Vida Sana Retreats - Mexico and beyond

Synergy week 🌿

I’m in Poreč, Istria, for Synergy - The Retreat Show Synergy - The Retreat Show the world’s only international trade platform dedicated exclusively to the retreat and wellness travel industry. This year’s theme is The Healing Power of Nature, which is very aligned with the work I do and for this stunning Adriatic setting.

I’m speaking on a panel on Selling Wellness Travel, looking at what makes an experience stand out in an increasingly competitive market. It’s a question I explore a lot, and I’m looking forward to the conversation.

Beyond that, it’s the people. We’ll be participating in a well thought out program with industry friends I only see once or twice a year, and the chance to listen to some of the most well regarded voices in this field. I know I’ll leave this week freshly inspired.

And yes, there will be swimming in the Adriatic. There’s also a wellness centre here at Pical Resort Valamar Collection with four different types of sauna, which I intend to work my way through with some dedication 😜🔥

If you’re here too, let’s connect!

Forever grateful for the time I am spending hiking across Spain, alongside my son, carrying everything we need on our backs, meeting fellow pilgrims from all over the world.

👣🇪🇸

It’s an honour to be joining the line-up of international speakers at this year’s Synergy – The Retreat Show Synergy - The Retreat Show being held on the Istrian coastline of Croatia from 29 Sep to 2 Oct.

Synergy is the only trade event focused entirely to wellness travel and retreats, bringing together the dedicated professionals doing this work all over the world. The program at Synergy is shaped by the healing power of nature: experiential sessions, workshops, classes, and conversations that turn into collaborations between attendees.

I’ll be on a panel speaking about Selling Wellness Travel - From Interest to Itinerary, and we’ll be sharing practical insights into converting the growing demand for wellbeing into meaningful travel experiences.

Everyone who attends these gatherings leave with more than they arrived with. If you’re going to be in Croatia for Synergy 2026 too, let’s organise to meet up!

WellnessTravel

One week on the Camino de Santiago - The Northern Route 🇫🇷➡️🇪🇸

840 kilometres from the French border to Santiago. Here’s what the first week has taught me:

1. The characters - Pilgrims on their seventh Camino walking beside first timers who had no idea what they were signing up for.

2. The trail feeds you - We’ve been sampling wild fruit trees and herb plants the whole way: peaches, nectarines, grapes, figs, kiwis, lemons, walnuts, plums, blackberries, quinces, apples, pears, mint, wild parsley. A treasure hunt with delicious snacks after hiking long hours. And the local farmers with their little stalls along the route, selling what they harvested that morning.

3. Earplugs are no match for a dorm full of snorers 😴🥱

4. The kilometre markers cannot be trusted - They’re placed by different organisations over many years, and are discouragingly inaccurate. So you can walk a solid hour and find you’ve somehow only gained 1km according to the sign 🥴

5. Walking poles are not an unnecessary accessory. I was convinced I didn’t need them. My knees have since made it known that at my age, these brutal descents would make the hike easier with poles, so I’m planning to pick up a pair in the next big town.

6. The Camino attracts a diverse age range - From kids of around 10, to absolute legends in their 80s, all moving forward on the same path. Each day my teenage son gets to chat with fellow pilgrims from all over the world.

7. Roman stone paths are slippery when wet 🫠

8. There’s an animal welcoming committee - goats, cows, horses, donkeys, peacocks and so many cute doggies 🐶

9. The famous “Buen Camino” that pilgrims greet each other with as they pass on the path, no matter what their native language is.

10. Your world gets very small out here. Feet, water, food, a bed, the next town. Simples. Everything I thought I needed to think about has gone quiet, and it turns out this is enough.

Buen Camino 🥾

Feeling very grateful to be here in Northern Spain for the eclipse last night 🇪🇸

We drove from Barcelona into the hills to a farmhouse overlooking a vineyard. We gathered on the hillside and watched the whole event unfold, whilst sipping local w**e and chatting.

Thank you to my friend Shelly Suter-Hadad for making this happen 🙏

In 2001 I spent a year living in Spain as a university student, as part of my Spanish degree. It remains one of the best years of my life, made up of a highly disproportionate ratio of travel and partying to actual classroom hours 😜

One of those adventures was a road trip along the northern coast, from San Sebastián to Ribadesella. Stopping at quaint historic villages, swimming in hidden coves, and discovering the Santa Cueva (Holy Cave) in Asturias, tucked into the Picos de Europa. These photos are from that trip 25 years ago. Screenshots of photos in a physical album, dug out of my mother’s garage.

Although I brought my kids to Spain for a few weeks as part of our healing journey world trip in 2022, we didn’t make it to the northern region on that trip.

Tomorrow I will fly to Spain. An initial first few days in Barcelona with Shelly Suter-Hadad to experience the eclipse and brainstorm biz creations💡, then a short flight up to San Sebastián and up to Irún on the French border to begin 840km on foot along El Camino - the Northern Route.

It’s one of the most challenging Camino routes. More ascents and descents than the most popular Camino Francés, however the rugged coastline is spectacular, and I’ve never been one for the well trodden option 🤷‍♀️

What I’m most looking forward to is walking El Camino with my son Oliver. He’s a passionate foodie, and I have no doubt he’ll be teaching me a thing or two about the cuisine we’ll sample along the way. This region particularly San Sebastián and the province of Galicia (where Santiago de Compostela lies) is internationally renowned for its incredible seafood centred dishes 😋

Since I started sharing these plans, many people have told me the Camino is on their bucket list. Indeed it’s been on mine for 25 years.

Whether we conquer the full five weeks of hiking in one go, who knows. But we’re ready to give it a crack!

