The Tilley Hat

This is the best Adventure hat in the world. Check out my review at The Tilley Hat, The Best Hat Ever. You'll see this hat on my head every time I head for the wood, wilds, and waters.

• A lifetime guarantee
• Insurance
• A great brim
• A front and back wind cord
• It floats
• And a pocket in the crown

A Private One-On-One Customized Adventure Retreat

Many busy clients would prefer to go on Adventure Retreat with you and perhaps their partner, not a group. If you stay in the Adventure Retreat business long enough, sooner or later you will be asked to do this. We've seen requests for 60-minute lunch retreats to day-long birthday adventures to multi-day renewal getaways.

Now is the time to determine your fees for such a request. You don't need to know what the client wants to do or where he or she wants to go to consider:

• What will you charge per day or half day?
• How many hours do you consider equal one day? A half day? Be clear about your time with the client(s) and your private time.
• What is your maximum number of days? Minimum number of days?
• To where are you willing to travel?
• What days of the week or weeks of the month or time of the year do you have open and available for this kind of opportunity?
• What expenses will be the client's responsibility and what expenses are you willing to pay for?

For instance, what if the client wants a customized retreat snowshoeing in the Canadian Rockies? What will you charge per day? How many hours do you spend with the client(s) during a typical day? Who pays your expenses to get to the retreat location? Who pays your lodging and snowshoe rental? Who pays for your meals?

I suggest that in the beginning you make it easy on yourself and charge $X per day plus all of your expenses are paid by the client. This way you do not have to scramble to do a breakeven analysis before you get back to the client with your price. Plus, this is very similar to the model many businesses are familiar with when they engage a workshop presenter or a guest speaker.

If you are already offering Adventures and Retreats for groups, you can easily modify your theme and topic to fit one or two individuals.

But you WILL want to think through your pricing ahead of time.

Like many other things in life, as soon as you've planned for this opportunity, you're likely to be asked.

The Art of Extreme Self Care

The Art of Extreme Self Care: Transforming Your Life One Month at a Time by Cheryl Richardson is a super winter and Valentine's Day gift idea. Buy it for your sweetheart or how about just for yourself. Just because.

Boomer Chick Adventures

Check out the new line up of 2012 Boomer Chick Adventures

Boomer Chick Adventures are mostly outdoor activities for Baby Boomer women who have a yearning for play, fun and new experiences, while enjoying the company of like-minded adventurers.

• Wine and Cheese and Mosaics
• Self-Care Cafe
• A Pineland's Hike
• Biking Cape May
• The Morris Arboretum in Philly
• Stand Up Paddle Board in Cape May
• Ocean Kayaking in Cape May
• Tubing the Upper Deleware

Contact Patt to make it happen for you. A nice Valentines treat to yourself or your sweetheart, I think.

A Valentine's Day Retreat

We love to celebrate holidays with an Adventure or Retreat. And can you imagine a better way to honor the self-care we all deserve than with a Valentine's Day Retreat for someone you love, for yourself, or as a retreat offering through your business? Here's a possible theme and some topics:

All We Need is Love

• Love Your Friends and Family Well. A relationship retreat.
• Love the World. A retreat designed to help participants decide how they will give back to the world this year.
• Love Yourself. An extreme self-care retreat.

Chocolate and wine are not optional but required!

Curious By Nature: One Woman's Exploration of the Natural World

Here's a book I picked up awhile back and got lost in just recently. I found something in Candace Savage's writing touched the part of me that is the reason I take others to the wilds.

From Amazon: "The survival of wildlife on this planet depends on animals' relationships with the people who share their natural habitat and influence its management. Nature writer Candace Savage has spent the last 25 years exploring humankind's complex relationships with the natural world. This thoughtful collection showcases Savage's exploration of the varied ways people relate to wildlife, from retelling fairytales about the big, bad wolf; to being surprised by the intellectual capacity of crows; to struggling to find a balance between harvesting trees and allowing grizzly bears the space to roam. Savage is particularly interested in bridging the gap between mythology and science. A constructive approach to the human-wildlife relationship, she says, lies in integrating reason and emotion and recognizing people's connections with the natural world. This book is a record of Savage's lifelong quest to engage readers in a conversation that enriches our lives and the lives of the animals whose stories she tells."

Live Teleclass Training Series Begins Feb 7

Come play with us!

If you have wanted to take the Adventure Retreat Leader training with Patt and Deb in the live teleclass series format, now is the time.

We offering this live format twice each year. February and October.

Our next Adventure and Retreat Leader live teleclass series begins February 7!