HOSTING A MEDITATION RETREAT
The First Time We Hosted a Meditation Retreat
There are certain bookings that make you remember why you started hosting in the first place. For me, this was one of them.
I just want to go on record by saying that a meditation retreat is exactly the kind of thing I always imagined happening at our little oasis.
When we started designing and decorating our glamping spaces, including the cabin, the goal was never just to give people somewhere to sleep. I wanted to create places where people could actually exhale.
I have always felt like I slip into some version of meditation when I'm outside and comfortable. Give me trees, somewhere good to sit, a little quiet and nowhere I urgently need to be, and something in my brain changes.
And I've always wanted our guests to feel that too.
So when a guest from New Orleans messaged me on Airbnb and said she was interested in hosting a meditation retreat at our camp, I was probably more excited than any reasonable Airbnb host should have been.
This wasn't just a weekend getaway.
She teaches an online meditation course, and the retreat was going to be a sort of grand finale for her students. She and her core group of meditation instructors would spend the night at the cabin, but on Saturday, around twenty people would be driving out to our little cabin in the woods.
For many of them, it would be the first time they had ever met one another in person.
They were coming to a place we created to spend an entire day together meditating, connecting and, hopefully, having one of those experiences they remembered long after they drove home.
I mean...
What an absolute dream for a glamping, hippie-wannabe Superhost.
I was so excited about the idea that I don't think I fully processed one fairly important detail: hosting twenty people for the day is very different from turning over a cabin for a normal weekend stay.
Turns Out, Silence Has Requirements
The first thing I started noticing was how differently I looked at the property once I knew twenty people were going to be using it at the same time.
Things that work beautifully for four or six overnight guests suddenly look very different when twenty people arrive for the day.
Where will everyone sit? Where will they put their things? Is there enough shade? Is everyone going to be comfortable?
And, because this was Louisiana in the middle of what felt like a historically offensive heat wave:
How in the hell are we going to keep twenty meditating people cool?
So we added extra window AC units in addition to the cabin's regular air conditioning.
Very responsible host decision.
There was just one problem.
Window units make noise.
Apparently, this is something you think about considerably more when twenty people are trying to sit in complete silence and find inner peace.
The extra units that I had been so proud of installing suddenly weren't quite as useful during meditation.
After meditation?
Absolute heroes.
It was such a tiny thing, but it was probably my first real lesson of the weekend:
Hosting isn't always about adding more comfort. Sometimes it's about understanding what comfort means to the particular people you're hosting.
For most summer guests, cold air wins.
For a meditation retreat, silence might.
And sometimes good hosting is simply figuring out how to give people both.
And Then There Was the Meditation Part
I honestly assumed the meditation retreat would happen outside.
I mean, that's what I pictured when she first messaged me. Twenty people, the woods, the wind, everyone sitting outside doing whatever it is people who are much better at meditating than me actually do.
But they did something smarter.
They used the Lodge.
They ran the AC and our very-not-meditation-friendly window units all day beforehand and got the room nice and cold. Then, when it was time to meditate, they turned everything off and opened all the blinds.
Suddenly they had both.
A cool, comfortable room to gather in, but with the woods right there through the windows—the light, the trees, the wind and all those real sounds they had actually come there to hear.
And I loved that.
Because once again, our guests had figured out a way to use our space that I hadn't thought of myself.
When everyone left, the retreat didn't completely leave with them. There was sage left behind and the faint smell of incense still hanging around the property.
We didn't mind it. In fact, we kind of loved it.
Incense somehow makes perfect sense at our little backwoods camp. It smelled like it belonged there.
Twenty People See a Property Differently
Maybe the bigger lesson wasn't learning how to host twenty people. Maybe it was learning how to host these twenty people.
As a host, I'm always thinking about comfort. Is the cabin cool enough? Is there somewhere comfortable to sit? Does everyone have what they need?
But these guests weren't coming to our cabin to be inside.
They wanted the woods. They wanted the wind. The real sounds. The kind of quiet that isn't actually quiet at all when you're far enough away from everything to hear what's been there the whole time.
At least during meditation, they didn't need me manufacturing comfort for them. They wanted to connect with what was already outside the front door.
Don't worry—the AC absolutely came back on afterward.
It reminded me of something simple: you have to learn your guests. What feels like hospitality to one person might actually get in the way of the experience another person came looking for.
And maybe that's what I loved most about this particular stay. We know why we love our little backwoods lodge.
Apparently, They Left Me With Something Too
The sage and the smell of incense weren't the only things that stayed with me after everyone left.
Watching this group come all the way out to our little place in the woods with the sole intention of slowing down made me realize that maybe I needed a little more of that myself.
I've always said I feel some version of meditation when I'm outside. The woods quiet my brain. Being comfortable outside makes me slow down. It's part of the reason we created this place the way we did in the first place.
But feeling peaceful and actually practicing meditation are two different things.
And somewhere between the silence, the open blinds, the incense and watching twenty people intentionally stop everything for a while, I decided maybe it was time to start my own meditation journey.
So I started slowly. Nothing particularly enlightened over here. Just a few things that make it easier for me to sit down, get comfortable, quiet some of the noise and actually do it.
We love the woods. We love the peace. We love that cabin.
And while hosting is absolutely a business, there's something pretty special about watching other people appreciate a place you love in a completely different way.
We created the space.
But every once in a while, our guests show us what we created it for.
So, Would I Host Another One?
Looking back, I think the biggest thing that weekend taught me is... I want more of them.
More retreats. More people coming to the woods specifically to slow down. More opportunities to watch this little place we love become something completely different in the hands of the people who stay there.
And now that I've seen what a meditation retreat can look like here, I'm already looking at the property differently—thinking about spaces, little details and ways we can intentionally design parts of it with retreats like this in mind.
So yes, there will absolutely be more.
And I have a feeling our little backwoods oasis isn't quite finished becoming what it's supposed to be.
Stay tuned.
