What to expect from a Pangea Dreams retreat?

Did you ever feel like no one around you fully understands your goals in life? Or do you sometimes feel like you are completely alone? Well, I used to feel that way. That’s why I got so intrigued when I first heard about the Pangea Dreams retreats. I had come across so many beautiful testimonies on Instagram about women empowering each other and feeling part of a community. I thought to myself, I want to be a part of that too and help make a difference! So on New Years Eve I decided that my only resolution for the next year would be to put myself first and to invest in my dreams. About an hour later I had joined one of the retreats in Bali and immediately booked my flights! There really was no turning back now!

Feeling inspired by this sudden leap of faith I decided to start up this blog and expand my knowledge on photography and Lightroom. This is not a must if you wish to join the retreat but I am a perfectionist and wanted to feel as prepared as possible.

A few months later the time had come to board my flight to Bali and I was feeling excited, nervous, happy, proud and a little nauseous to be honest. I was going to join an all girls retreat and I was getting worried that I wouldn’t fit in. But from the moment I arrived at Villa Atas Awan I knew there was nothing to be nervous about. I was greeted with the warmest welcome by the other girls and immediately felt that I made the right decision by coming here. When I first met Tracy and Lisa I felt so starstruck. Cause here were these amazing women who I had been following on Instagram for months and I couldn’t believe that I would actually get the opportunity to learn from them! It all felt so surreal but at the same time empowering! After meeting our photographer Sam and our blogging expert Lisa I honestly couldn’t wait to start the workshops!

The morning after we started with our daily yoga session and the welcome circle. Everyone got to introduce themselves and it soon became very clear that so many of us were in the same boat: working full time and trying to build an Instagram community in our spare time. It felt good realising I wasn’t the only one who was struggling with this and that I was surrounded by people who I could talk to.

Our morning ritual included an amazing breakfast (helloooo banana pancakes!) and our intention settings for that day:

What are three things that you are grateful for?
What are your intentions for today?
What are 3 things you want to accomplish today?

I can tell you the first time I had to fill these out it felt so uncomfortable but day by day I grew more confident and by the end of the retreat it felt like a piece of cake cause my mind was so much clearer and I had learned so much from all of the amazing women I was surrounded with!

By now it was time to start our first workshop of the retreat, hosted by the founder of Pangea Dreams, Tracy Komlos! She taught us everything there is to know about:

Defining your brand
Establishing your visual tone
Attracting like-minded partners & brands

On the first day we received our workbook so it was easy to take as many notes as possible. And to this day it hasn’t left my side cause it contains so much valuable information.

Our second workshop was led by the amazingly talented photographer Sam Katz and was all about the basic principles of photography and how to shoot in manual. What I loved so much about her workshop is that she actually explained everything in a way that you can fully understand it. Before the retreat I had read so many articles and watched so many YouTube videos on photography, but a lot of the times they just left me more confused. But when Sam explained it to us something actually clicked in my brain and suddenly it all made sense.

As our photographer on this trip she did not only take some amazing photos of all of us but she actually pushed us to do the same thing. She encouraged us to just put those camera settings on manual, ask as many questions as we wanted and go and have fun. All of us got pushed out of our comfort zone and it felt amazing and liberating and of course a little scary. But that’s how I learned and I will never ever go back to shooting on automatic.

The second day started of a little different…

Instead of doing our regular yoga session the incredible Lisa learned us some real Dance Hall moves! And it was the BEST EVER!

Next up: The Lightroom workshop hosted by Lightroom magicians Sam & the one and only Lisa Homsy!

Sam taught us all there is to know about importing and labelling, which upon till that point I knew nothing about and holy moly did she make life easier for all of us!

Lisa on the other hand shared all of her magic editing tricks and taught us hands on by giving us some of her best photos so we could start editing them ourselves.

The same principle goes here: there are no stupid questions and you can ask as many questions as you can possibly think of!

Besides all of the hard work, which actually never felt like work, there is also plenty of time to go out and explore! So we headed of to Ubud for some fabulous coconut ice cream and went up to the Campuhan ridge walk!

Our next day actually started at 2am as we prepared for hiking up Mount Batur. Armed with our camera and a flash light we set of for an amazing adventure. Hiking up 1700 meter to get to one of the most spectacular viewpoints I have ever seen! All of us sat next to each other watching the sky turn from red to orange as the sun was slowly coming up. And as soon as the sun hit the sky the monkeys came to play or better said, to eat.

As if this wasn’t enough we also got to experience a real behind the scenes of a hotel collaboration with The Udaya. Getting to see Tracy and Lisa in their element was so inspiring and on this day I learned so much about photography in different settings and environments just by asking them questions on the go. Thanks to them we were able to shoot in a flower bath and “have breakfast” in a private pool. What was so nice to see is that by now all of us felt so comfortable around each other that we kept taking more and more photos so that by the end of the day everyone would have as much content as possible!

To end our day we headed of to the Tegallalang rice fields in Ubud to create some more content! I had been looking forward to the Bali Swing for weeks so when Lisa told us they now also installed one here I got so excited to try it out!

Our last day of workshops included some of my favourite ones and even though that I was still dead tired from the day before I felt so eager to learn and soak up as much information as humanly possible. So after breakfast we sat down with Lisa who taught us all there is to know about creating a Media Kit. Cause if you want to collaborate with hotels and brands this is your social portfolio that can take you and your brand to the next level!

After lunch Tracy shared all of her wisdom with us regarding

Hotel & Brand Collaborations
How to build a dedicated community on Instagram

The amount of information you get can be overwhelming sometimes but even after the workshops these amazing girls are always open to more questions and will happily sit down with you to go deeper into one topic.

Now, a workshop that wasn’t planned but that I was looking forward to so much was the one given by our second Lisa: The ins and outs of starting up a blog! Having just started up my own blog I wanted to know if I was on the right track cause this girl is killing it in the bloggingworld! Just check out her amazing blog Fjords and Beaches and you will see why!

We ended our amazing week in Bali with a trip to Seminyak and our closing circle. It was so wonderful to see how far everyone had come in just one week and how amazing it felt to feel so liberated.

My conclusion? Joining the Pangea Dreams retreat was the best decision I have made so far this year! I had the pleasure of meeting some of the most inspiring women from all over the world and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat!

Pangea Dreams is not only about learning how to be successful at Instagram, photography,… it’s about learning what you truly want from life and finding the power to reach for the stars and knowing that it’s okay to want more from life!

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