Leonidio Climbing Retreat

About half of our of climbers come to our international retreats alone. Often we do have groups of friends who sign up together, and we also have couples pretty often, but we also have a lot of people just come by themselves looking to meet people and make new friends. If you are hesitating to join  because you would be coming solo, please know that we expect a lot of our participants to be joining by themselves.

We generally have a wide range of ages at our retreats. The average tends to fall  between the ages of 25 to 45, but we have had quite a few climbers in their 60's join as well. It really is up to the attitude and physical ability of the participant.

You do not need to be an experienced climber to attend but having a little climbing experience under your belt before signing up can't hurt. We recommend that everyone attending is able to top rope a 5.9 in a climbing gym without taking or falling. We are aware that climbing 5.9 in a climbing gym is much different than climbing a 5.9 outside, but having the ability to climb 5.9 in a climbing gym will set you up to have a great time in Leonidio. Even if you're not quite there, with multiple groups, we can really accommodate a wide range of abilities.

The food we'll be eating is, for the most part, traditional Greek food as Leonidio is a small, rural village. We will not be cooking meals for the group, so we only have as much control over what goes into your food as you would going to any restaurant. That said, we've had participants with gluten-free and vegetarian diets on this trip before and they did just fine. Gluten-free bread and other options are provided at breakfast and are usually available at dinner. Vegetarian options are also available, but vegans may find navigating the Greek love of meat and dairy to be difficult. Celiacs may have a challenging time as well. 

If the trip fills, we'll have 20-25 climbers and 5 guides. Our daily groups will consist of 3-5 climbers per guide, letting us have our ropes on 2-3 routes at a time. 

Our trips are also made up of 90% women. 

Men are perfectly welcome, but they tend to be outnumbered, making even these mixed gender trips a very woman-centric space. Our guide team will also predominantly be made up of women, though we promise Brian is also the best. 

Probably. Lead climbing is certainly not a requirement for anybody on the trip, but we're happy to let you lead as long as you have prior experience as a leader and can pass a belay test similar to those found in most gyms (minus the falling). Our main goal is to keep everyone safe, so on our first day out together we’ll just want to see that everyone is able to manage the rope, communicate, lead and belay safely before being cleared to do it throughout the week. If you don’t plan on leading, we’ll just want to go through a quick belay test to make sure you’re good to go belaying those who are. For those aspiring to lead, we will try our best to coach you through the process  throughout the week with the aim of you learning to do so safely. 

Ideally, sunny and nice! Temperatures should be warm enough to enjoy the beach, yet cool enough in the shade to be good for climbing. You can expect highs in the 70's and 80's most days, with nights dipping down into the 50's and 60's. On most of our trips in Leonidio so far we've found it's actually too hot to climb in the sun most days, and really nice in the shade. It does rain occasionally, but usually it rains hard for a day then goes back to being sunny. We won't claim it's perfect beach weather everyday either, but last year we definitely swam and sunbathed, and mostly wore just sweatshirts and maybe a light jacket eating dinner outside. 

We have two types of payment plans available. 

Payment Plan 1 (Two Payments): This plan requires a 50% deposit, of which 10% of the total cost of the trip is non-refundable. Apply the discount code "retreatdeposit" at checkout. Full payment will be required three   months prior to the retreat start date. 

Payment Plan 2 (Monthly Payments): 

This option is only available if the retreat is 5 or more months away. This plan requires a 10% deposit, of which 10% of the total cost of the trip  is non-refundable. Apply the discount code "paymentplan" at checkout to  take advantage of this option. We will split the remaining payment into subsequent monthly payments. Full payment will be required two months prior to the retreat start date. We charge $50 to utilize this option as  it requires much more work for our team to manage, you'll notice a 3% processing fee which is simply what we are charged to process credit cards.

We have a very strict cancellation policy. Please review it before committing to this retreat. We HIGHLY recommend purchasing trip protection as we will not modify our cancellation policy under any circumstances.