Coming from two people who live and breathe this space every day, having tried most of it firsthand and worked with some incredible practitioners — here’s what we genuinely think is worth your money. We’ve done the trying so you don’t have to.

Acupuncture + TCM

There’s something reassuring about a healing system that has stood the test of time long before wellness became an industry. And the Western world is catching up: for example, acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) are now commonly recommended before IVF for fertility support, and in many cases can eliminate the need for it altogether.

At its core, acupuncture works by stimulating specific points in the body to move and balance qi, your life force energy. When qi flows freely, the body can do what it's designed to do: heal and regulate itself. It works holistically across everything — hormones, immunity, digestion, stress.

For Margarita, it’s been central to her hormone healing journey. For Kristina, immunity, energy, and keeping the body regulated through busy seasons (and the joyous flus the little one brings home). It’s our monthly self-care non-negotiable.

Quality Produce

Before the powders, the latest superfoods and whatever supplement is trending this week, there’s simply eating well. Fresh, seasonal produce, quality protein, fibre and nutrient-dense meals at home. It sounds obvious but it’s genuinely where everything starts.

That said, supplements absolutely have their place and are something we believe in, with a caveat. Social media has created this idea that more is better and that you should just be taking what everyone else is. Supplements are deeply individual though. Margarita spent a long time on high-dose vitamin C thinking it was helping, only to discover it was doing more harm than good. A very similar horror story happened with a self-prescribed glutathione IV drip that sent her body into a detox overdrive it couldn’t handle, and turned out to have been totally unnecessary for her constitution and needs. When we say we’ve tried it all, for better or for worse, we mean it.

And with so many brands and formulations out there, there's very little clarity on quality. Something a trusted functional medicine doctor flagged early on: not all supplements are created equal. Some (often the most accessible and heavily marketed ones) are full of fillers and additives that do very little, or worse.

If you want to supplement, work with a naturopath or functional health practitioner, get a proper blood panel done, and only supplement based on what your results actually show. Invest in that appointment before you invest in another supplement. And before any of that, a good diet with quality, seasonal ingredients is the best approach.

Lymphatic Drainage

One that had its moment in the spotlight, and we feel got kind of replaced by the next trend, yet keeps proving itself genuinely worth it. Lymphatic drainage supports the body’s natural detox process, helps reduce fluid retention, and leaves you feeling noticeably lighter and less puffy.

Not all lymphatic treatments are the same though. Some use very gentle touch to open up the lymph nodes and stimulate flow, others are more vigorous, combining drainage with more sculpting techniques that help tone the body and reduce the appearance of cellulite.

Margarita books one before every trip. Kristina made it a weekly ritual during pregnancy, when her body was working twice as hard and holding so much more – especially in the Miami heat. It’s also amazing after long-haul travel when you’re retaining water and everything feels a bit sluggish.

Infrared Light

Red and near-infrared light therapy is now backed by a growing body of scientific research. It’s shown to support collagen production, skin repair, reduced inflammation, and mood.

We both have full-body panels at home and meditate in front of them morning or evening, for a skin and mood boost in one sitting. People always say nothing replaces morning sunshine exposure, which is true. But during the darker winter months, it’s a genuine spirit lifter and our skin has never been happier for it.

_{Left: Kristina on a hiking adventure in Costa Rica. Right: Margarita on an Ayurveda retreat in Italy with her mum}

1:1 Guidance and Trainings

Where we’ve both seen some of the biggest personal shifts, and what we’d encourage anyone to invest in (spoiler alert - it’s yourself!)

We’re both certified yoga teachers and Reiki healers. Kristina has also done her Katonah yoga training and is a certified Ayurveda Health Coach. But beyond our own trainings, we’ve both spent a lot of time diving into different modalities with one-on-one guides – whether meditation, breathwork, or energy healing sessions. Working privately with someone who can actually see you, read your body and understand your specific patterns makes all the difference.

Margarita experienced this firsthand on the Datu Ayurvedic-focused retreat in Campania, Italy this spring. She met an extraordinary breathwork, meditation and healing guide from India who happened to be in London afterwards. Although working with him on retreat had already been really impactful, that was in a group setting. Two one-on-one sessions afterwards and it felt like a completely different experience, a real energetic upgrade. She was able to go much deeper and address particular patterns that felt stuck. The experience is hard to put into words.

On therapy

We’ve also both been on our own therapy journeys for a few years now and it’s been genuinely transformative and empowering. And the biggest misconception is that you only go when something is wrong. Some of the most powerful breakthroughs come when you’re actually in a good place and have the space to really go deep.

It's also worth saying that there are so many different types of therapy, and it's not just the classic image of sitting on a couch while someone listens and occasionally asks "and how did that make you feel?" — neither of us have found that works for us. Kristina came to therapy after a very intense birth experience with her son, but ended up uncovering completely different hidden patterns she never knew were there. Through IFS (Internal Family Systems, a model that works with different parts of the self to heal inner conflict and trauma) and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, a therapy that helps process and release deeply stored traumatic memories), she was able to make changes and heal in ways she couldn't have imagined going in. Sometimes you arrive at therapy for one thing and it opens a door to something much bigger.

