How Salsa, Fashion, Yoga, and Writing Shaped My Women’s Retreats in Italy and Greece

Before I ever gathered women around long wooden tables in Italy or watched them roll out their mats overlooking the Aegean,

I worked in fashion.

I was a solo backpacker.

I was a salsa dancer.

I became a yoga teacher.

I was a writer.

At the time, they felt like separate lives. Now I see they were one continuous education.

That would come together quite beautifully to create the tapestry of skills I needed to host women in workshops and international retreats.

I'll start with the one that feels the most incongruous…

Salsa dancing—

Salsa taught me to listen with my body.

To feel a shift before it was visible, to trust rhythm, to be able to follow without shrinking, and to take up space without apology.

As a woman on the dance floor, you learn something powerful: that softness is not weakness. Responsiveness is not passivity. There is strength in attunement. It allowed the strong-willed, type A parts of me to reflect on the fact that you cannot force a dance. You feel it. You negotiate it. You surrender to timing.

Retreats are the same.

A group of women is its own living rhythm. There are quiet ones. Watchful ones. Women who have spent decades leading everyone else and have forgotten how to exhale.

You don’t push that open.

You create music, you create safety. You wait for the moment they step forward, and you respond in flow.

Salsa taught me that transformation is not dramatic. It is rhythmic.

Next on the list I would never have thought to be aligned with retreats is…

My fashion career—

Fashion sharpened my eye.

It trained me to notice how the smallest detail changes everything,

the drape of fabric, the warmth of light, the texture of a room. It taught me that atmosphere speaks before words do.

A woman puts something on and stands differently. That shift matters.

When I design a retreat, I am still working with texture.

The linen curtains in a restored villa. The worn stone streets in a Tuscan hill town. The way the sea holds light at dusk in Greece. The sound of cutlery against ceramic during a long dinner.

Experience lives in nuance.

Fashion taught me that beauty is not frivolous. It is a portal. When a woman feels surrounded by beauty and care, something in her softens. She becomes more available to herself. Curating experiences built around beauty can be transformative. I am always thinking about the fabric of the memories I am creating and how I can design a retreat that is inspirational and aesthetically harmonious, with care and attention to every detail.

My travel experience as a solo backpacker made me an incredible planner and taught me how to be alone in company.

My solo backpacking experience—

In my late teens and 20s, I solo traveled through Europe extensively. I did this before the dawn of cell phone travel apps and on a shoestring budget. This made me an incredibly skilled planner. When working within those limitations, you are forced to be both efficient and creative. I found ways to have incredible experiences with my less-than-incredible budget. I memorized maps and schedules, navigated languages and logistics.

I also learned that even when traveling solo, community is vital. I found my community in youth hostels with like-minded travelers. Fast forward to today, and I have used these skills to create incredible luxury retreats at a less-than-luxury price tag and translated the community of the youth hostels of the past into solo-traveler-friendly retreats where, even when traveling alone, you can feel connected to other like-minded travelers.

A lifetime yogi, I was finally able to take the time to get certified during the forced pause of COVID. The focus on something positive made those hard days manageable but also added to my education as a retreat facilitator.

Yoga teaching—

Yoga slowed me down.

It taught me to hold space without filling it. To guide without imposing. To meet women exactly where they are, not where I think they should be. Alignment is not about perfection. It is about awareness.

When we practice together overlooking the sea or beneath olive trees, it isn’t about flexibility. It is about remembering breath. Remembering the body. Remembering presence. Yoga taught me that most of us do not need more information. We need space. We need access to feeling whole in our bodies as they are in this moment. We need enough room to breathe before moving on to the next pose, or thought, or action. It reminded me that rest is incorporation. Every savasana allows the practice to settle into your body. This is a lesson for life as well as yoga. Rest is necessary. Retreats are structured spaciousness. They are meant to meet you where you are. They are about flow, connection, and rest.

I have been telling stories with words for as long as I can remember. Writing has connected me to the world around me and a community larger than I could ever imagine.

Being a writer—

Writing is where I learned to listen and where I learned that stories matter. Our individual stories and our collective story. As a writer, you listen to the unsaid, to the pause between sentences, to what lives under the surface of a story. Women rarely arrive on retreat saying what they truly need.

They say they’re tired. They say they need a break. They say they’ve always wanted to go to Italy or Greece. But beneath that is something quieter. A longing to feel connected again, to feel curious, to feel like themselves.

They begin to share their stories—a word or two at first, but soon whole paragraphs emerge and build to chapters. I have learned through writing the complexity and beauty in stories. It has made me a curious witness and listener as people share their stories and lives with me on retreats. It has also allowed me to expand my writing to include things I hear over and over from women across age, globe, and culture. The common shared voice that wants to be witnessed and needs an outlet.

I have come to value the proximity to these stories and my ability to give a literary voice to how incredibly strong, brave, and powerful women are, and how the issues that matter to them should be of importance to everyone.

Salsa gave me rhythm. Fashion gave me texture. Yoga gave me presence. Writing gave me depth.

Retreats are where they converge.

When I look back, I see there was never a detour. Every dance floor, every travel detour, every showroom, every early morning practicing cues, every page written alone, all of it was preparation.

Preparation to gather women in beautiful places. Preparation to create spaces that feel like coming home in a country that is not your own. Preparation to remind women that joy is not frivolous, beauty is not indulgent, rest is not optional, and community is not a luxury. It is essential.

Nothing was random.

It was all leading here.

To the women who travel with me, thank you for allowing me to use my tapestry of skills in a way that feels so aligned. I am forever grateful for your trust. And for those considering travel, writing, salsa dancing, or any other seemingly incongruous skill, I encourage you to follow your curiosity. You never know just where it may lead.