Readers Deserve Retreats, Too
A few years ago, I felt a strong compulsion to book a week-long solo trip in the Arctic Circle of Sweden. I couldn’t explain what was drawing me towards it, I just instinctually knew I needed to do the trip. I spent seven days in a cabin nestled in a beautiful forest; most of my time was spent reading or writing. I read The Overstory (what more perfect place than in the middle of a Swedish forest) and a few other books, and I wrote about what I wanted my life to look like. At the time, I was working at a high-growth startup and loved my job. I was learning a million things each day and I loved the people I worked with, but when I got some space from it I realized it had become my entire life. All of my thoughts, conversations, and waking hours were spent thinking or talking about this company. In reflecting on who I was at that moment in time, it became clear that I had become a one dimensional person—I didn’t have hobbies, I was barely reading, I was solely focused on this company. That’s the moment I decided to leave the company.
That experience is, for me, the beauty of traveling alone. Many of my major life decisions have come when I’ve created distance from my everyday existence and I have the ability to think and reflect on who I am and what I want. I love all sorts of travel experiences, but I find it difficult to gain that same type of clarity while traveling with friends or a partner.
Not coincidentally, reading is also usually part of these transformative experiences. I read, I get inspired, I write, I make changes.
Now, traveling alone can be daunting. You have to be confident in your communication, navigation, and cultural awareness skills. You also have to be comfortable being exposed as a solo traveler, which means that people will often come up to you and start talking to you, assuming you want the company. Most people always tell me that they wish they traveled alone more, but for various reasons (emotional, financial, practical) they don’t.
Then I had the idea for Parea Reading Retreats. I thought, there are so many retreats in existence (writing retreats, yoga retreats, meditation retreats, surf retreats), but I’d never heard of a reading retreat. Imagine five days dedicated to people who love to read, who want to have a transformative solo travel experience but will still have the chance to meet and engage with other readers. Imagine reading the same thing as someone else, at the same time, and being able to talk about it. Imagine being so inspired by the prose and the location that you, too, are prompted to create.
I flew to Morocco in April to meet with a woman who I thought was going to be a Parea author. What happened ended up being 200x more exciting and impactful. A few minutes into our first lunch together, Meryanne asked me to tell her more about Parea—our mission, values, future aspirations. I told her, and she said “you know, I thought we were going to spend these days together talking about books…but I’d much rather talk to you about this new hospitality vision that I have.” I really, really wanted to talk about books but I was also intrigued. She spent the rest of the lunch explaining her vision—using hospitality as a factor for cultural change, creating spaces to host important conversations and dialogue about literature and creativity that push culture forward, and leveraging Morocco’s vast diversity to prompt necessary conversations about how we can create and better foster diversity in every sense of the word back in our own countries. I felt like I had met my mission/vision soulmate. The only difference was that her vision would manifest through hospitality, mine through books.
But, of course—those two can go hand-in-hand. Over the course of four days we hatched the idea for a brand new concept, one that I’ll share more about in the coming months; as part of that concept, we aligned instantly on the Parea Reading Retreats being hosted at Jnane Tamsna, her property in the Palmeraie of Marrakech. For The Hours Before Dusk retreat, we concocted an itinerary with visits to a sustainable farm run by her husband, a globally renowned ethnobotanist, a day trip to a sculpture garden in the Atlas Mountains, a creativity-focused tour of the Medina. We factored in hours of solo reading time, creative writing workshops led by The Hours Before Dusk author Jenna Matecki, candlelit dinners in the gardens with fellow retreat members.
I am thrilled to create a space for all of you who love to read, love to travel and experience new cultures, love to connect with people you can learn from, and want the opportunity to participate in building this new community of growth-minded readers. I can’t wait to meet those of you who sign up for this experience—it will be a transformative one!
Email RSVP@pareabooks.com to secure your spot and get all of the details :)