Tomato Retreat 11 August - 15 August Five days in August dedicated entirely to the tomato - in every shape, shade, and preparation imaginable. Chloe Cooks brings her warm, generous teaching style to Casa Lawa for the third edition of this beloved retreat, leading hands-on sessions in passata, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh pasta, jam, chutney, tomato water, and even a sweet tomato cake. Mornings begin with big hug breakfasts, afternoons stretch out at the beach or in the orchard, and evenings end with aperitivo, long dinners, and a final night boogie under the Sicilian sky. It's part cooking school, part slow summer holiday - and entirely worth building your August around.

The Culinary Table 1 May - 6 June Tucked into a quiet valley in southern Portugal, Helder Farm is the kind of place that asks nothing of you except to slow down. Six self-sufficient studios sit within a rustic farmhouse, where mornings begin with birdsong, eggs warm from the nest, and vegetables picked straight from the garden. This spring, chef Maya takes up residence at the long kitchen table to guide a week devoted to culinary creativity - intuitive menu planning, recipe invention, and the art of cooking meals that feel like they mean something. Workshops are hands-on and unhurried, ingredients come from the farm and its neighbours, and evenings gather everyone together around dishes made that day. It's less about technique and more about finding your own rhythm in the kitchen - and remembering why you loved cooking in the first place.

Coastal Walking, Drawing & Printmaking Retreat 1 May - 4 May Three days on the North Devon coast, with no agenda other than to look more closely at the world and make something from what you find. Bristol-based artist and printmaker Jemma Gunning leads this long weekend at Praktyka - the eco-retreat built with heart by artists Ania Wawrzkowicz and Henry Trew - weaving together coastal walks, outdoor drawing, foraging, and time in the studio translating observations into prints and handmade objects. No experience needed, just a willingness to slow down and pay attention. Between sessions there's sauna, hammocks, and the particular quiet of a place that was designed to restore. Fully catered and plant-based, small by nature, and exactly the kind of weekend that changes how you see things when you get home.

A Japanese Dream Onsen Retreat June 18 - June 22 Deep in a forested mountain valley, a traditional Japanese inn sits beside a stream, the kind of place that feels conjured from a dream. Early summer in Kurokawa Onsen is a season unto itself: lush, abundant, and alive with the particular energy of nature at its most fertile. Tatami rooms, worn wooden floors, and medicinal hot spring baths open to a canopy of bright green leaves set the scene for five days of deep restoration. Kundalini and yin yoga, feminine taoist and tantric arts, poetry workshops and human design circles weave through each day, alongside long soaks in the onsen and exquisite local, seasonal food. Optional Shiatsu massage and a visiting facialist from Tokyo offer additional layers of care. It's a retreat built around returning - to your body, your femininity, and the quieter parts of yourself that tend to get lost in the pace of ordinary life.

Surf retreats, but not as you might expect them. Marnie Rays keeps groups small and the welcome genuinely warm - thoughtful gifts on arrival, shared meals at local restaurants, slow mornings, salty hair, and sunset pizza on the beach. The surfing is real, but confidence isn't a prerequisite — just a willingness to show up and try. Across three coastlines, Portugal, Cornwall, and Australia, the experience stays consistent: high-end without being intimidating, adventurous without being overwhelming, and built as much for solo travellers as anyone else. There's stretching, exploring, connecting, and the particular kind of joy that reminds you what it feels like to be in your body and present in a place. You come as you are, with all your stuff, and leave feeling lighter, braver, and more yourself.

"The Big Exhale" Retreat 13 October - 18 October No alarm. No to-do list. Just the morning light over a lake ringed with cork trees and wildflowers, and five days to remember what it feels like to breathe properly. Set on the farm at Cucumbi - an hour and fifteen minutes south-east of Lisbon - this retreat pairs twice-daily yoga with the kind of food and setting that does half the work for you. Mornings open with meditation, journaling, and a dynamic Vinyasa flow, followed by a generous farm-to-table brunch buffet with eggs from the farm's own chickens, sourdough, fresh fruit, and herbs picked from the garden. Afternoons drift toward Yin, restorative yoga, and myofascial release, timed so you're finished just in time for an aperitif at sunset by the pool. Then a three-course dinner, outside if the evening allows. The phone goes away. The pace drops. And the particular stillness of Alentejo does the rest.