible; they want to understand the theory behind it. Because understanding is what turns belief into action.
I want to keep this newsletter free. I think it matters that these ideas stay accessible, and I plan to keep sharing them here without a paywall. This guide is how you can support my work and walk away with something truly useful in return.
You can find it here → THE GUIDE
Teaching is in my blood, and I hope this teaches you something you find inspiring, worth taking into your work!
And if you know someone who designs travel experiences, leads retreats, runs tours, or guides people through any kind of growth, whether they believe in transformative travel or are still on the fence about it, please send it their way.
It only takes one person passing it along to change how someone designs their next experience.
Until next time,
P.S. — Hello West Africa is looking for aligned investors and Founding Supporters. If you want to be part of building this before the doors open, reply to this email and let’s talk.