Your own personal support system 🤍

Building that kind of personal support system is something we both feel strongly about. Esther Perel writes: “Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did.” And it’s true. We put so much pressure on one relationship, one person, to hold everything. But what if instead you built a whole village for yourself. A practitioner who knows your body. A guide or therapist who knows your mind. A healer who sees you. Feeling truly supported in life, and giving that gift to yourself, is one of the most beautiful things. It's something we are so passionate about, and a big part of why connecting the right healers and practitioners to the people who need them is at the heart of what we do.

An Annual Retreat (Or Two)

Of course we were going to say this. But it’s something we feel more strongly about after every single one we go on (and our clients always say the same).

When everything is taken care of with the intention to nourish you — the food, the programme, the space — and all you have to do is show up and receive, something more profound becomes possible. It is completely different from a holiday. We've both come back from beautiful trips feeling more depleted than when we left. And we think many people know that feeling: the Sunday evening post-vacation dread, arriving home more anxious or exhausted than when you left. A good retreat is the opposite of that. You come home refreshed in a way that actually lasts, often feeling inspired and able to give from a place of feeling genuinely full, whether that's in your family life, your relationships or at work.

A new era of wellness travel

And when people hear retreat they often picture a silent meditation week or an ashram. It’s so much more than that. Retreats can be adventure-based, hiking in nature, culinary, creative. Whatever nourishes your mind and soul. The point is the intentionality of it. Someone else has thought about everything, so you don’t have to.

For us retreats are so much more than a solo trip. Retreats as friend trips. With partners. And increasingly with family. We recently created a 10-day restorative stay in Menorca for a couple and their two adult sons, between two beautiful boutique farmhouse hotels with a curated itinerary of yoga, forest hikes and a beautiful once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse experience. They all said it was the most recharging trip they’d had all year, while still getting to connect as a family. We love seeing mothers and daughters / sons, couples, friends on retreat together. There’s something about the container that brings people closer.

All our clients say the same thing afterwards: that they felt more restored than after any holiday, and that at least one a year is now a non-negotiable.

We’ve spent years building a network of practitioners, healers, teachers and retreat spaces that we genuinely trust. And nothing brings us more joy than connecting people to the right ones. There is so much noise out there, and finding someone truly good can feel overwhelming. Our inboxes are always open :) whether you’re looking for a practitioner, a training recommendation, or the aligned retreat for you. We love nothing more than helping people feel good. 🤍

With so much love,
Kristina & Margarita

^{Left: Somatic breathwork led by Ash Moraca. Right: Us before the sunrise meditation led by Lisa.}

With such powerful, intentional work, a lot would come up for people during that week: inner child healing experiences, kundalini awakenings, clarity about imminent changes, things they hadn’t expected to find. Each guest’s journey looked different, but everyone was able to take away something deeply personal. We can’t wait to go back this November to see where the journey takes us this time around.

One of the core memories we keep coming back to is the time between practices. In the long afternoons or after dinner, people ended up gathering in the outdoor common areas, sitting together over a cup of tea or coffee (still dreaming of the coconut cloud bulletproof lattes!). We would sit in small circles and share our experiences from the day – insights, visions, questions, answers. It was where an enormous amount of the actual integration happened for both of us (and for many others, as it turned out).

There’s something special about people intentionally gathering in one place. Sharing an experience, though everyone with their own version of it, is exactly what lets them relate to and contribute to each other’s journeys in a way that simply isn’t possible alone.

Now that is something rare and beautiful a retreat can offer, which unfortunately so few other things in modern life can.

The history of gathering

People have been gathering for as long as we know. Sitting in a circle and letting people share in turn is a tradition that turns up everywhere in history: indigenous circle practice across continents, the Greek assembly, ceremonial women’s circles based on moon cycles.

In Calling the Circle, author Christina Baldwin argues that the circle is the first social form we ever had, the shape people fell into around the earliest fires whenever there was something to be decided or something that needed to be shared. She calls it “the first and future culture” (chills).

^{Gathering for the sunset agnihotra (an ancient Vedic ritual making offerings into a sacred fire) at the Datu Wellness Ayurvedic Retreat in Tuscany, Italy.}

In Buddhism, the sangha, the community you practice with, is one of the three things you take refuge in. There’s an exchange in the early texts where Ananda comes to the Buddha with what he thinks is a generous observation: that good friendship and good companionship are half of the spiritual life. The Buddha corrects him. It isn’t half. It’s the whole of it.

And yet so little of how we live now is built around community and intentional gathering.

Where there’s a gap in wellness hospitality

Now here’s the thing we keep coming back to. Even as loneliness is at its peak in the scroll-driven economy we live in, the majority of the wellness travel industry is built for one person at a time. Hospitality is organized around the individual reservation and convenience. You pick the dates and you might choose to arrive Wednesday and leave Sunday, while the woman on the mat next to you during morning yoga arrived on Friday.

And the more luxurious the property, the more personalized it gets: your own consultation, your own protocol, your own schedule of treatments. All of it designed so you don’t have to coordinate with another person. You even eat alone at mealtimes, at your own table, off your own plan. Which, when you think about it, can be quite a lonely way to spend a week (especially given how much money you’re spending on it!).

