Hello, fellow adventurer! Welcome to Explore & Expand. We realize you have many options for travel on this big, beautiful planet of ours, and we are excited you’re considering joining us for one of our bucket list adventures. So why us?
For starters, we’ve been in this game awhile. We’ve been leading group retreats since 2012, and have been exploring the world long before then. We’ve learned what works, what doesn’t, and believe we have found the sweet spot of painstakingly crafting locations and itineraries that will delight (and sometimes lovingly challenge!) our intrepid travelers.
We personally scout and vet the experiences we offer our participants. For instance, that hotel that looked like a dream on Instagram? We thought so too, until we scouted it out ourselves, and learned that there were no windows and the customer service was abysmal. That special restaurant that all the other Trip Advisor readers gave 5 stars? Seemed like a good idea to us too, until we took the first bite of a multi-course musty cheese meal and realized we were in for a very long and painful meal (that is a true story, friends!). We visit locations, meet vendors, and choose our personal favorite experiences before inviting our groups along. Each experience is highly curated.
We typically invest many months and sometimes years of detailed and tedious research before traveling to new locations, go there ourselves, develop relationships with individuals and vendors, before extending the invitation for you to join us. We do the “not fun” parts of travel research and planning, so you don’t have to. You simply get to say “yes!” to the retreat experiences that speak to you, and show up. We take care of the rest.
Our values include supporting local communities. That’s why we typically visit more off the beaten path locations, and center authentic interactions over more “touristy” options. When possible, we work with local vendors so that our dollars can directly impact the individuals and communities we visit. Our hope and intention is that our impact on communities is positive or neutral, and that we are not inadverdantly causing harm to native individuals, traditions, or animals.
Another of our values is honoring the earth and its limited planetary resources. We realize that flying to destinations creates a carbon footprint. Our practice, and one we encourage our participants to engage in as well, is to book flights that have carbon offsetting, or utilize a third party provider to do so. We aim for zero single use plastic on our retreats; in areas where clean drinking water is hard to come by, we utilize and encourage our participants to use Life Straw bottles for filtration. Some of the locations we choose specifically engage in eco-supportive practices, such a recycling gray water and operating via solar power.
There are two of us. Ha! Seriously, though: when you book with us, you get a ton of support, encouragement, and guidance both before and during our retreats. If one of us is temporarily unavailable, the other one of us has your back. You can count on us to take really good care of you, and even more importantly, to support you in taking great care of yourself while on retreat. Also, we’re longtime friends IRL, and simply work really well together to serve you well.
We have a sh*t ton of training, experience, and specialized expertise. With a background in social work, Carrie has been teaching yoga since 2012, training yoga teachers since 2015, and coaching executives and leaders since 2016. With a background in leadership development, Kelly left corporate in 2014. Since then, she has incorporated bodywork, mindfulness and ceremony, and grief/life transition coaching into her healing services. We create a strong container for you, and offer practices during retreat that previous participants have described as “transformational.”
We’re fun. Seriously! Meet us and find out! One of our favorite quotes from a first time participant: “At first I was skeptical, but y’all are actually cool as hell.”
