Reconnect to your voice.
Culturally immersive travel experiences for musicians, writers, and creative scholars. Connect to friends and a rich cultural heritage, and take your work to a new level.
Your creative work is the lived expression of your dearest values.
However, that doesn’t mean that composing a great song or writing an impactful article always comes easily. Feeling creatively blocked, uninspired, or disconnected from your work can leave you with frustration and burnout.
Experience a new creative reconnection and a new community.
Run by writers and creatives for writers and creatives, our retreats allow you to tap into your authentic voice as a writer, songwriter, performer, or creative scholar. Rejuvenate your work with an immersive cultural and creative experience in a new and exquisite part of the world.
Our Retreats
Camino de Santiago, Spain
This is a twelve-day songwriting retreat in northern Spain, beginning in the small city of Astorga (León, Castilla y León), proceeding along the historic “Camino Francés” (also called the Camino de Santiago), and ending in the small village of Trabadelo (El Bierzo, Castilla y León). Days of walking this historic road, in the company of one another and other pilgrim ‘peregrinos,’ will alternate with days co-writing songs together.
Sardinia, Italy
An intensive, weeklong songwriting workshop based in the picturesque village of Santu Lussurgiu. Daily writing assignments, morning yoga classes, and guided mentoring from instructors are combined with immersion in Sardinian culture. Participants will enjoy traditional foods, songs (including a workshop with an internationally recognized singing Cuncordu), and experience the language and culture of this fiercely independent, semi-sovereign island.
So what’s it like?
SLOW DOWN.
Tune into your breath and into all your senses.
LISTEN.
Listen exquisitely, listen closely. Listen to all the sounds around you. Can you hear a rhythm, a melody?
BREATHE IN.
Take a deep, long inhale, and then exhale for even longer. Do it again. May you be peaceful, happy and healthy. May you be and feel artistically alive, whatever that looks like for you.
RECONNECT WITH YOURSELF.
Grab a journal, or grab your guitar. Can you give yourself five minutes? What about ten? Give yourself this moment: what smells, sounds, sights, textures and tastes surround you? Maybe, just maybe, can you let yourself land in the center of a song, a poem or a story?
CONNECT WITH OTHERS.
Step into playful creation with someone else. Step into creating something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Share what’s on your heart.
LISTEN.
Listen to yourself. Listen to others. Can you stay present for yourself while engaging another person?
STEP INTO THE CREATIVE JOURNEY OF A LIFETIME.
Laugh. Giggle. Snort. Go deep. Rest. Go deeper. Check in. Play your song.
Share your song. Now let it go.
We invite you to…
Meet your guide
Sing Me Back Home director and facilitator Dr. Kristina Jacobsen is a singer/songwriter, anthropologist, country artist and former Park Ranger who lived and worked on the Navajo Nation for twenty years. In July 2022, she completed the Camino Francés and received her “Compostela” (certification of completion) when she walked from Burgos, Spain to Santiago de Compostela, Spain (498 kilometers). As a Fulbright Artist and Scholar, she lived in Italy for two years (Trento and the island of Sardegna). At the University of New Mexico, she leads the Songwriting major. Kristina has toured and given research talks in the U.S., Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Cyprus, and the United Arab Emirates. She is excited to provide a safe and creative environment for writers and musicians wanting to deepen their craft through culturally immersive experiences.
People say…
“Though there are many kinds of songwriting retreats—from invitational cowriting team camps, convened by publishers and labels, to educational workshops with master songwriters—most tend to focus on the “retreat” aspect. Combining her perspectives as a creative songwriter and a trained anthropologist and ethnographer, Kristina Jacobsen envisions a different kind of songwriter retreat: one more about “approach.” Unifying elements of activist ethnography, service learning, and artistic practice research, her retreats are culturally and ethnographically situated and informed, conceived from the outset as collaborative exchanges between a temporary community of songwriter guests and learners, and local communities with their distinctive musical identities and songwriting traditions. This visionary model champions values that, sadly, have been bleached from our current technology-mediated, personality-based, market-driven, monoculture-genic music industry: reclaiming songs and songmaking as integral expressions of community, a cultural, social—and truly human endeavor.”
“My experience at this retreat will stick with me for a lifetime. It was challenging and emotional, but truly valuable to my growth as a songwriter. I learned as much about myself through working with the other writers as I did about their styles and techniques. Between the land and the people I got to know on this trip, it’s hard to say which was more impactful. The landscape has so much to say, while the people I met genuinely touched my heart.”
“I am leaving with a richer sense of being able to share vulnerable and genuine connections with people through music, and in general. I am leaving feeling empowered that I have something to offer, and that songwriting is a completely worthwhile pursuit and dedication of one’s energies. This retreat has deepened my feeling that I can live an artistic way of life.”
Your story is calling.
Ready to unlock a new level of connection with your artistic voice? Speak with our facilitator to find out which retreat is best for you.
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