Doing the same thing at the same time as someone else is completely different from doing something together. Martin Buber, a 20th-century philosopher of human connection, had a line for the difference: community, he wrote, is “the being no longer side by side... but with one another of a multitude of persons.”

And this is exactly where we knew something was missing in the wellness industry, and why we’re building anandaya.co – so the talented people (practitioners, teachers, healers) who foster strong communities and create these containers can create more of them. The infrastructure for intentional gathering, so that more gathering happens.

Why this matters now more than ever

Intelligence has never been more abundant. Endless sources of information, analysis, opinions, apps, feeds, on-demand everything at our fingertips that we’re somehow expected to process day in, day out. All thoughtfully designed for one person and a screen. And sadly, less and less is built for being in a room, in person. Which is exactly why being in a room together is becoming valuable again: when one thing becomes endless and widely accessible, whatever it can’t replace becomes precious.

The future of gathering

That’s why we believe retreats and wellness travel designed around a group and a shared experience rather than a single guest will be some of the most sought-after travel of the next decade. A few days or a week, a beautiful destination, a group of people, a thoughtful program everyone experiences at the same time.

What limits how much of this exists isn’t demand. It’s how much work and time it takes to plan, organize, and manage these experiences.

This is why we do what we do at Anandaya. Building the ecosystem and tools to make it easier for organizers to gather people with intention, to the standard the rest of travel takes for granted.

With so much love,

Kristina & Margarita 🤍

Nourishment is also of the central pillars of every retreat we curate. Whenever we’re helping a teacher find the right venue or shape a retreat programme, the food concept is never an afterthought, but a central part of the experience. What you put in your body influences the entire retreat: your energy levels, how deeply you sleep, how open you feel in practice, how present you are. And after a retreat, we always come home with new inspiration and a renewed motivation to nourish our bodies well.

We try to eat by Ayurvedic philosophy where we can — honouring the seasons, keeping digestion at the centre, and choosing ingredients that genuinely support how we feel.

A few principles we live by:

1 / Shopping seasonally and locally — in summer this means colourful tomatoes, cucumbers, leafy greens, fresh herbs, berries, peaches, and whatever we find at the farmers’ market, local farm shop, or home-grown harvest (Kristina’s Brooklyn terrace garden is in full bloom this summer, but this can be as easy as growing some basil or mint on your windowsill 🌱)

2 / Building predominantly plant-rich plates filled with vegetables, grains, legumes, and quality protein.

3 / Cooking with flavour — plenty of fresh herbs, spices, citrus, and vibrant ingredients.

4 / Eating mindfully — savouring the experience and feeling gratitude for the nourishment we are receiving.

In the spirit of healthy summer eating, here are five easy and wholesome recipes we’ve been loving this month 😋

Basil Garden Bowl 🌿🥑🍅
Herby turkey meatballs over lemon noodles with a fresh cucumber and tomato salad, tossed in plenty of parsley and cilantro and generously topped with basil.

For the meatballs: mix ground turkey with finely chopped shallot, minced garlic, chopped parsley, cumin, paprika, salt and pepper, and a splash of olive oil. Roll into small balls. Air fry at 200°C/390°F for 11–14 minutes, until golden and just cooked through. In the oven, roast at 180°C/350°F for 15–20 minutes depending on size, turning once.

For the salad: combine halved cherry tomatoes, diced mini cucumbers and half a diced avocado. Add plenty of finely chopped parsley and cilantro, then toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.

For the side of lemon noodles: boil egg noodles until just tender, then drain (saving a splash of the cooking water). Toss while warm with olive oil, lemon juice and zest, a spoonful of the pasta water to loosen, and salt. Light, bright, and summery.

To plate: lay the lemon noodles to one side and top with the turkey meatballs. Place the salad alongside. Finish by generously sprinkling fresh basil cut into thin strips – this is the main event here, so don’t hold back.

Mediterranean Summer Plate 🌱🍅🥒
Cajun roasted potatoes and cannellini beans over tzatziki with cherry tomatoes, avocado and sprouts

For the tzatziki: combine full fat Greek yoghurt with finely diced cucumber, fresh mint, a drizzle of good olive oil, the juice of half a lemon, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust – it should be bright and fresh.

For the roasted potatoes and beans: halve baby new potatoes and toss in cajun spice, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Roast at 200°C / 400°F for 7 minutes. Meanwhile toss the cannellini beans in the same spices, then add to the potatoes and roast together for a further 13 minutes until golden and crispy. Add grilled artichoke hearts in the last few minutes to warm through. 20 minutes total, though ovens vary so keep an eye on them.

To plate: spread the tzatziki generously across the base. Pile the roasted potatoes, beans and artichokes on top. Add halved cherry tomatoes and diced avocado. Finish with sprouts* and a seed mix for crunch.

_{*Growing your own sprouts at home is one of the easiest ways to add fresh homegrown produce (and extra greens) to your plates — no garden or outdoor space needed. We love alfalfa, broccoli and mung beans.}

Asian Crunch Bowl 🥢🥒🌱
A rice bowl with crispy ground beef, spinach, cucumber salad and homegrown sprouts.

