Your Retreat Location & Activities

Now that you have an idea of what you’re going to teach, today you are going to be thinking about your location and activities…..

Got your worksheet handy? No? You can get it here.

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Question 3: What activities would best reinforce what you are teaching?

A yoga teacher is obviously going to choose a location that offers a proper studio to hold classes in – but rather than being like everyone else, and truly yoga retreats are a dime-a-dozen – wouldn’t it be nice to pick a place that has some interesting activities that would make your retreat stand out from the masses?

It would if it had a specific theme and activities to match that theme beyond just the typical daily yoga sessions. For example, one of my private clients Fran, is a yoga teacher and has actually been running retreats worldwide for years. But she was finding that the number of attendees at her retreats was going down yearly and folks were just not as interested as they had been when she first started – which is why she contacted me. In looking at her past trips it was obvious that her problem was that she was doing the same thing over and over again and folks had “seen that, done that” and were simply bored.

Instead we created a joint venture with one of her friends that taught biking and who also used yoga for her after-riding stretching routine. They marketed to both databases and her yoga students got to do something new that they might not have done and the biking folks loved the yoga! It wasn’t far-fetched for her yoga students to get excited about riding on retreat because a good many of them were already taking spinning at the gym Fran was teaching yoga at.

In addition to that, we then found several other joint teaching partners for her so that we could create some diverse offerings that no one else had in the yoga space. Her clients got really excited again about her trips and she was able to create some really lucrative events.

So my advice is for you to get creative about your activities and make sure they align with what you’re teaching – something we focus deeply on in our **Retreat Blueprint Program AND our Retreats Made Easy Program. So make sure you follow through on this exercise and don’t miss the upcoming webinar where I chat more about this!

Question 4: Can you think of a few locations that would match up with your material so that the available activities in those locations support what you are teaching?

Just because YOU want to have a retreat in the Caribbean for example, doesn’t necessarily mean that’s actually the best location for your event. If your retreat is about transcending fear for example – you might chose a location that has outings that really challenge your participant’s beliefs about themselves.

So maybe pick a place where you can have your group jump out of a plane, plummet off of a waterfall or nose dive off of a cliff! Talking about transcending fear is one thing – actually doing it is another! Truly, your clients don’t need to travel to a beautiful place to sit and stare at you all day. They can do that locally in any old hotel.

Still to this day, one of my favorite itineraries that I’ve created was a camping trip to Havsupai Falls Grand Canyon where my group had the opportunity to jump off of an awesome blue-green waterfall. It was life-changing!

So use your imagination and your retreats will always fill. I actually love brain-storming with clients about choosing their location and activities – and that’s something we have a blast doing in my Retreat Blueprint Program.

It’s great seeing everyone in the course get excited about creating something a bit out of the box! After all, sometimes it’s hard to think of these kinds of things for oneself. Right? That’s why I love our retreat community, everyone’s so supportive and helpful!

So once you finish today’s questions – come on over to the Facebook Group and post what you’ve come up with.

**PS: And if you’re wondering – what exactly are the Retreats Made Easy and the Retreat Blueprint Programs? They are our signature programs where we teach you everything you’d want to know about planning, filling, profiting and monetizing retreats!