Passport to friendship: The Travel Deck & Summer Retreats
☀️ Summertime puts travel on the mind so come aboard — today’s post is all about ways to find friendship while hitting the road. And I’m not talking about the single-serving friendship you had with Randy from Iowa who sat next to you on the airplane and kept manspreading into your middle seat's limited airspace.
I’m talking about friendships you can make while miles from home that you get to pack in your bag when you head back to your zip code…
Dive into spontaneous bestieship by jumping into a retreat or camp that was lovingly designed to fit your niche obsessions! You will immediately have something meaningful in common with your new friends: 🤸🏾♀️ ⛺️ 🏖️ 💖
But don’t ignore this vital detail, my little friendship muffin: to get the most bang for your buckarinos and the easiest possible experience of true connection, the organizers’ programming MUST include purposeful dedicated connection-building sessions to help participants get to know each other so they can stop staring at each other like deer in the headlights across the hummus-n-veggies table. You would be amazed to know how many retreat and conference organizers don’t think about this! At a minimum you deserve a specific time for meet-n-greets.
Make sure to review the retreat’s agenda in advance to find out what social connection sessions have been thoughtfully woven into the programming. If the schedule is just yoga classes and “free time” a.k.a. “figure it out on your own” time, you’re gonna have a higher hill to climb when it comes to forming those magical long-lasting camp friendships. It means you’re DIYing the work of striking up conversations about something other than the mosquitos and the sweet potato pancakes that you keep hoovering up at breakfast — but my new deck of Travel-inspired conversation starters can help with this! ;)
If you pick a retreat that has some facilitated connection experiences built into the design and schedule, you’re far more likely to spark the kind of closeness that’ll last beyond the few days you spend together at the retreat.
Hannah Pasternak Keller described her experience with this on the Women Who Travel podcast. At her InnerMission retreat, people came from all over the country to spend a weekend together focused on personal growth and healing. She said workshops ran the gamut with topics on: mind/body, HIIT workout, hugging, primal screaming and more. Despite the focus on social interaction (I already see my fellow introverts sweating), Hannah’s group retreat also included plenty of breaks for solitude. This is a good balance! A thoughtful camp/retreat organizer will plan plenty of time for purposeful connection and plenty of time for solitude and quiet recharging. Source: Me, I used to be an organizer and lead facilitator of intergenerational creative empowerment camps.
Recipe for finding your perfect “imma snatch some friends while doing what I love to do and getting out of town” adventure:
Step 1 - List the shit you like to do
Step 2 - Google “camps for adults that love [that shit you like to do]
Step 3 - Review the programming and agenda with a keen eye to see what bonding and connection sessions are a part of it
Step 4 - Register! Pack courage and an open mind in your duffel bag!
Don’t believe it’s that easy? Just now, I literally set a timer for 15 MINUTES on my phone, searched twitter for people saying what their hobby is, and I looked for adult camps and retreats I would send them to if I was some kind of Retreat & Camp Concierge Travel Agent (in another life, this is my job).
In the amount of time it takes to make perfect hardboiled eggs, here’s what I found:
Sleepaway Sewing Camp for Adults
BONUS #1: There are also general “summer camp” theme camps like Camp No Counselors or Camp Grounded. I’ve been to Camp Grounded before; even though I like the emphasis on digital detox, I didn’t think there were enough intentional-n-facilitated sessions focused on helping people form deeper connection in small groups. It was more like "here’s a festival with 700 people in a giant field. If you want to connect deeply or make friends, figure it out on your own.” Some people enjoy this! Pick the right setting for you.
BONUS #2: Get a list of even more neato burrito camps at my blog post How to Plan Trips With Friends
You get back when you give back
Don’t ignore the power of volunteering at a camp or retreat as a way to both save some cash and form new buddies while being part of a team.
If you normally work solo at home, then joining a volunteer crew at a multi-day camp is a DIVIIIIINE way to get that good feeling that comes from being part of a team again, while also getting to attend the camp or retreat you’re interested in, either for free or at a reduced cost. I spent the majority of my 20s and a big chunk of my 30s doing it this way, and made some of the best friends of my life this way.
How to not meet people at a retreat
If you want to get away and not make any friends, but maybe become a better friend to yourself, choose a retreat that’s heavily focused on the solo or interior-exploration experience. I love meditation but TBH it’s not always the easiest way to meet people lol.
For example: the Vipassana 10-day silent mediation retreat. I’ve done it and while I would absolutely rank it as one of the most profound experiences of my life, it is not a place where I made friends, because hello, you’re not allowed to talk to anyone, or communicate nonverbally, or even make eye contact because that’s a form of communication!
If you don’t want to meet people and instead want to spend a ton of time being a good friend to yourself, your mind, and your rich sprawling inner world, then YES by all means, head to something like a silent meditation retreat, silent reading retreat, journalling retreat, etc. You might also like out my on-demand Unbusy Camp — it’ll help you reprogram your relationship with time and urgency, so you have more time for what matters to you.
Staycation like it’s a passport stamp
Ever since 2018/2019, I’ve had a strong hunch that over the coming decades we’re going to see a rise in more local travel and local exploration, and less emphasis on the type of long-distance bougie travel that’s made travel influencers rich and that’s given people a crushing mountain of unrealistic expectations.
Plus, in our lifetime we’ll likely have to come to grips with the fact that our planet cannot handle the volume of planetary heating that endless amounts of airline travel generates. So, if you want to get that getaway feeling in a more environmentally sustainable way that will ALSO help you feel a deeper sense of belonging where you already live, use the same sleuthing skills I described above but set your radius to however many miles around the couch you’re reading this letter on.
Today is the official launch of the Better than Small Talk: Travel deck!
This set of conversation starters will help you:
✈️ Initiate a conversation about traveling together with friends or acquaintances
👯♀️ Check to find out if you’re compatible travelers
💞 Bond over travel memories
🔍 Uncover short-distance local travel ideas to explore together
😊 Understand your own travel style/habits/priorities
🕉️ Approach travel in a more intentional way
💖 Feel more fulfilled when you get back home
Hopefully today’s post inspired your summertime travel ideas, and helped you believe in your sparkly lil soul that YES, there’s a group of people gathering around the same activity that you love geeking out about, and YES, an immersive, socially-minded retreat or camp could be an awesome addition to your summertime friendship adventures.
This is a good problem to have! But be careful—if you stay on the go too much, you’ll have a different problem: figuring out how to stay friends when you’re always leaving town. 🙃
XO,
Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships
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