What I’ve Learned About Hosting from Traveling Alone

For the Curious, the Wandering, and the Slightly Sunburned

Not the kind that screams for attention or transformation—but the quieter sort. The kind that hums under your skin when you're in a country where no one knows your name, sipping coffee in someone else’s kitchen, trying to decipher the label on the oat milk carton. The kind that makes your senses sharper. Your pace more gentle. Your questions bigger.

Somewhere in that in-between space—between getting a little lost and finding your footing again—I started learning how I wanted to host people and what I wanted to bring to Kefi Kollektive.

In Morocco, everything is alive.

The call to prayer. The sound of babouche (slippers) on tile. A cat leaping into a sunbeam. A man tossing coins in his hand to bring attention to the cartons of cigarettes he’s selling. There’s color everywhere—bougainvillea tumbling over alleyways, ochre dust on your ankles, and uneven stone road underfoot.

But it’s the spirit of welcome that stays with me.

Hospitality in Morocco isn’t transactional—it’s sacred. You’re invited to stay, to share, to be part of something. People don’t just offer you tea; they refill your glass six times and ask about your mother, and her mother’s mother. There’s time for the story. There’s always time.

That spirit has seeped into my skin like sun. When I host now, I don’t just set a table—I think about the invitation itself. I ask: What would feel warm here? What would bring the story? What would feel remembered?

There’s an unteachable warmth in Morocco that I try to carry with me everywhere.

In Lisbon, I learned about restraint.

Not in a withholding way—but in the way a well-composed fado song holds back just enough to let you ache a little. Even if you don’t know what’s being said.

Lisbon has this quiet confidence. Laundry flaps like prayer flags from pastel-colored windows. Trams rattle up hills that make your legs ache and feet slip. You order a glass of vinho verde and stay long enough to hear it described like a mood, rather than a drink.

There’s a slower rhythm here. The kind that comes from people who trust the tide. You sit. Someone brings bread. You linger. You watch the light change. The waiter has nowhere else to be—and actually, neither do you.

Being alone in Lisbon always reminds me that presence can be enough. That slowness isn’t laziness—it’s luxury.

It also taught me something essential about retreat planning: not everything needs to be filled. I now leave space in my itineraries for the unscheduled. For wandering. For writing. For mid-morning naps and second cups of coffee (or matcha).

Portugal reminded me that beauty doesn’t need bells. Just light and care.

And then there was— and always is—Cyprus.

Sun-drunk and myth-soaked, with one foot in the East and one in the Mediterranean. Cyprus is always home.

My family is from the Greek side. And though I wasn’t born there, being in Cyprus feels like being recognized by someone you’ve never met. It’s imperfect, intimate, and unfiltered in a way I find both disarming and deeply comforting.

In Limassol, women at the bakery help you with your Greek and hand you cookies you didn’t ask for, but will always accept. In Paphos, I swam alone in water so clear it felt indecent. I ate grilled halloumi and pounds of souvlaki on plastic chairs while stray cats wound around my ankles like ivy. I stayed up late with my Papou drinking tiny coffees and rehashing the same family stories. Again. And again.

Cyprus doesn’t try to impress. It invites you simply invites you in.

It taught me the value of loose plans. Of building a container—not a script. Of trusting that people will find what they need when the atmosphere is right, even if the itinerary isn’t airtight.

Traveling alone taught me how to sit with myself.

Which, in its own way, is what retreat guests are often learning to do.

And it made me a better host: more observant, more attuned, more curious. When no one’s there to talk to, you start listening harder—to tone, to texture, to the way a table is set or how someone looks at you when they say welcome.

You learn what it feels like to not know the language. To fumble at the market. To arrive somewhere and not yet (or ever) belong. That discomfort, that delicious humility—that’s where good hosting begins.

Because when you’ve been the outsider, you become a better welcomer. You explain the unspoken rules. You show someone where the extra blankets are. You ask if they drink coffee or tea without making them ask.

You stop trying to impress. You start trying to include.

So now, when we design retreats at Kefi Kollektive—whether it’s a seaside escape in Lisbon, a creative gathering in the olive groves of Marrakech, or a sun-drenched soul reset in Cyprus—we hold these solo travel lessons close:

Generosity.
Stillness.
Trust.

We build a structure. We set the tone. We light the candles.
And then—we let it breathe.

Because real magic doesn’t happen on the agenda.
It happens in the margins.
And it’s what I’ve learned… somewhere between a cup of tea in Marrakech, a Fado show in Lisbon, and a salt-stained towel in Cyprus.

xx

Alethea