This Company Is Hosting Wellness Retreats for Real Life

A Vivacious Life retreat/ Photo provided

The typical wellness retreat offers a blissful, stress-free escape from reality. But when it inevitably comes to an end, you’re right back where you started.

Health coach Laura Ingalls, chef Danielle DeSiato, and yoga instructor and life coach Caitlin Green wanted to avoid that fate. The trio is behind a new company called Vivacious Life, which hosts ladies-only wellness retreats that help women enhance—not avoid—their real lives.

“Nobody else is putting together the practical wellness skills in a way that’s successful to people who aren’t super into yoga, or heavy into the running world,” Ingalls says. Vivacious Life, on the other hand, is tailored to “everyday people who are trying to do it all.”

Ingalls, DeSiato, and Green, all experts in their respective fields, aim to teach practical skills (think cooking, meditation, and yoga) and share accessible advice (on topics including nutrition, silencing your inner critic, and gaining confidence) that attendees can bring back to the real world. Giving women a place to connect, relax, and recharge is an added bonus.

“Giving [women] the space and time to step outside the busy hectic life of taking care of everyone else all the time and learn something new and synthesize it and then take it home and incorporate it into that busy life…is really important,” DeSiato explains.

The trio also goes out of its way to make the retreats appealing to the average person, not just health nuts. There’s a wine bar each night. Nothing is taken too seriously. And at $1,200 for three all-inclusive days and nights, the price point—while still an investment—is lower than that of similar luxury retreats.

The company is still in its early stages, but the founders say feedback from initial promotional retreats has been positive. Moving forward, retreats will be held either “mountainside,” in Leyden, or “oceanside,” in Nahant. Groups may also book private retreats, and in-home mini-workshops are available.

Interested? The next excursion begins May 18.

Founders (from left) Danielle DeSiato, Laura Ingalls, and Caitlin Green