For many of us, the New Year brings fresh ideas, renewed energy, and a targeted resolve to accomplish certain goals. In that spirit, we decided to try something new for 2017. While it is true that here at Avant our primary passion is travel, we appreciate and celebrate all things creative!

Incredible advances in technology and photography in recent years have unlocked the talents of many aspiring filmmakers and photographers. Double-down with the power of the internet and now you have not only a formula but also a venue upon which the resulting creative works by these talented individuals can be displayed and are accessible to practically anyone with a computer, tablet, or smart phone. One only needs to spend a little time surfing Vimeo or YouTube to recognize how many of these projects are travel-themed or inspired by one of the spectacular and unique destinations that are scattered across this planet of ours.

However, it can be a daunting task to find these little gems due to the glut of information available on the web. That’s where we come in. We plan to hand-pick a travel or destination-related video each month and highlight it on our website via a blog article or through one of our social media outlets, like Facebook. We will try to be very selective and choose only the ones that we feel are unique, enjoyable, and worth sharing. The idea is to inspire, inform, and yes, even entertain, if just for 2 or 3 minutes out of your day. We know very well that the artists who worked on these videos would prefer that their content be viewed in its full widescreen glory (along with a good set of headphones or quality speakers), but we will leave that up to you.

This month, we kick it off with a video on Costa Rica by Piotr Wancerz, a Poland based veteran in the business who, like us, shares a passion for travel and specializes in timelapse photography / videography. We chose Costa Rica to start because it is one of our “Sweet Sixteen” favorite destinations. And, quite coincidentally, one of our founding partners, Melonie Graves, happens to be escorting a group in Costa Rica at the very same time as this posting.

We welcome you to this month’s highlighted travel video (below), and we hope you enjoy this new initiative, brought to you by Avant Travel. We’d love your feedback on this concept.

The Avant Travel Team