Living in Flow Nicaragua Adventure Retreat

APRIL 29–MAY 8, 2027 · NICARAGUA

9 nights · 10 days · 7 women

Crater lake → colonial city → volcanic island → Pacific Ocean.

Ten days. Four wildly different sides of Nicaragua. Seven women.

We’ll wake up beside a volcanic crater lake surrounded by jungle, kayak across warm mineral-rich water, wander the colorful streets of my favorite colonial city, and take a ferry across Lake Nicaragua to an island formed by two volcanoes.

On Ometepe, we’ll swim in natural springs, explore coffee fincas, kayak between volcanoes and spend our days discovering an island that still feels a little mystical every time I return.

Then we’ll trade the lake for the Pacific and spend our final days barefoot in Popoyo — learning to surf in warm waves, flowing through yoga above the sand, watching the sun disappear into the ocean, and celebrating everything we just experienced together.

I’ve lived in Nicaragua, traveled through it for years, and hosted Living in Flow retreats here since 2023. This trip brings together so many of the places and experiences that have made me keep coming back.

Basically, all the things I love most about Nicaragua in one adventure. 🇳🇮🤍

This trip is for you if...

You want to experience a country, not just check into a beautiful hotel and stay there.

You love adventure, but you also want cute hotels, mornings with nowhere to rush, long meals, swims, wandering, and time to actually enjoy where you are.

You want the experiences you probably wouldn't piece together on your own — without having to organize the ferries, hotels, drivers, guides, reservations and logistics yourself.

You'd happily spend one day kayaking between volcanoes and another wandering colorful streets with an iced coffee in your hand.

You want to travel with a small group of women who are genuinely excited to be there.

10 Days Through Nicaragua

🌋 LAGUNA DE APOYO · ARRIVE

We’ll begin beside one of the places that first made me fall in love with Nicaragua: Laguna de Apoyo, an ancient volcanic crater now filled with warm, mineral-rich water and surrounded by tropical forest.

Our first few days are intentionally slow. Morning movement. Kayaking across the lake. Swimming to the floating dock. Long breakfasts overlooking the water. Space to arrive before the adventure really begins.

From our home on the lake, we’ll venture out to experience more of this part of Nicaragua, too. Including a ceramics workshop, mirador vistas, and a trip to Granada.

🌺 GRANADA · WANDER

We’ll spend a day in my favorite colonial city, wandering past colorful facades and old churches, stopping into little shops, having lunch tucked inside a beautiful garden café, and leaving enough time to see where the day takes us. No racing through Granada to check things off a list. I want you to have time to actually look around.

🌋 OMETEPE · EXPLORE

Then we take the ferry. Out in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, two volcanoes rise from the water and form the island of Ometepe.

We’ll spend three nights here with lake views as our backdrop, waking early for birdwatching, exploring a coffee finca, swimming at a natural spring oasis, kayaking between the volcanoes, finding our way around the island and ending one of our days at the beach.

For anyone craving an even bigger challenge, a guided volcano hike will be available as an optional adventure.

🌊 POPOYO · PLAY

Finally, we'll cross back to the mainland and head to the most beautiful beach on the Pacific. Our last three nights are at the beachfront lodge where Living in Flow began hosting retreats years ago.

We’ll surf warm waves with local instructors, practice yoga overlooking the sand, swim, read, nap, walk the beach, watch ridiculous sunsets from the pool and have time to do absolutely nothing if that's what sounds good.

And on our final night, we’ll sit down together for one last dinner before everyone heads home.

What's included

✨ 9 nights of beautiful accommodation across three destinations
✨ Daily breakfast
✨ Roundtrip airport transfers + transportation throughout the retreat
✨ Ferry transportation to/from Ometepe
✨ Welcome dinner + select group meals
✨ Granada cultural day
✨ Ometepe island experiences + guided activities
✨ Two beginner-friendly surf lessons with local instructors
✨ Private yoga/movement sessions
✨ Closing dinner
✨ All planned group transportation between Laguna de Apoyo, Granada, Ometepe + Popoyo
✨ Plenty of unscheduled time to swim, wander, rest + have your own experience of Nicaragua

Investment

This retreat is limited to just 7 women: 4 shared and 3 private spots. Whether you choose shared or private, you’ll stay in beautiful, thoughtfully selected accommodations throughout the journey — from the shores of Laguna de Apoyo to a lakeview hotel on Ometepe and our favorite beachfront lodge in Popoyo.

