People ask me a lot about how I find retreat venues, and I think they expect a more poetic answer than I give them. The truth is I look for a fairly specific set of conditions — floor quality, ceiling height, proximity of sleeping rooms to the practice space, kitchen access, what the mornings feel like — and when a place has most of them, I come back. It's not complicated. It's just taken a while to know what I'm actually looking for.
These five are the ones that have earned a permanent spot in my rotation. They're all different, but they share something: they make my job easier without trying to be impressive about it.
01 Strandgården Retreat
Gotland, Sweden
Up to 16 guests
Hardwood practice floor
Sea views
Full kitchen access
An old fishermen's guesthouse on the eastern coast of Gotland, converted about fifteen years ago by the couple who still run it. The practice room is long and narrow — not the shape you'd design from scratch — but the floor is original hardwood, sanded to a finish that's grippy without being rough, and the ceiling is nearly four metres at the ridge. Two walls of windows face the water. I've run morning sessions here in January with frost on the glass and it's been one of the best teaching environments I've used.
What keeps me coming back: the owners understand that a retreat is not a hotel stay. They leave breakfast out early, keep out of the way during sessions, and have never once knocked on the door mid-programme to check something. That sounds like a low bar. It isn't.
→The walk to the nearest beach is eight minutes. I build it into every morning schedule. Groups tend to arrive back quieter and more open than when they left.
02 Dalabygden Gård
Dalarna, Sweden
Up to 12 guests
Converted barn studio
Forest access
Sauna on site
A working farm about two and a half hours north of Stockholm. The practice space is a converted barn — separate from the main house, which matters more than people realise. Having fifty metres between where people sleep and where they move means the transition into session feels intentional. You walk through a field to get there. It changes something in the body before you've even arrived at the mat.
The barn floor is poured concrete with underfloor heating, which I was sceptical about until I used it in March. Warm underfoot, completely even, and no bounce — good for standing work and slow movement, less ideal if you want a sprung floor for anything more dynamic. The sauna is wood-fired, takes about an hour to heat, and I've found it genuinely useful as an end-of-day ritual that doesn't require me to facilitate anything.
→Maximum 12 guests here — the farmhouse dining room seats exactly that. It's intimate in the best way. Don't try to push it to 14.
03 Casa do Vale
Alentejo, Portugal
Up to 18 guests
Outdoor & indoor studios
Covered terrace
Olive grove
A converted farmhouse in the Alentejo plains, about ninety minutes east of Évora. I come here for the light. The indoor studio has whitewashed walls, terracotta tile floors — which take some adjusting for barefoot work but stay cool even in summer — and a covered terrace on the south side that works as a second practice space for everything except full sequences. The olive grove behind the house is large enough that groups can spread out and genuinely lose sight of each other, which is useful for certain kinds of solo practice time.
The kitchen is fully accessible and well-equipped. I've brought a cook on two of my programmes here and the setup supports it easily. On the programme where I didn't bring a cook, the owner's mother cooked for the group every evening and it was, without question, the best-fed retreat I've ever run.
→June through September is hot. Outdoor morning sessions work until about 9am; after that, move inside. The cool tiles become an asset rather than a nuisance by midday.04Fjordly KurssenterHardanger, NorwayUp to 22 guestsSprung floor studioFjord viewsDedicated course building
This one is the most purpose-built of the five — it was designed as a course centre, not converted from something else, and you feel it. The studio has a proper sprung floor, which is rare in this region, blackout blinds for when you want them, and acoustic panels that make the room noticeably quieter than its size would suggest. The sleeping rooms are in a separate building connected by a covered walkway, which keeps the programme space clean and focused.
It's the largest venue on this list and the most logistically smooth. Reliable wifi, a technician on call, a proper PA system. I use it when I'm running programmes that include visiting teachers or sessions that need amplification — for my quieter, smaller programmes, it's slightly more than I need. But when the group is bigger or the format is more complex, I stop thinking about the building entirely and that's exactly the point.
→Book the fjord-facing rooms for your group even if they cost slightly more. The view at 6am sets a tone for the whole day that no session design can replicate.05Mas de la RouredaCatalonia, SpainUp to 14 guestsStone-floored studioMountain settingOpen fireplace
A stone farmhouse in the pre-Pyrenean foothills, about an hour and a half north of Barcelona. I come here in spring and autumn — the temperature is manageable, the light is extraordinary, and the valley the house sits in is quiet in a way that coastal venues rarely are. The studio is on the ground floor of the main building with stone walls that stay cool even in warm weather. The floor is the same stone — I put down extra mat layers for longer floor work, but for movement-based sessions it's fine and actually grounding in its solidity.
What I value most here is the lack of distraction. There's no town nearby, no road noise, no other guests. Mobile reception is patchy, which some participants hate initially and most appreciate by day two. I've had some of the most honest group conversations of my career in this building, and I'm not entirely sure how much of that is the programme and how much is the fact that there's nowhere else to be.
→The drive from Barcelona airport is beautiful but takes longer than Google Maps suggests. Tell participants to allow two hours. The last twenty minutes are mountain road.
None of these are perfect venues. Strandgården has a narrow kitchen. Dalabygden's concrete floor isn't right for every programme. The stone at Mas de la Roureda gets cold if the heating hasn't been on. But perfect isn't really what I'm looking for. I'm looking for spaces where the conditions are honest — where the room supports the work without requiring me to fight it.
If any of these match what you're planning, I'm happy to answer specific questions. And if they don't — the thing to look for is a venue that knows what it is. The ones that try to be all things tend to be none of them.