For the rice: make sushi rice in a rice cooker or instant pot, whatever you usually use to make your rice.

For the cucumber salad: slice the mini cucumbers and toss with salt. Leave for at least 10 minutes to draw out the water, then rinse off the salt and pat thoroughly dry. Whisk together a dressing of 1½ tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp rice vinegar, garlic powder (or raw garlic clove, if your digestion can tolerate), 1 tsp chili oil, 1 tsp sesame oil and ½ tbsp sesame seeds. Toss the cucumbers through and set aside.

For the crispy beef: sauté the ground beef for 2–3 minutes, then add chopped shallot and the white part of a scallion. Keep cooking until browned and crisp at the edges. Mix up and then stir in the sauce: 1½ tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce, ½ tsp dark soy (for colour), a pinch of white or black pepper and 1 tsp of your favorite sweetener (I use agave or maple syrup). For extra crispiness, add 1 tsp cornstarch loosened with a splash of water.

For the spicy yogurt sauce: stir sriracha (or a spoon of harissa) into plain yogurt with a pinch of salt and a little sesame oil, until it’s a soft coral colour and as spicy as you like.*

To plate: spoon the sushi rice into the base and top with a handful of spinach. Pile the crispy beef in the centre and spoon the cucumber salad alongside. Finish with chopped cilantro and a generous handful of sprouts and drizzle lightly with the spicy yogurt sauce.

_{*Although Ayurveda calls for less heat in the summer, we love a kick in our meals and drizzling our plates with chili oil.}

Asian-inspired Glow Bowl 🥑🥕🥦
A vegan rice bowl: crispy tofu, roasted broccolini and kale with pickled carrot ribbons and a creamy peanut dressing

Cook the black rice (or any other rice you like) according to packet instructions — black rice takes around 35-40 minutes so start this first.

For the tofu: drizzle with a little sesame oil and tamari and cook in an air fryer at 190°C / 375°F for around 15-17 minutes until golden and crispy on the outside. Alternatively, pan fry on a medium-high heat for about 4-5 minutes each side until golden.

For the pickled carrots: use a peeler to make carrot ribbons, sprinkle with salt and leave to absorb the water for 5 minutes. Then submerge in apple cider vinegar for around 10 minutes while everything else comes together.

For the peanut dressing: whisk together ¼ cup peanut butter, 1 tbsp tamari, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp agave, a splash of rice vinegar and the juice of half a lime. Add a small splash of cold water to thin to your preferred consistency. Taste and adjust to your preference.

To assemble: layer the black rice with roasted broccolini, kale, diced cucumber, avocado and pickled carrot ribbons. Add the crispy tofu, drizzle generously with the peanut dressing and finish with sesame seeds and chilli crunch.

Wild Green Plate 🌿🍚🥒
Grilled yogurt-marinated chicken over wild rice, topped with a creamy cilantro-mint chutney and fresh sprouts, served with a sesame spring salad.

For the grilled chicken: marinate chicken thighs in yogurt with crushed garlic and ginger, salt, pepper, a little lemon juice, ground cumin, dried fenugreek leaves, garam masala and ground coriander. Leave to marinate – overnight is ideal, but even 15-30 minutes is fine. Grill until charred and cooked through, then slice.

For the wild rice: cook the wild rice and keep warm for the base.

For the cilantro-mint chutney: blend a big handful each of cilantro and mint with garlic powder (or raw garlic if your digestion can tolerate), a little jalapeño (for heat), salt, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a small piece of ginger. Add a spoonful of yogurt to make it creamier. Bright and herby with a little kick.

For the salad: toss a mixed greens salad of your choice with chopped mint and cilantro. Slice the cucumbers and dress them separately in sesame oil, a splash of rice vinegar, a pinch of salt and toasted sesame seeds.

To plate: spoon the wild rice as the base and lay the sliced grilled chicken alongside. Add the herby greens and spoon the dressed cucumbers over the top so the sauce runs down through the leaves. Drizzle the chutney generously over the chicken, and finish with a handful of homegrown sprouts.

Hope this inspires your summer cooking 🌻

With love,
Kristina & Margarita

One of the things we love about our work is that the line between traveling for business and traveling for pleasure has kind of disappeared. Every place we visit, every property we stay at, every new practice we try, it all ends up feeding into how we think about retreats and what makes these experiences special for people. So here’s the diary version of our summer so far: three places we’ve visited and the three things we’ve been thinking about non-stop because of them.

June: on the farm in rural Portugal 🌾

_{Left: Our room’s terrace at Cocoon Portugal. Right: A farm-to-table breakfast with fresh eggs from the farm’s chickens.}

We started our summer on the Alentejo coast at Cocoon Portugal, joining Luiz Madalena for his 4Beat Yoga retreat (you can read more about this experience and the beautiful practices we created here).

Cocoon sits on 275 acres of coastal farmland: a freshwater lake, pines, peacocks, goats, chickens, and fresh vegetables picked in the morning and served at the table a few hours later. It’s a coastal farm that’s been thoughtfully converted into a beautiful retreat venue. And it’s one that attracts some of the most talented practitioners to host retreats there year-round.