Shared

Your own bed in shared accommodations throughout the retreat.

Shared rooms vary by destination, but you'll always have your own bed and share with another Living in Flow guest.

4 spots available

$2,850

Deposit: $400

Private

Your own private room throughout the retreat.

Our private rooms have been selected for women who want their own space to come back to at the end of each day while still experiencing the full journey with the group.

Only 3 spots available

$3,450

Deposit: $400

Is this retreat for you?

This retreat is designed for women who want to actually travel through Nicaragua, not spend ten days inside one resort. You don’t need to be an experienced surfer, yogi, or hardcore hiker. But you should be excited about a trip that includes ferries, road travel, warm tropical weather, early mornings for certain adventures, walking and exploring on foot, swimming, trying new activities, and moving between three different hotels over the course of ten days.

Some days will be active. Some will be wonderfully slow. And because this is Nicaragua, part of the adventure is being flexible enough to enjoy the moments we couldn't have planned.

Come ready to move, swim, explore, be curious, and experience a lot of Nicaragua with us.

Come solo. You probably won't be the only one.

One of the questions I hear most often before a retreat is some version of: “But who am I going to be traveling with?”

It makes sense. You can look at photos of the hotels and read the itinerary, but you can't know in advance what it will feel like to spend ten days with women you've never met.

Most Living in Flow guests come without knowing anyone else. And after years of hosting these trips, the women have become one of my favorite parts to watch unfold.

As one of our returning guests, Lu, said after Peru:

“One of the things that I’m always thinking about when I go on a retreat is: who am I going to be keeping company with? The group of women that Melanie curates and puts together is always magical... And the sisterhood that I experience is always a gift like none other.”

This is also one of the reasons Nicaragua is limited to 7 guests. Eight of us can sit around one table. We can pile into one vehicle. We can move through a city without feeling like a tour group. And there is enough time over ten days to actually get to know the women you're experiencing it all with.

Why Nicaragua?

I first came to Nicaragua in 2022 and ended up living here for nine months. What was supposed to be another place on my travels became somewhere I kept returning to.

I spent three months volunteering beside Laguna de Apoyo. I fell in love with Granada. I lived on Ometepe for a month. I eventually made my way to the Pacific coast, where Living in Flow would host its first retreats.

Over the years, Nicaragua became woven into my life in a way I never expected. I've watched the sun come up over volcanoes and disappear into the Pacific. I've walked home barefoot from a sweat lodge on Ometepe (and stepped directly on a scorpion 😂). I've spent long afternoons swimming in Laguna de Apoyo, wandered Granada without much of a plan, learned to surf on the Pacific coast, made friends here, lived here, and brought women back here with me year after year. That's why this trip isn't built around seeing as many tourist attractions as we can fit into ten days.

It's built around the places I actually love. I want you to swim in the lake where I once lived. Wander the city I always come back to. Take the ferry out to an island that still feels surreal to me. See two volcanoes rising around you while you're sitting in a kayak. And then end the whole thing barefoot on the Pacific.

There are a lot of beautiful places in the world where I could host a retreat.

There is a reason I keep choosing Nicaragua. And I would love to show you why. 🇳🇮🤍

What your days will actually feel like

There will be an itinerary. There will also be holes in it on purpose. I don't want us rushing away from a conversation because the van is waiting. I don't want every lunch chosen months in advance or every afternoon filled because we technically could fit something else in.

Some mornings will start with yoga. One starts early enough to watch the birds wake up on Ometepe. Some days we'll go exploring. Others will end with swims, beers or coconuts somewhere we happened to find along the way.

There will be surf lessons and kayaks and ferries and volcanoes. There will also be naps.

That's intentional. I've traveled enough to know that some of the best parts of a trip are the things nobody knew to put on the itinerary.