My two cents worth: Take these chances when they come. You never know when, or if, life will offer them to you again.

Buen Camino! 🥾

The other day I was sat on a rock beside a river, deep in the Costa Rican jungle, drying off from a swim, and I experienced an overwhelming sensation of gratitude.

I started thinking about where our little family of five were in that exact moment.

Me, on retreat in Central America, in a tropical nature setting.

My eldest in England, having just completed a year of culinary school.

My middle son in Australia, staying with my sister, learning farm and construction work and going through the process of obtaining his drivers licence.

My daughter staying with my brother, settling into a new school, new friends, and new dance opportunities.

And Alma 🐶, running around with her doggy friends through the jungle in Tulum.

Five of us, five different lives unfolding at the same time, and in daily contact with each other. Holding the thread that represents our close bond.

From the outside that might look like a family fling wide. But for me, it’s a deep sense of trust. Each of us following our own next step, held by a bond that has never needed us to be in the same postcode to stay strong.

Am incredibly grateful for my family whose support means so much.

In a week I’ll be reunited with my eldest to begin our mother and son adventure of a lifetime 🥾

Life doesn’t have to look normal to other people. We are each individuals weaving our way through, ready to embrace what is coming next 🫶

P.S. Loving the light shadows created the sun peeking down through the trees.

There are places that change you. One of those places is Mount Shasta 🏔✨

Two weeks ago I came down from the mountain with a circle of women who arrived as strangers and left as soul friends. Something happens when you spend several days at the base of a sacred mountain. We interacted with nature more deeply than any of us ever had before.
Our days were woven with guided hikes through breathtaking scenery including alpine meadows, pristine lakes and ancient forest that were in themselves a spiritual journey, an abundance of nourishing food, art classes, SOMA dance shake outs, and evenings of deep sharing and star gazing. We were blessed with incredible weather - perfect blue sky days and colder, clear evenings, with Mt Shasta towering above us and protecting us throughout. We experienced the power of family constellations together, releasing what no longer served and honouring the lineages we carry. And we were blessed to hold a private ceremony inside a pyramid... more on that in another post🔺😱

To the guests who showed up with open hearts and allowed themselves to receive - thank you. The bond we formed on that mountain is something I’ll carry with me always.

If you’d like to be part of this sacred experience, send a DM or comment SHASTA to be the first to know when we release our summer 2027 retreat dates.

Thank you for everyone for sharing your gifts to make this such a mind blowing experience but especially to my co-host & dear friend Heidi García | Terapeuta Holística and our treasured mountain guide Dan Dan Horton- Life Coach, Guide, Actor 🙏

Until next time you special humans 🫶

🌴 Riviera Maya in the quiet season: where the beaches are nearly empty, the lagoons and cenotes are refreshingly cold, and there’s less obnoxious tourists being nuisances.

Summer months here mean getting up early to get a walk in before the pavement gets too hot for 🐶, half-empty cafés, and the afternoon rain to wash down the sticky humidity. ✨

However it wouldn’t be low season without that seasonal guest of honour, the sargazo (seaweed)💩. Tonnes of it. Daily. The tourism industry panics and politicians and stakeholders argue while the real action comes from the workers out there at sunrise with rakes, wheelbarrows, and the patience of saints - who help haul it off the shore so everyone else can pretend the Caribbean is still a postcard. Respect to these people. 🙏

Also, it’s my BIRTHDAY WEEK 🎂♊️ Shoutout to my fellow Geminis - us over-stimulated multi personality ones 😘. Looking forward to a cenote ceremony this weekend with

And the unexpected highlight of the week: after nearly 3 years in this country, I had my first friendly, helpful, efficient interaction with a Mexican government office. 🇲🇽✨. I went in mentally prepared for a three-hour battle and despite a power outage midway through the processing, two staff went out of their way to help me — and I walked out 45 minutes later, mission success! 💛

Low season. Birthday season. Small-wins-and-sargazo season. I’m here for all of it (and more 😁)

I believe that some years just take more out of you than others. This one’s been one of those.

So much noise. So much to hold. So much to keep navigating, processing, carrying on through.

And almost every woman I speak to lately is reaching for the same thing ….. somewhere quieter. Somewhere they can put it all down for a moment - to come back to themselves, away from the pace, the pressure, the constant being-on.

That’s what our San Miguel Women’s Immersion Retreat is for.

Maybe you have been holding it all together. The work, the people, the planning, the showing up. The mental tabs you can’t close. The quiet exhaustion no one really sees because you’re still functioning, still smiling and saying ‘I’m fine’.

This isn’t a wellness boot camp. It’s a proper exhale. It’s about being somewhere that lands softly. Somewhere the food is made for you, the schedule is already mapped out, and no one needs anything from you. Somewhere your nervous system finally remembers how to settle - into nature, into sisterhood, into a slower rhythm.

Yoga if you want it, or stillness if you don’t. Conversations with women who get it - whilst swaying in hammocks or sitting in the sauna. No pressure to transform. No early-morning cold plunges unless that’s genuinely your thing.

There are various wellness workshops woven through each week for those who want them - nourishment, movement, breath, the things that help you on your path. And if you’d like something more personal, optional private consultations are available with a choice of expert practitioners, so you can go deeper in the areas that matter most to you.

San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. A small circle of women. And permission to finally, properly, stop.

Stay one week, or stay up to four. However long it takes for your shoulders to drop.

✨ Women’s Wellness Immersion Retreat
📍 San Miguel, Mexico hosted
📔 1 to 4 weeks | flexible stays | spaces limited
🗓️ March 6 - April 3, 2027