What surprised us most was how much we loved simply being on a farm. There is something very serene about being on a quiet, working piece of land. We were close to the ocean, with Zambujeira do Mar and cliffside beaches just a short drive away, all breathtaking and worth exploring. And yet our favorite hours were the ones spent sitting on the little terrace outside our room, reading, chit-chatting, watching the sky change colors as the sun set.

That’s the thing a farm stay does that no luxury resort can fake. It has its own rhythm that somehow draws you in and forces you to slow down. You eat fresh seasonal produce straight from the garden and nearby farms. You wake with the rising sun and go to sleep as it sets, aligning with your body’s circadian rhythm, which can be hard to do in the city.

So it’s really no surprise that farm stays are on the rise. They’re shifting from being seen as “budget agriturismo travel” to becoming some of the most thoughtful and sought-after hospitality in the world. And for a retreat, this is an ideal setting: a property built around substance and intention, with plenty of space to disconnect and be nourished by the land around you.

If you’re a wellness practitioner thinking about hosting your next retreat, a working farm is high on the list of settings we would point to right now. And if you’re a guest, a farm retreat is the perfect getaway for a quick recharge away from the day-to-day.

July: hiking in Acadia, Maine 🌲

_{Left: Morning at Jordan Pond in Acadia National Park. Right: View from the Gorham Mountain summit.}

Kristina here. A few weeks ago, I took my partner for a long weekend in Bar Harbor, Maine. We spent the mornings exploring Acadia National Park, which, if you’ve never been, is endless granite, spruce, and countless lakes that are so still they mirror the entire hillside.

Words cannot describe how beautiful the nature is (I may or may not have teared up driving the Park Loop Road for the first time). Those few days hiking through mossy pine woods and up to the rocky mountain tops overlooking the Atlantic did more for me than any beach vacation could. There is something about active movement in nature that helps you unplug almost immediately, clearing your head and any mental clutter. Some of my biggest creative spurts and business downloads have come from exactly these kinds of trips: active movement, nature, elevation, no screens.

It also made us realize how experiences like this don’t show up often enough in retreats. The practice on the mat and the treatments get a lot of the attention, but the outdoors is usually considered more of a side activity, even though it’s often the part people describe most vividly when they get home.

This got us dreaming about more hiking retreats. If that is your world, please reach out! We’d love to help make them happen and share this magic with more people.

July: sea and mountains in Sardinia 🌊

_{Wild views along the northern coast of Sardinia.}

Margarita here. I spent the last week on the coast of Sardinia. Getting to explore different sides of the island from the water, I fell in love with the combination of sea and mountains, the red rock coastline and green hills with the peaks rising behind them. Most Mediterranean islands give you one or the other, but here you get both at once.

Sardinia also happens to be one of the world’s five Blue Zones, which makes it that much more special. While many large hotels and chains are trying to chase the longevity trend with modern diagnostics suites and biohacking menus, here it is naturally part of the land itself. From the slower pace of life to the fresh food and how close everyone lives to nature and the sea.

We’ve discovered some beautiful properties in Sardinia and are excited to match them with exceptional teachers and healers to help bring their retreats to life on this dreamy island.

What we’re taking away from this

There are so many misconceptions about what a summer holiday should look like: the typical destinations, beach clubs, group trips everyone is posting about. It’s easy to feel like your summer has to look like that too. But who is anyone to say what a holiday should be? The way we look at it is if you are going to take the time off, it might as well be in a way that actually gives something back. (As we always say, time is your most precious currency!)

What recharged us most this year were the simplest things. Days on a working farm. Mornings in the mountains. A stretch of wild coastline at sunset. Time in nature, without a “plan” for every hour of the day, is what left us genuinely nourished. And we’re pretty sure we’re not the only ones feeling this.

That is really the whole idea behind what we do.

So if you’re a practitioner or host with a farm concept, a hiking retreat, or a property somewhere unique and beautiful that deserves more attention, we’d love to connect. And if you’re a guest looking for a holiday that actually restores you, we would love to help you find it. 🤍

With love,

Kristina & Margarita

From that moment, it became clear that what teachers actually need goes far beyond having somewhere to list and get their retreats booked. They need support in building the offer itself — from finding and securing the right property with all the ingredients we look for (the nature setting, the food, the yoga space, the container, the quality of accommodation) to shaping the programme and conveying the retreat intention and aesthetic. All of it working together to reflect the true depth of their work and ultimately facilitate the kind of experience only a retreat can offer: whether that's genuine restoration and rejuvenation, new insights, or deep healing that carries on long after you've come home.

We realised what brings us most fulfilment, and where we can add the most value, is by building a platform and ecosystem which can help co-create the retreat offer we wish existed. And this looks different every time, depending on who we’re working with.

With Luiz, we were a bit more involved than usual — not only helping to find the property and curate the programme, but also being invited to attend the retreat. And knowing our personal background and trainings, he also gave us a carte blanche to create and host a few practices ourselves.