Optional Adventures

There will also be opportunities to make parts of the trip your own. Depending on what you're craving, optional experiences may include a guided hike on Concepción Volcano, additional surf sessions, massage, horseback riding on the beach, and other activities available along the way.

These experiences are optional and not included in the retreat price unless otherwise noted.

So if your dream Ometepe day involves climbing a volcano while someone else's involves swimming somewhere beautiful and taking a nap afterward... everybody wins.

Ready to Join Us? How Booking Works

1. Choose shared or private.

There are 4 shared spots and only 3 private spots available for the entire retreat.

2. Reserve your spot with a $400 deposit.

Your deposit officially takes your spot off the market and secures your room category.

3. I'll take it from there.

Before Nicaragua, you'll receive everything you need to prepare — packing guidance, arrival information, our group WhatsApp, what to expect in each destination, and all the little logistics you shouldn't have to figure out yourself. Then you just get yourself to Nicaragua.

I'll be waiting. 🤍

First retreat? Traveling solo?

If you're excited about Nicaragua but have questions before reserving your spot, I'd love to meet you. We can talk about the trip, what traveling with Living in Flow is actually like, your activity level, coming alone, room options, or anything else that's making you hesitate.

Schedule a complimentary 15-minute discovery call.

You can also reach out directly if we've already been chatting — I'm always happy to answer questions personally.

Meet Your Host

Melanie

I'm Melanie, founder of Living in Flow and the woman who will be traveling through Nicaragua with you. I created Living in Flow after losing my home in a fire in 2021, during a chapter that changed almost everything about the way I was living.

Travel became a huge part of what came next. Over the years, I've lived abroad, traveled through dozens of countries, learned Spanish, taught yoga, learned to surf, opened a digital studio, spent a lot of time doing things that initially scared or embarrassed me, and slowly built a life that looked much more like the one I'd spent years imagining. Living in Flow grew out of that.

I hosted my first women's retreat in Nicaragua in 2023, and since then I've taken women surfing on the Pacific, into remote communities high in the Peruvian Andes, through places and experiences they probably never would have found on their own, and — most importantly — into some really beautiful friendships with each other.

I don't believe travel magically turns us into different people. But I do think getting outside our routines, doing things that make us feel alive, spending time in nature, and being around women who are willing to say yes to their own lives can remind us of parts of ourselves we've gotten very good at ignoring.

Adventure is the invitation. Remembering is the destination.

Getting There

Our journey begins at Laguna de Apoyo on Thursday, April 29, 2027 and ends in Popoyo on Saturday, May 8, 2027. Roundtrip group transportation to and from Managua International Airport (MGA) is included.

You'll receive recommended arrival and departure windows before booking your flights so we can coordinate group transfers as smoothly as possible.

Once you arrive, transportation between our destinations is taken care of — including our journey to Granada, ferry crossing to Ometepe, island transfers, and transportation onward to the Pacific coast. You will not need to rent a car or figure out how to get yourself around Nicaragua.

A few things to know before you book

Nicaragua is tropical, adventurous, and occasionally unpredictable. This is not a luxury bus tour where every variable can be controlled. We'll travel by road and ferry, spend a lot of time outdoors, encounter heat and humidity, insects, and occasionally adjust because weather, water, roads, or Nicaragua itself has other ideas. That's part of traveling here.

I'll take care of the logistics and make thoughtful decisions along the way. I'm asking you to bring curiosity, flexibility, respect for the places we're visiting, and a willingness to go with the flow when needed. If that sounds fun rather than terrifying, you're probably in the right place.

7 women. 10 days. One Nicaragua adventure.

Laguna de Apoyo → Granada → Ometepe → Popoyo

Volcanic lakes. Colorful streets. Coffee farms. Natural springs. Two volcanoes rising from the water. Warm Pacific waves. Yoga above the sand. And ten days to experience a country I can't seem to stop coming back to.

April 29–May 8, 2027

4 shared spots · 3 private spots

$400 reserves your place.

See you in Nicaragua. 🇳🇮🤍