How to Plan and Lead Your Dream Retreat:
A Complete Guide for Wellness Entrepreneurs

From basement yoga classes to international retreat destinations – here’s everything you need to know about adding retreats to your wellness business.

Whether you’re teaching from your living room or running an established studio, the idea of leading a retreat in an exotic location probably makes your heart race with excitement. But where do you even start? How do you transform that dream into a profitable reality without drowning in logistics or losing your life savings?

Retreat leader Pedro Luna has been hosting transformational experiences around the world for years, from the Sacred Valley of Peru to the coast of Croatia. In a recent OfferingTree webinar, he shared his complete roadmap for planning, selling, and leading successful retreats that add five figures to your wellness business.

Here’s your step-by-step guide to turning your retreat dreams into reality.

Start With Your Why (Not Your Where)

Before you fall in love with Bali or Costa Rica, you need to get crystal clear on why you want to host a retreat in the first place.

“It can’t just be for the money,” Pedro emphasized during the webinar. “Why do you really want to do this?”

Your why becomes your North Star throughout the entire process – and trust us, you’ll need one. Planning a retreat takes over 100 hours of work, most of it unpaid upfront. When you hit those inevitable moments of doubt (and you will), your why pulls you through.

Maybe you want to take your yoga practice deeper with your students. Perhaps you’re passionate about creating lifelong friendships within your community. Or you might want to share the transformative power of wellness in a beautiful setting. Whatever it is, write it down and hold onto it.

Know Your “Retreater” Inside and Out

The biggest mistake new retreat leaders make? Planning their own dream vacation instead of their community’s dream experience.

Before you book anything, get clear on who’s in your community that would actually want to travel with you. Pedro recommends thinking about the first 5-10 people who come to mind when you imagine your ideal retreat group.

Ask yourself:

• Do they prefer luxury experiences with Michelin-starred restaurants and private rooms?
• Are they more eco-adventure types who’d love shared accommodations and jungle zip-lining?
• Or do they fall somewhere in between – trusting you to create something special regardless of the style?

Understanding your retreater helps you choose the right location, set appropriate pricing, and create an itinerary that actually serves them.

Choose Your Intention and Location Strategically

Once you know your why and your who, your what and where start to reveal themselves.

What’s your intention for this retreat? Are you creating:

• A vacation with yoga?
• A deep inner work experience?
• A cultural immersion adventure?
• A detox and wellness reset?

Your intention should reflect what your students already love learning from you, just taken to the next level.

For location, Pedro has one non-negotiable rule: “Your ideal retreat location should be somewhere you’re already familiar with or is highly recommended from a trusted source.”

This doesn’t mean you need to scout every location personally (though that’s certainly fun). But it does mean doing your homework. Look for places that already host yoga and wellness retreats – you’re not trying to pioneer the retreat scene in an uncharted territory for your first go.

Master the Three Venue Types

There are three main types of venues you can work with, each with different pros and cons:

1. Yoga/Wellness Retreat Centers (Ideal for beginners) These venues specialize in hosting groups like yours. They often include meals, have existing relationships with local tour operators, and understand the flow of retreat logistics.
2. Boutique Hotels These can work well if they have dedicated yoga space and can accommodate your group’s needs, but you’ll be sharing the property with other guests.
3. Airbnbs/VRBOs This gives you complete privacy and control, but you’re responsible for arranging everything from meals to transportation to activities.

For first-time retreat leaders, Pedro strongly recommends starting with option one. The learning curve is much gentler when you have experienced partners helping you.

Plan Your Timeline Like a Pro

Here’s where most people get the timeline completely wrong. They think they can plan a retreat six months out and have it all come together perfectly.

Pedro’s timeline looks like this:

• 12-14 months out: Research and vet venues
• 11 months out: Start building excitement with your community
• 9-10 months out: Open waitlist and begin pre-selling to your inner circle
• Throughout: Continue educating and nurturing your audience

The best retreat centers book up 12-18 months in advance. If you want your pick of dates and locations, you need to think way ahead.

Test the Waters Before You Dive In

Before you put down a deposit (which can range from $1,000 to $10,000), you need to know your community is actually interested.

Pedro’s strategy: reach out to your 10 most likely candidates with a personal message about your preliminary retreat idea. If 3-4 people are immediately ready to put down a deposit a year in advance, you probably have something worth pursuing.