When the physical meets the embodied

June rolled around and after months of planning, we finally arrived at Cocoon Portugal – a beautiful coastal farm and retreat space on the Alentejo coast, featured in Condé Nast Traveller as one of the best farm stays in Europe. Luiz's practice is built around 4Beat (a dynamic fusion of breath, movement and music) balanced with restorative yin. The retreat also wove in hikes and time in nature, keeping everyone grounded in the body and the setting. So when it came to the practices we wanted to host, we felt called to bring in something that worked alongside that: the embodied and healing modalities we'd been going deeper into ourselves lately. There's also something about the retreat container that makes people more open to trying things they might never seek out in their day to day life, yet can be profoundly impactful.

Reiki-infused sound healing

We’re both Reiki healers and have a deep connection to sound. Combining both for our second evening on retreat created a very powerful experience.

We opened the space by introducing the practices and guiding everyone into stillness. Then Margarita moved to the crystal bowls while Kristina offered hands-on Reiki. Halfway through we shifted, with Margarita taking over with Reiki while Kristina brought in the shamanic drum and chimes. An intuitive, channelled flow of sound and healing energy, each modality amplifying and building on the other.

The room was held beautifully by our friends at Incausa, who gifted us their sacred incense for the evening – handcrafted from natural plant resins and botanicals in collaboration with indigenous communities of the Amazon basin. The aroma and smoke added a ceremonial layer that made the whole room feel like a sanctuary. Sound, stillness, and sacred scent all coming together in a deeply sensorial healing experience.

What we witnessed in the room moved us. Guests experiencing deep emotional release and catharsis, others describing a state of full hypnosis, a quality of rest and restoration they said they hadn't felt even after a full night's sleep. We know a practice has touched someone when they come and ask us how they can find a trusted practitioner back home.

Tea ceremony + kundalini meditation for joy and abundance

For our second session, we wanted to offer something guests could easily take home with them. We opened with a tea ceremony using the Happy blend from Anima Mundi, one of our favourite botanical apothecaries. As tea lovers who are always experimenting with herbal mixtures at home, this felt like the perfect afternoon ritual. Combining rose, lemon balm, linden, orange peel, and rhodiola, the blend is crafted to gently uplift and nourish, supporting emotional balance and resilience. We invited everyone to sip and savour the tea, using it as an anchor into the present moment before we moved into practice.

Then we led a Gyan Chakra Kriya*: one of our personal favourite kundalini meditations, and one we come back to often. It works with the energy field, clears stored stagnation, and bestows blessings to invite joy from within. It sounds esoteric until you try it. Even the skeptics in the room (and there were a few) got completely absorbed. Again, we had guests come to us after, asking where they could find more kundalini practices back home and if we could host more practices during the retreat.
_{*You can find the instructions to the full practice here + the mantra we play during the meditation here.}

The moments that stay with us

One guest brought her mother. She had spent most of her life in service to others – family, children and grandchildren, everyone else first. Being on a retreat, being asked to receive, to put herself first, felt strange and uncomfortable. Initially, there was visible resistance. And then, through the practices and space, something unravelled.

Watching her open to the energy, to the sound, to the kundalini, and seeing her face after, brought tears to our eyes 🥹 We kept saying to each other: this is why we do this! Because at the end of the day, if we can help even one person come home to themselves and take that feeling away with them — that's everything.

For the teachers and retreat hosts reading this

A retreat can be whatever you make it. Some of the most powerful sessions we've witnessed or hosted were the ones that came from genuine practice. From something the teacher actually lives and embodies. No overplanning needed. It’s about showing up with depth and letting the energy and medicine flow from within.

What distinguishes a truly memorable retreat is the courage to bring something unexpected, that nobody else is doing. Something that came from your own lived experience and changed you first. That’s what people feel. You can’t fake that kind of authenticity nor manufacture that kind of impact. When a practice genuinely works for you, it translates.

This is exactly why we put teachers and healers at the heart of everything we do at Anandaya. The ones who who bring real depth and aren’t afraid to do it differently. Those are the ones who move and change people. And witnessing that is, without question, why we do what we do 🤍

With love,
Kristina & Margarita

Everything we used on retreat
Intentional brands we genuinely love and use at home all the time. Linking everything below so you can find them easily 🤲🏼🌿

Anima Mundi Herbals

• Happy Tea — our afternoon tea ceremony blend

• Calm Tea — evening wind-down before yin

• Butterfly Pea Flower Powder — mixed into evening drinks for relaxation and nervous system support

Incausa

• Palo Santo Hand-Pressed Incense — during meditation and yin practices (and just when hanging out on our terrace in the evenings)

• Breu Resin Incense Blend with White Sage — for reiki-infused sound healing

• Soap N.1 — a blend of fifteen essential oils, which we gifted to every guest for the full sensorial experience

Sweet Bee Organics

• Calming Roller — gifted to guests and used before yin and meditations to drop into the body

• Magnesium Butter — gifted to guests and used for foot massages before bed for recovery and a deeper night’s sleep

I lived that version, and for a while, it genuinely felt like this is what it means to be young and free in a big city. And don’t get me wrong, it was really fun for some time. Until, it wasn’t anymore.

All I’ll say is, life had a way of forcing me to slow down and actually look at things, including how I was living. I wasn’t just partying a bit too much. I was using the noise and the busyness to avoid sitting with myself. Anxious Sunday mornings reconciling blurry nights. Dragging my tired body to a workout to try and feel better. Hair of the dog by 2pm. The lifestyle was amplifying everything I was trying not to feel.

