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One of the things I enjoy most about visiting our events is seeing what our Retreat Planning team actually does behind the scenes. Last week, while I was in the Algarve for an industry event, I took the opportunity to stop by one of our hotel partners and visit part of our Retreat Planning team: Danielle Ventura, Angela Mantu, Fernanda Z. and Cristina Pan García, who were onsite managing a 340-person hotel buyout. Seeing them in action was a great reminder of how much work sits behind making a large company event feel simple. A group of this size is not just about rooms and meeting spaces. It means coordinating activities, dinners, external venues, boats, suppliers, transfers, schedules, last-minute changes and hundreds of small details happening at the same time. The real value is making all of that complexity feel easy for the client. While I was there, they introduced me to the client POC. Without me even asking, he started telling me how much he values working with Surf Office, and especially our Retreat Planning team. He said what gives him the most confidence is knowing that someone is always on top of every detail, anticipating issues before they become problems and making the whole process feel easy. For him, having our team involved gives him peace of mind and confidence that the event will be a success. They have worked with us for years. He also told me they had explored other agencies along the way, but kept coming back to Surf Office because they did not want to risk losing that level of service. That, for me, is where great Retreat Planning really makes the difference. It is not just about organising an event. It is about taking complexity away from the client, coordinating seamlessly with hotels and suppliers, anticipating what might go wrong, keeping timelines and budgets under control, and creating the confidence that everything is being taken care of. Very proud of our Retreat Planning superheroes and the incredible work they do every day behind the scenes. ❤️ 🙌 #RetreatPlanning #MICE #EventPlanning #Hospitality #CompanyRetreats #SurfOffice

It doesn’t feel like that long ago, but it’s been 12 years since we hosted our first team retreat. At the time, I was running a coliving and coworking space in Gran Canaria. Four guys from Germany came for a week to work on their startup. I was pretty stressed. Until then, we’d only hosted individuals. Not long after, we hosted our first “large group”: 10 guys. I was terrified something would go wrong. Fast-forward to 2026, and my team is planning an offsite for a company of 900 people next year. Over the years, we’ve hosted dozens of offsites for groups of 100 to 600, so 900 doesn’t sound scary... But when I think back to 2014, it’s hard to believe how far we’ve come. What a ride, surfoffice.com

I flew to Mexico to see what an offsite of a global remote company looks like 🇲🇽 People after 40 shouldn't start vlogging, but here I am, with vlog #3 - I had the most expensive tacos 🌮 in my life (in Tulum, of course) - Did a roadtrip from Cancún to Tulum to make a comparison of different retreat locations - Asked the CEO about why and how they organize offsites - While documenting a really fun company trip (they had meetings only one day) This video production is so hard, but I enjoy it a lot. My plan was 4 vlogs this year, to show in a more casual way how we operate. After Turkey, Serbia, and Mexico, I'd like to do the last vlog of the year somewhere in Spain or Portugal, which are also our most popular Surf Office destinations.

Only about 5% of our customers organize "workations", but I see that number growing and expect it to be double digits next year. It's a new trend 📈 The main difference between a company offsite and a workation: - Workation is typically 5-6 days while offsites are, on average, 2-3 days - Intentionally empty agenda (almost no scheduled meetings or workshops) - The venue is much more important than the location itself Workations work well for teams where: - There are not many new team members - Solid company culture that doesn't need a facilitated boost - The company has the product-market fit - People are independent and self-driven Unstructured time creates hundreds of small brainstorms across the team that you couldn't recreate in a structured workshop. Below is a video from our Surf Office workation in Portugal 🇵🇹

Google Flights and Skyscanner couldn’t solve this problem, so we built our own tool ✈️ If you’re planning an event with attendees flying in from multiple locations (company offsite, small conference, destination wedding) and you’re flexible with dates, this tool shows you which week has the lowest total flight cost. A small change in dates can save thousands of euros in airfare, freeing up budget for experiences that attendees will actually remember. This is one of the first tools I built with Replit, and it’s been a lot of fun to see how much value a simple API integration and a clean UI can create for Surf Office clients. Check it out: https://lnkd.in/dNPpRjfK

There are 195 countries in the world. That means 37,830 combinations of visa requirements. If you’re planning an event for 50 people, one declined visa application can ruin the experience for everyone. So we built a simple tool for the Surf Office sales team: insert nationalities of all guests and get the best locations for a company offsite, ranked by ease of entry. A half-day project with Replit, that would have been difficult to justify building just a few months ago. Check it out: https://lnkd.in/dGizrxVr