Back To The Land

Land Care and Embodiment Weeks at Quinta da Pomba, Portugal

Next dates: March 21-28 2026

Here at our home, Quinta da Pomba, we are firm believers that time spent tending the land and stewarding nature for future generations is vital soul nourishment, bringing to us so many different benefits, including grounding, better health and fitness, renewed vitality and inspiration, a calmer mind, a sense of purpose and well-being, and a more balanced nervous system.

With this in mind, and following many requests from visitors, we have decided to run retreats here that carry an element of being on the land each day, tending to the gardens, the trees, harvesting and processing produce and whatever else needs doing, dictated by the season.

Alongside the land care, each day will include optional offerings of meditation, yoga and/or Tai Chi, a daily sharing circle and some down-time to self-organise other activities as a group and share our gifts with each other if we wish, or just relax and rest. Evenings will no doubt involve time around the outdoor fire under the stars, sharing stories, live music, songs and chat.

Breakfasts and lunches will be self-service, with a work-team dedicated to making a delicious lunch each day. Wholesome, hearty dinners will be cooked for us by our in-house cook each evening, ensuring we can rest and unwind our bodies and feel utterly nourished by the day.

Our land, Quinta da Pomba, is a beautiful eleven hectare piece of forest, gardens and pasture in a peaceful valley in the remote mountains of central Portugal. We are mostly off-grid and try to live as sustainably with nature as possible through natural buildings, forest regeneration, creation of a food forest and organic gardening. We have planted hundreds of trees over the last decade, with more going into the ground all the time, and our gardens, following permaculture principles where we can, are gently expanding and ‘bedding in’ each year. It’s a lot of work and we absolutely love it when visitors come and help us on the land – land stewardship is our passion and life choice, and it’s so much more fun doing it in a group! You can read more about our land at the Quinta da Pomba page.

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Approximate Daily schedule (can be tweaked depending on group needs)

8-8:30am	Tai Chi/Chi Gong with Trev
8:30-9:15am	Breakfast (Self-service)
9:15-9:30am	Morning Check-in
9:30am-11:30am	Land Care
11:30am-12pm	Morning Break
12-2pm	Land Care / Lunch Prep
2-3pm	Lunch Provided by the group on a lunch-team rota.
3-5:30pm	Free Time
5:30-7pm	Yoga with Becky
7:30pm	Dinner
After Dinner	Free Time Optional activities such as creative writing, dance wave, live music, chai and chat around the outdoor fire provided, depending on the group’s wishes.

Our intention is that we will explore and enjoy living communally for this week, and to support this we will have a rota for setting out breakfast, making lunch, washing-up and keeping communal spaces tidy and clean. These tasks will not be onerous, and I hope will contribute to a feeling of group cohesion and connection through the week as we enjoy caring for each other and the space that is holding us. 

Please note that this is not a high-end luxury retreat! We live simply and close to nature here. The toilets are dry compost loos (i.e. no flush!), the shower is wood-fired and the heating in the accommodation is mostly through wood burners. We will be on hand to support with lighting fires and chopping wood, although learning to do this yourself can also be an empowering journey to go on if you’d like to – we will happily be your fire guides! The benefits of living close to nature and getting back to basics are huge, especially in these turbulent times, so if you are keen to reconnect to your roots then this is the week for you. And, don’t worry, if basic living feels like an ‘edge’ for you, you will be looked after very well and we will do our utmost to make you comfortable, well-fed, warm/cool as needed and meet your needs.

Accommodation options include two large, one medium and one small caravan, a geodesic dome, a campervan, a basic room (not yet fully converted) in our house and bell tents/large tent for the hardcore! Early spring can be a beautiful time on the land here, with plenty of warmth in the sun and wild flowers beginning to sprout. That said, it can also be wet and/or cold – we live in the mountains and the weather is notoriously unpredictable here, with rain and wind always possible, and cool evenings a certainty. More detailed information can be provided about what clothes to bring on booking.

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Costs:

Inspired by the vipassana model of ‘pay it forward’ donations, we are keen to embody this model too wherever we feel we can in our land project, as it feels very in line with the generosity and abundance of the land itself. In this spirit, we offer our Back To The Land retreats on a donation basis, to hopefully enable them to be accessible to all who feel drawn to attend, to both give to and receive the medicine of the land. We ask for a minimum donation of €150 so that we can at least cover our costs, and all profits from additional donations that we receive will go straight back into the project. Our passion is tending the land, ourselves and each other with continuity of care, to ensure a healthy, vibrant future for our beautiful planet and all species, not just human. We wish to ‘be good ancestors’ in the words of the inspiring Manda Scott.