Something had to change and I could feel it before I could articulate it. I just started getting curious – about why I felt so volatile all the time, about whether there was another way to exist in this city that didn’t leave me so uncentered. That curiosity led me to yoga and wellness almost by accident. A book here, a class there turned into daily meditation. I cooked more at home. I stopped drinking for a few months on a recommendation by my naturopath, as I was also embarking on my hormone healing journey after years of disbalance. And I started feeling happier and calmer than I ever had.

As one of our favourite contemporary poets, Maia, writes:
“Once you start pouring into yourself in all of the ways that you ask others to, you’ll be the ocean that no longer has to ask.”

The boring friend era

But here’s the thing I didn’t really expect (although any spiritual guide will tell you it’s pretty obvious): the path to healing can be a lonely one.

Really choosing yourself often means outgrowing people and places that used to feel like home. And that’s hard. I had been that friend who was always down for a drink on a Tuesday after work, always up for an impromptu plan, never needed convincing. So when I started saying no, people noticed and it came with a lot of opinions (and the classic ‘you’re so boring now’ comments). It felt uncomfortable and selfish and strange, especially when the version of me that always said yes was the one people were used to.

The weekends started to look very different. I was exploring yoga studios and wellness spaces I’d never been to. Infrared sauna or a lymphatic drainage, then a slow tea somewhere with a book. Farmers markets on Sunday mornings. Solo evenings cooking something nourishing. At first it felt strange to be spending so much time alone. But I was discovering parts of myself and parts of this city that I’d never had access to before, because I’d always been too busy and too overstimulated to find them.

By the way, I still love a dinner date night. Lucky for me London never runs out of incredible places to eat, and a spicy margarita on the rocks or a glass of red wine absolutely has its place in my life. Balance is the whole point and I balanced my social life and my hormones, without needing synthetic medicine like I’d been told I would my whole life.

Spreading the glow ✨

Then something pleasantly surprising started happening. Friends I used to party with started asking which yoga studio I was going to. Colleagues burnt out on the same old cycle wanted to come along. Then a lot of these people started asking me where to go on a good retreat. The inner glow, it seems, is contagious… and suddenly everyone wanted an in.

Across the Atlantic, Kristina was on her own version of this journey in Miami. We connected over it, sharing book recommendations, meditation practices, the small rituals that were changing our lives. We kept asking each other the same question: surely there’s more to being in your late 20s in a big city than this?

That question is where Anandaya came from. And it’s where our tagline ‘discover a new way of living’ was born – from two friends on opposite sides of the Atlantic, figuring out separately and then together, how to actually feel good. Both doing our yoga teacher trainings, becoming reiki healers, diving into Ayurveda, trying every healing modality and practitioner we could find, fully living it before we ever thought about sharing it.

A lot of what we do focuses on retreats, and we believe deeply in what they can do (a whole other Substack). But we also know you can't always be on a retreat, and this way of living extends far beyond time away. All our curated retreat recommendations are already on anandaya.co — but we kept asking ourselves, what about everything in between?

Here felt like the perfect space to share more with our beautiful community 🤍 So coming soon: our city guides to wholesome living ⋆｡°✩ favourite studios, wellness spaces, treatments, practitioners, healers, online programmes and everything in between. London, New York, Miami and LA editions | follow along so you don't miss them.

We keep seeing people (wellness influencers, curators, travel brands – sigh) post about retreats that are... hotel stays. A luxury hotel with a spa. And maybe a yoga class on the schedule. And somehow we’re calling it a retreat?

Don’t get us wrong, we love a nice weekend getaway at a beautiful hotel with a relaxing massage, smoothie by the pool, and a restorative yoga class. It’s a great form of self-care. But calling it a retreat dilutes something much bigger (and takes away from the incredible teachers and healers pouring their souls into creating these special experiences).

So what is actually a retreat?

To us, it starts with the retreat leader, the actual practitioner(s) behind it all. The best retreats we’ve experienced over the last 10 years being immersed in the wellness space have been run and curated by exceptional practitioners who’ve dedicated their lives to their craft.

The people who are experts in different healing modalities, who understand the body, the mind, the nervous system, who know how to hold a room, and who’ve thought about what it means to guide someone through an arc of an experience. They are so deeply passionate about their work and create every detail of the program with intention, purpose, and lived expertise.

So when people come to us and say, “I want to go on a retreat,” we don’t start with where they want to go. We start with what they want/need and, most importantly, match that with who can create and hold that experience for them.

Then comes the program itself. That’s what makes a retreat an actual retreat and not just a self-care vacation. It thoughtfully blends balanced movement with mindful practices. It might include healing work, like Reiki, sound baths, somatic practices, or shamanic sessions. It might offer rituals, from opening and closing circles to cacao ceremonies, that add that extra little bit of depth. The programming is so intentional that every aspect of it fits together like pieces of a puzzle, creating an experience where every guest can take away exactly what they need.

All of this is complemented by the setting and the food. At a great retreat, nourishment is a key part of the experience. Even when meals are primarily vegetarian and plant-based, they're full of flavor and deeply nourishing when prepared with the same level of love and care as every other element of the retreat. Food should be fresh, organic, ideally locally sourced. In Ayurvedic tradition, food is medicine. What you put into your body becomes your energy. When you fuel your body well, the vessel is clean, opening up clarity and the capacity to receive.