This isn’t just about validation – it’s about protection. “You don’t want to invest thousands of dollars for a deposit on a venue if your community is not really backing it,” Pedro warns.

Price It Right (And Don’t Forget to Pay Yourself)

Pricing retreats involves three main cost categories:

Base Costs:

• Accommodations (typically $150-300+ per person per night depending on location and luxury level)
• Meals (often included at retreat centers)
• Transportation to/from venue
• Excursions and activities

Your Expenses:

• Your flight and accommodation costs
• Any additional travel expenses

Retreat Leader Fee:

• Your actual profit for organizing and leading the experience
• Pedro recommends $700-1,500 per person for week-long retreats

The key is researching what other retreat leaders charge for similar experiences in your target location. You don’t want to be significantly over or under market rate.

Build Your Sales Strategy

Selling retreats is a long game. Start with your inner circle, create early bird pricing to generate urgency, and consider hosting an info session before your early bird deadline ends.

“This info session is basically a sales call where you get people excited,” Pedro explains. “You show them the images, talk about the itinerary, discuss pricing, and make them feel comfortable with making the decision.”

Throughout the process, you’re subtly selling through emails, social media, and casual conversations. Remember: people need to see something multiple times before they buy, especially for a significant investment like a retreat.

Create the Right Experience

The best retreat itineraries balance five key elements:

• Practice (yoga, meditation, workshops)
• Meals (often a highlight for many retreaters)
• Excursions (cultural experiences, adventures)
• Community time (bonding, sharing)
• Free time (rest, reflection, personal exploration)

Pedro’s general day structure: “Breath work, yoga, breakfast, a group excursion, lunch, a workshop, free time, dinner. This is like a basic day on a retreat. You can do this four or five times during a seven or eight-day trip and people have a really good time.”

Prepare for the Unexpected

Even with perfect planning, things will go sideways. Pedro’s retreat in Portugal happened during a country-wide power outage. His advice? “The most important part is that as the retreat leader, you stay calm. The energy that we give off as the leader is what the collective will reflect back.”

If you panic, everyone panics. If you remain the calm in the storm, your group will follow your lead and trust that everything will work out.

Use the Right Tools

Managing retreat logistics, payments, and communications can be overwhelming without the right platform. OfferingTree’s all-in-one system lets you create landing pages, accept deposits, set up payment plans, send automated emails, and manage registrations all in one place.

“It simplifies it all, cuts out a lot of the extra cost of extra subscriptions and learning different tools,” as Pedro noted during the webinar. You can start a free trial to see how it works for your retreat planning needs.

Start Where You Are

The most important piece of advice? “Just start where you are,” Pedro emphasizes. You don’t need years of experience or a massive following to host your first retreat. You just need a clear why, a community that trusts you, and the willingness to do the work.

Your first retreat doesn’t have to be perfect – it just has to be yours. Start with 10 people, focus on creating a transformational experience, and build from there.

Take the Next Step

Ready to start planning your dream retreat? Here are your immediate next steps:

1. Define your why – Write down why you really want to host a retreat
2. Identify your core group – List the 10 people most likely to join you
3. Research locations – Look into retreat centers in 2-3 destinations that excite you
4. Create a mood board – Visualize your retreat to keep motivation high
5. Set up your systems – Make sure you have a platform to handle bookings and communications

Remember, leading retreats isn’t just about traveling to beautiful places (though that’s certainly a perk). It’s about creating transformational experiences that deepen your relationship with your community while building a sustainable, profitable wellness business.

The world needs more leaders creating spaces for healing, connection, and growth. Your retreat could be exactly what someone needs to transform their life.

Ready to start planning your retreat? Explore OfferingTree’s retreat management tools to see how you can streamline the entire process from promotion to payment.

Streamline Your Operations and Manage Your Classes with OfferingTree’s Seamless Booking Software

To streamline your operations and manage these offerings efficiently, consider an all-in-one platform like OfferingTree. It helps integrate scheduling, payments, website building, and email marketing, giving you more time to focus on your students and less time juggling tools.

With OfferingTree, you can easily set up those pop-up classes, create on-demand video bundles, and even run targeted summer promotions, all from one dashboard. This kind of efficiency is exactly what the “Small Plate” approach encourages.

To help you make the best choice for your wellness business, check out the buyer’s guide, which outlines everything you need to know about selecting yoga studio software.

Start your 7-day free trial today or explore our demo video library to explore features like automated reminders, membership management, and more.