Sandbox

Impressions from the Sandbox Transamerica Expedition

October 27th, 2011 by Fabian Pfortmüller

The Transamerica Campsite at night (Photo by Jonathan Olinger)

What happened the last few days in Mexico? Here are the words of Sandboxer Phil Kaye:

“I genuinely believe that 30 years from now, when I’m (hopefully) around and balding and reminiscing about how phones used to be a literal object that you had to carry around in your pocket, I’ll still remember this past weekend as one of complete discovery. Thanks for that.”

Sandbox exists to bring extraordinary people together and turn them into a big global family. We strongly believe that the best way of building meaningful relationships and learning from each other does not happen at big, traditional conferences, where interaction is often limited to „networking“. That’s why almost every day one of our ambassadors or members is hosting a small event somewhere in the world.

Yet we felt that there was potential for more. We wanted to host larger and longer events that would allow people from various places to connect in a meaningful way, and provide them with an experience that would transform them. So we joined forces with Sandbox Mexico Ambassador Marion Cortina and our friends from Kundavi to bring together Sandboxers and guests from the U.S., Latin America and all around the world for the first ever Transamerica Expedition in Los Cabos, Mexico this past weekend.

And what an expedition it was: 80 incredible people joined us in a beautiful setting directly at the beach. From Egypt to Mexico to Brazil to Israel to Denmark to Puerto Rico and the UK, from social change makers to tech entrepreneurs, designers, academics, scientists, poets, Hollywood agents, community organizers and some of the most successful serial entrepreneurs and investors, we had an incredibly diverse group living together for four days. Instead of keynotes and panels, we asked our participants to host a session themselves – and ended up with classes on everything from productivity to life lessons from poker and origami. Instead of a party in a fancy club, we took everyone camping at the beach, and listened to stories around a campfire. And instead of handing out free passes to the hotel spa, we invited our guests to participate in a traditional Temazcal ritual – a sweaty, muddy but quite transforming experience.

Here is a quick time lapse, made by our incredible storyteller and videographer Jonathan Olinger.

 

We will share a lot more impressions and thoughts from the Transamerica Expedition; for now we’d simply like to say thank you to everyone who made this possible: first of all, our fantastic Sandbox Mexico Ambassador Marion Cortina for organizing everything. Perfectly. With a smile. Thank you to the Kundavi team for the incredible hospitality: Santiago Sanchez-Navarro for hosting us, Carson Linforth Bowley for designing a perfect experience and Bear Kittay for being the world’s best connector; Thank you to the entire staff at La Concha for their hard hard work and last minute help (our event site, especially Rafa, mi amor) and the Hilton in Los Cabos; And thank you to our team Niamh Hughes, Hillary Clevenger, Maricarmen Sierra, Max Ostrove, Nico Luchsinger and Antoine Verdon for making it all go so smooth.

And last, but surely not least, thank you to the Transamerica family who came, built tents, cleaned the beach, cooked breakfast at 7am, lead sessions, shared their secrets, told stories at the fire and made this an incredible journey together. Gracias.