Beyond that, there is time to explore or simply do nothing (because, let’s be honest, that’s often the hardest thing). We call it “beyond the mat” because wellness is so much more than the structured practice. Some of the most powerful moments we’ve had on retreat have been sharing our experiences in between sessions over a cup of tea or quietly integrating while watching the sunset. No outside world distractions, just pure presence.

Now all of that ^ is wildly different from a yoga class on a hotel rooftop.

The hotel-with-a-spa problem

To be clear, we have huge appreciation for thoughtful wellness hotels. There are many truly incredible, unique properties around the world that carry local authenticity, bring in talented teachers and healers for residencies, design intentional programming around a philosophy, and genuinely care about the guest experience beyond the room and amenities. We love guiding guests to these properties when they're looking for a different type of getaway, often with their partners or families, and want something more curated and less commercial.

But then there’s the other end of the spectrum. A five-star city or countryside hotel with a spa and a pool is, by all means, a luxury hospitality experience. We’ve been lucky enough to stay at some of the most well-known luxury wellness hotels in the world and while the stays were incredibly beautiful, we were sadly underwhelmed by the wellness offerings (quality of classes, lack of depth in programming). It’s just not a retreat. Not even close.

When everything gets called a retreat, we lose the signal in an already noisy space. The person who’s actually searching for something meaningful, who might have a specific intention they’re working with or is looking for a much needed reset – they can’t find what they’re looking for because the lines have gotten so blurred.

What we want to see and help elevate

We think about retreats in a similar way we think about art – the craft and the intention behind it matter. You can always tell the difference between something someone poured themselves into and something put together for commercial appeal. That level of integrity is what we look for.

When we call something a retreat, we want to see:

• Practitioners with real depth and lived expertise

• A thoughtful program designed with clear intention

• A beautiful setting that supports the experience (not the other way around)

• Space to go deep when you need it

That’s what a retreat is.

This passion drives everything we do at ANANDAYA. A big part of our work is helping wellness practitioners source stunning locations and elevate retreats where you never have to choose between a beautiful setting and the depth of the experience. Because the exceptionally gifted teachers and healers doing this work with real care and real skill deserve to be distinguished from those trying to commercialize the “retreat” trend. And because the person actually seeking something meaningful and transformative deserves to find it. That’s what we’re here for.

With so much love,

Kristina & Margarita

See you on retreat ✨

A year of curating wellness retreats and experiences we believe in. A year of working with some of the best teachers and healers around the world. A year of learning what it takes to build something from scratch that we so deeply believe in. This past year has been one the most rewarding ones for both of us.

So, today felt like the right day to start writing to you and sharing more of our lives and the BTS of building our dream company. And we’ll start by sharing our story 🤲🏼

Rewind to December 2024. Kristina was working for a top AI startup in Silicon Valley, building AI products for Fortune 500 companies. Margarita was traveling the world for art fairs and exhibitions, working with one of the most exciting contemporary art collections — acquiring works, curating spaces, and helping build toward a major foundation opening. From the outside, our lives looked like the dream. But we were both asking the same question: Is this all there is?

We found our answers in the same places over the years. On the mat. With yoga certifications. Ayurvedic studies. Reiki attunements. Through years of practice and spiritual study with teachers around the world.

At the time, Kristina was living in Miami. Margarita came to visit for Art Basel (and to meet nephew baby Jamie 🐣). We spent mornings doing yoga, afternoons across the art fairs and museums, and late nights talking about our passions: the retreats, the healers, the experiences that changed our lives. What we kept coming back to was how hard they were to find (and trust!) unless you already knew where to look.

And we weren’t the only ones feeling the pain. Friends, colleagues, acquaintances have been coming to us for years: Where do I go? Who's actually good? How do I even start?

And so, clarity hit (“post-tacos clarity”, as we still joke to this day). We wanted to build the wellness platform we wished had existed.

That same night, the name was decided, the www.anandaya.co domain secured, and three months later, the ANANDAYA platform was live – March 20th, 2025; Spring Equinox 🌷.

Just the two of us. We built everything from scratch: the platform, the brand, the partnerships, the community. It still feels surreal to see how far we’ve come in just one year (and it’s only the beginning!).

What really fuels us is the incredible teachers and healers doing the real work — the ones guiding and healing people, changing lives. They pour their hearts and souls into their craft and they deserve better tools and support to do it. Elevating them is at the heart of everything we do.

Fast-forward to 2026. Today, when someone asks us what we do for work, we just humbly answer “healing the collective.” Half joking, half not.

And we figured it’s time to start sharing more of our world with you.

So, welcome to ! This is where we’ll share more of our personal stories as the founders, and what goes on behind the scenes: how we find the retreats and teachers we work with, what we're learning about the wellness space, and our personal recommendations for practitioners, rituals, and practices we're loving right now.

We're here to bring you along on this journey and hopefully help you discover meaningful experiences. We’re so grateful you’re here 🤍

With so much love,

Kristina & Margarita

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