2017
FOUNDED
Sanctum began as a single retreat in the Algarve — eight people, one facilitator, a borrowed farmhouse. No website. No branding. Just a quiet conviction that this kind of work deserved a proper home.
OUR STORY
Built from personal transformation, not from a business plan.
Our founder didn't set out to build a retreat company. She set out to find somewhere that could hold the kind of work she needed and couldn't find. When it didn't exist, she built it. That origin shapes everything — the unhurriedness, the small groups, the insistence on depth over delivery. Sanctum is what happens when the person designing the experience has sat in the participant's chair many times and knows exactly what it feels like to need more than what most retreats offer.
WHAT WE STAND FOR
Our Values
Radical Presence
We don't permit phones in facilitated sessions. Not as a rule, but as an invitation. Presence is the practice — and most of us have forgotten what it actually feels like to be somewhere completely, without half a mind elsewhere.
Grounded Practice
We are suspicious of the word transformation. Real change is slow, quiet and sometimes unglamorous. Our retreats are designed around practices that work over time — not peak experiences that fade by the following Tuesday.