Plan Your Group
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Breakfast on a bed in a tent: teapot, eggs, jam and bread

The budget, before the vision

Your fixed cost, your ticket price, deposits and the questions your accountant will ask. Written for the person carrying the financial risk.

Ask for a written proposal

Why this page exists

Hosting a retreat is two jobs

The first is the one you already do: teaching, coaching, holding a room. The second is a small business launch with real financial exposure, and nobody trained you for it.

Almost everything written for retreat leaders is about the first job. This page is about the second, and it is deliberately unglamorous. We are a venue, so we are not neutral. But the arithmetic below is the arithmetic we would want to see if we were the one signing.

Last reviewed 2026-09-03.

Start here

Three numbers, before the mood board

Get these wrong and no amount of good facilitation fixes the year.

01

Your fixed cost

With a whole-camp venue you receive one global rate for the whole camp, set case by case for your dates, your group and your programme, never per person. It covers the camp, all meals, the staff and the activities. Add your own flights, any assistant you bring and your marketing budget.

02

Your per-guest price

Work backward from your audience, not upward from cost. What do the people on your list already pay for a premium week with a leader they trust? Price for that, then check whether the venue supports it. A venue nobody can compare on a booking site supports the top of a range; an undifferentiated villa compresses to the bottom.

03

Your minimum viable group

Fixed cost divided by price. If the answer is a number you have filled before, you have a business. If it is a number you have never reached, change the price, the venue or the plan, and do it before you announce anything.

What you get from us

Before you announce anything

  • A written proposal with every line itemised, so you can build your own budget on top of it
  • One global rate for the whole camp, set case by case for your request, never per person
  • Our insurance and operating documentation, for your own paperwork
  • A hold on the dates while you sell, with the terms stated in writing before you announce
  • A single point of contact who answers within 24 hours
  • Honest capacity advice, including when we think your group size is wrong for the format

The reason all of this comes before you announce is that your own terms sit on top of ours. You cannot write a cancellation policy for your participants until you know the one you are working inside.

Outside our competence

Questions for your own advisers

We are a camp. We are not your accountant and not your lawyer, and a venue that answers these for you is doing you no favours.

For your accountant

  • Is a retreat you run abroad treated as a business expense, a trip, or something in between under your own filing position?
  • Does the country you are travelling to affect the deductibility of a business meeting or convention held there?
  • How should payments to a foreign venue be recorded, and which vendor form applies to a non-US company?
  • If you take deposits months in advance, when is that money income?

For your lawyer or insurer

  • Do you need a seller of travel registration in your state, or in the states your participants live in?
  • Does your existing professional liability cover an activity you lead outside your own country?
  • What does your participant agreement need to say about a venue with no mobile signal and a hospital several hours away?
  • Who is the contracting party for the venue, you personally or your company?

Rules on deductibility, travel-seller registration and vendor reporting differ by country and by state, and they change. Nothing on this page is tax or legal advice. What we can give your adviser is a fully itemised written proposal, which is the document they will ask you for.

Questions

Asked by every first-time host

How many guests do I need to break even on a retreat abroad? +
Divide your total fixed cost (the venue's global rate, your flights, your marketing) by your per-person ticket price. The camp's global rate is set case by case for your request and appears in the written proposal: that is the number you build the calculation on, before you announce anything.
Is the camp priced per person? +
No. The camp is quoted as one global rate for the whole camp, set case by case for your dates, your group and your programme, never per person. What you charge your participants is entirely your own decision.
What deposit is normal for a retreat venue? +
In our case a deposit holds the dates and the balance is due before arrival, with the exact split and timing written into the proposal before you announce anything to your list. The reason we put it in writing first is that your own cancellation terms have to sit on top of ours, and you cannot write yours until you know ours.
What happens if I do not fill the retreat? +
Talk to us early rather than late. A group that lands under its target is a normal event and there are usually options: adjusting the format, moving to different dates, or in some cases reducing the scope. What removes those options is silence until four weeks out.
Do you hold dates while I sell? +
Yes, with the terms agreed in writing first. A hold with no written terms is worth nothing to either of us, and a retreat leader who announces dates on a verbal understanding is carrying a risk they have not priced.
Can you tell me whether my retreat is tax deductible? +
No, and be wary of any venue that offers to. Deductibility depends on your entity, your filing position, the nature of the trip and where it takes place, and the rules differ by country and change. What we can do is give you a fully itemised written proposal, which is what your accountant will actually ask you for.
What group size actually works? +
The camp takes up to twenty guests. For most retreat formats, facilitators tell us the group stops behaving like one group somewhere above sixteen. If your economics need eighteen and your format needs twelve, that tension is worth resolving before you announce, not after.

Ask for the itemised proposal first

Send us your dates, your group size and the shape of the programme. You will get a written proposal with every line broken out, which is what you need before you can price a ticket or answer your accountant.

Request a proposal

Related: the retreat leader's guide, hosting at the camp, moving a group of twelve to twenty.

If the group is already yours

How a studio, a gym, a salon or a clinic brings its own community, and what the organiser keeps →

Private buyout

Ask for your dates

The whole camp for your group, from two guests to eighteen. Tell us when and how many of you: a written proposal for the whole camp comes back within 24 hours, with no commitment.

Prefer WhatsApp?

We reply by email within 24 hours. Your details are only used to answer you.

  • 2019

    Open since

  • 4.8★

    TripAdvisor

  • 8 tents

    The camp to yourselves

  • 24h

    A written proposal, no commitment