the maharashtra governments initiative of conserving forests in the state by way of promoting ecotourism has garnered new travel interest amongst city travellerstired of the competitive and demanding lives urbanites are fancying a small getaway around mumbai where rejuvenation and relaxation in the lap of mother nature along with engaging in activities that are familiar to rural life is promised independent tourists are ditching the luxury of fivestar resorts and lazing around for days in a state of limbo to search for experiential holidays that will transform their livesabhishek chetan who works in an mnc occasionally says that he misses the simple life with his constant business travel he says luxuries rule our lives how many of us can live without an ac travel without a car or in fact even move operate without a cellphone in fact until a couple of months ago i did not know about ecotourism at all a chance encounter with an ardent traveller on a social networking site helped me find out about the wonders of ecotourism i went on a trip to an ecotourism spot in karjat where i learnt how to carve lanterns out of wood and how rice is cultivated it has been better than my annual vacations to bali and amsterdamwellknown conservationist debi goenka believes that instead of constructing wildlife resorts to preserve the forests in the state what is required is to allow locals in the area upgrade their homes to provide bed and breakfast services to tourists he says the idea of ecotourism is to let villagers have their own setup wherein they can mingle freely with tourists and allow them to experience the rural life there are many international as well as indian travellers who frequent places around the konkan belt pench and karjat where ecotourism is flourishingthe popularity of an online game on social media is proof of how the urban population worldwide would any day prefer to raise chickens and milk cows than go through boring documents at work and watch the seesawing of the sensex devang shah a tour organiser says more and more stressed out urban dwellers are pinning for the simple joys of living in a village where ecotourism is at its peak ploughing the field and sharing a meal with villagers this includes many wellheeled travellers who have done their fair bit of travelling around the world and have stayed in luxury hotels but now they are happy to give fine dining a miss for the bliss of a bonfire night under the starry sky and roasting potatoesgovind sahoo runs an organic farm along with his wife vandana just two hours away from mumbai says our farm is located in manor citybased travellers are so stressed that they constantly look out for spaces where they can be happy with only the basics in life there is no better way to experience and enjoy this alternate lifestyle than by being amongst locals from the rural areas who have still not been affected