The Little Retreat & The Big Retreat Festival | A Conversation with founder Amber Rich
To call The Little Retreat in Pembrokeshire glamping is like calling Glennon Doyle a blogger. Staying in one of the wood-furnace heated domes (with furniture you’d find in a boutique hotel), warming up in your own Scandi hot tub, or roasting smores by a private fire pit after a day at the beach or walking in the Preseli Hills, you’ll sink into what life could be if we stopped for a while to notice its possibilities.
The Little Retreat was founded by Amber Rich, who also curates The Big Retreat “feel-good festival” that takes place on these grounds (2022 tickets are already on sale), and from which it takes its cue. Where the festival has a Darwin den, campfire stage, cold water swims in The Cleddau, a talk tent curated by Shelf Help director Toni Jones, and creative workshops, its weekend away counterpart has sustainability woven through its design, foraging workshops about to start, stargazing tents with views of dark skies, and curated programs focusing on such practices as breathwork, yoga, arts and craft. The festival and retreat overlap, exchange ideas, and share their approach, with both offering a slowed-down lifestyle and collective experiences that get you closer to a vision of how you might shape your own life when you return back to it.
After a few days at The Little Retreat, we had the chance to speak with Amber about how she arrived at this place, how closely the festival and the retreat are connected, and how wellness is now something that we all reach for:
Let’s start with the connection between The Big Retreat and The Little Retreat. Why did you start them and how do they connect? If the core value of the festival is one of ‘discovery’, how would you describe the retreat?
I used to own my own gym and ran fitness and wellbeing classes to improve mental and physical health. After the birth of my daughter Bea (who is now 7) I decided that I wanted to utilise the family land to create a sanctuary where people could come to escape their busy lives, pause and reconnect. This was the start of the original "Little Retreats".
I found that these retreats were having such a profound effect on people’s lives and making a real difference: One lady who attended had not been able to sleep for years. After our retreat, she learnt how to pause and use those skills to have her first good night’s sleep in 7 years! It was feedback like this that spurred me on to create The Big Retreat Festival.
I wanted to create a space where people could come and discover breath work, fire walking, gong baths, yoga, wild swimming, forest bathing — literally anything and everything that allowed people to "find their feel good". It also included festival favourites such as gin workshops and music to enhance people’s experience and wellbeing.
I realised that giving people time and space in a beautiful setting to discover all of these wonderful life-enhancing experiences could really make a positive change in people’s lives.
Discovery and "finding your feel good" still remains the core value to this day.
What do you think people are looking for who stay with you or attend one of your events?
I think people are looking for time to reflect on themselves, to unplug from daily life and to find out what makes them feel good. We are perfectly poised in the heart of the Pembrokeshire National Park on the banks of the "Secret Waterway". The stunning location inspires awe and wonder every time and we think the unique setting coupled with a sanctuary and safe space to discover is the catalyst for change.
What do you hope people experience with the projects that you create? What do you hope they take away and bring into their everyday lives?
I hope that people’s appreciation for nature and the outdoors grows and they are able to reconnect and utilise outdoor space to improve their wellbeing. I think it’s important with the complexity of modern living that people are reminded that sometimes it’s the simple things that bring us the most happiness.
If you attend one of our Feel Good Retreats you will learn skills that you can take away with you and implement straight away in your everyday life. The goal is to inspire people to reset and to really connect with themselves and the great outdoors.
I see my role as a curator of discovery and awe, allowing people the opportunity to reset, rethink and equip themselves with a host of skills and experiences — a toolkit that they can take home and continue to use to ultimately change their path and enhance their lives.
How do you think the idea of wellness has shifted since you started The Little and Big Retreats?
When I first began The Little Retreat the words wellbeing and wellness were quite niche and only appealed to a select few. Today looking after your mental and physical health is much more mainstream and in the public psyche. With the Covid pandemic more and more people are realising just how important nature and mental as well as physical health are to enhance our lives. That is one positive we can take away from the Covid pandemic.
What motivates you to create these spaces in the world? What kept you going during recent challenges?
My key motivation is to provide a sanctuary that allows people to discover not only nature but how to unwind and reconnect for their physical and mental health. A safe space where people are free to discover and pause.
The design of the space at The Little Retreat was about focusing on ways for people to connect with the outdoors without necessarily having to "rough it" to experience the joys of being close to nature. A key focus was also to have a minimal impact on the surrounding ecology and landscape.
The pandemic has actually given me the time and space to take ecology and planning into focus and look at ways for nature to thrive. We noticed during the pandemic the return of otters on the river banks and native oysters that had previously been wiped out due to human impact. This rewinding of our natural space showed me just how important it is to tread lightly on the site and in everything we do. We have worked to encourage nature in the planning — from bat boxes, swallow bricks, hedgehog runs, planting native species and harvesting the rainwater. We are really hoping to reduce our carbon footprint at both The Little Retreat and The Big Retreat Festival.
Over the pandemic, I realised that conserving the area was so important for nature and our own wellbeing that I set up the nonprofit arm "The Big Retreat Community". This is geared at enhancing and protecting nature as well as giving welsh artists a platform at our next festival.
In our guide for life, we roam across ten different pathways in the places that we feature and I’m curious about where you’d position your projects and why?
After looking through your Ten Pathways it is extremely difficult to choose one. All of them are intertwined intrinsically in everything we do from untethering upon arrival, to reconnecting mind and spirit right through to purpose and doing good. All of your pathways align exactly with our mission and how we conduct our projects.
How do you bring the values of the places you create into your own life?
I am constantly trying new things and discovering not only the latest external wellbeing practices but rediscovering the landscape. I make sure I set aside time every day to do this. Whether it’s a cooling wild swim in the Cleddau or a mindful walk through the woodland set around our site. I make sure that at least once a day I allow time for myself to reconnect and discover. I think it is so important to schedule this time into your diary in the same way you would an appointment at the doctor’s.
As we emerge from the lockdowns and are maybe feeling more hopeful about our worlds, is there anything that you’re particularly excited about going forwards?
There is so much going on at The Little Retreats this year it’s actually really really exciting. We have the addition of wild food workshops offering a foraging course and a 12-course dinner, the release of our Find Your Feel Good In Pembrokeshire guide, wild swimming sessions, forest bathing, and breathwork. We are currently building the space for the new stargazer tents with outdoor hot baths — a perfect opportunity to make the most of our stunning location in an official UK Dark Sky reserve. There are so many things that are organically falling into place.
We want both The Little and The Big Retreat to be a sanctuary and a beacon for anyone and everyone who wants to set aside time to find out just what it is that makes them tick and "find their feel good".
While there: we recommend pastries and bread from the micro bakery in the village Hugtasty, the award-winning beach shack Café Mor at Freshwater West (also the site of Dobby’s resting place), the stunning beaches, hikes, and paddle-boarding at Stackpole, and cafe with a mission Get the Boys a Lift.
