For retreat hosts and experience hosts · Lakemore Resort, Traverse City
The Residency at Lakemore
January 14 to 18, 2027. Thursday to Monday over the MLK weekend, at Lakemore Resort in Traverse City, Michigan.
Three full working days for retreat hosts and experience hosts to build the business behind the trip, with people who have been doing this for years. You go home with your founder’s video and brand video filmed, a professional headshot, your budget and your price set, and a marketing plan to fill your seats.
It’s called a Residency because that’s how people learn a trade: you work side by side with experienced hosts and professionals on your own real work, and you get feedback on it straight away. For most hosts the hard part is finding the time to sit down and do the work, with someone across the table who can tell you right then whether it’s right. These five days give you that time.
It’s a small group: sixteen seats for hosts like you, with the three of us teaching. Everyone is welcome.
One of the rooms the week happens in. Fireplace lit, laptops open.
We’re tired of seeing retreat hosts given only half the picture of what it takes to plan, fill and run a great event.
The Residency gives you the other half.
What do we mean by the other half?
Most events and webinars for retreat hosts teach the strategy. What they leave out is the practical part: the steps, in order, that you take to plan the trip, fill the seats and run the week. That’s the other half.
The Other Half
We wrote it all down as a checklist, in order, from the first decision to the next trip. At the Residency you work through it for three full days with Anna, Robert and Stacy beside you, and you get feedback while you’re still doing the work. What’s left carries on in the Guild, and a year of The School comes with your seat.
At the Residency, we help you focus on the areas that really matter, like:
Decide the basics of your retreat
Before you arrive picture the one person it’s for, decide what they go home with, and pick your dates and group size.
Know what it costs and set your price
Before you arrive collect written prices from places to stay and from everyone you’ll hire.
In the room add up the whole cost, then set your price, room choices, deposit, payment plan and cancellation terms.
Lock in the place and the people
Before you arrive sketch a rough version of each day.
In the room we draft your day-by-day together and teach site visits, booking terms and your waiver.
Make your videos, photos and short answers
Before you arrive draft your answers to “what is it?” and “who are you?”
In the room practice them out loud, film both videos and get your headshot.
Build your pages, emails and bookings
In the room draft your web pages, your welcome emails, your replies and thank-yous, your guest form and your tracking. We also teach your free signup offer, your tools and how to take payments.
Tell people and fill your seats
In the room choose the two ways people will find you and plan what you’ll send and when, counting back from the trip. We also teach how to tell everyone else and check your numbers every week.
Look after your guests until the trip
Taught in the room fast answers, payment reminders, keeping in touch, the group call before travel, confirming final numbers and sending travel details.
Plan what happens after the trip
In the Guild what to ask guests for before they leave, having the next trip ready, how your group stays in touch and the day you announce the next one.
When you sign up, we’ll get you started on your prework with guided exercises, templates and worksheets that help you make the most of our time together.
When we say the other half, we’re not kidding.
You can try to figure all of this out on your own, and find the time for it somewhere in your busy schedule. Or you can come to the Residency and do both in three days. The choice is yours.
You leave the Residency with real tools and finished work, ready to put to use the week you get home, on your next retreat or experience.
Finished in the room
Your budget, with the whole cost added up. Every cost in one place, and the number of guests you need just to break even. Your price comes from it.
Your price and your room choices. A shared room, a private room and the best room in the house, so one trip suits several budgets.
Your deposit, payment plan and cancellation terms. The deposit shows you who is serious, and your cancellation terms are written down before the first booking.
Your answers to “what is it?” and “who are you?” Fifteen seconds each, practiced out loud until you can say them without reading. You’ll use them all year: in your video, on your page and in your ads.
The two ways people will find you. Most hosts have eight to ten options and can only do two of them well. You pick your two and write them down.
Your plan for what you send, and when. Counted back from your trip date: what goes out, to whom, in which week, and the day booking closes.
Drafted in the room, ready for you to finish
Your day-by-day itinerary. The rough version you bring becomes the real one once the budget and the place have had their say. Your pages, packing list and menu all come from it.
Your web pages. The page that answers every question, and a short one made for phones. Their job is to get an email address.
Your welcome emails. The emails that go out after someone signs up, written before your form goes live, so an interested person doesn’t forget you.
Your replies to questions and your thank-you for bookings. The two emails that run all year, so nobody who asks or pays ever hears nothing back.
The form every guest fills in after they book. Allergies, injuries, an emergency contact and arrival times, asked once and early enough for your chef.
Your tracking. So you know when a signup or a booking comes in and where it came from, before you spend anything promoting.
Tools you keep
Your founder’s video. Filmed on site by Elise. It’s where people decide to trust you, and it’s yours to use on your page, in your emails and in your ads.
Your brand video. Shot and cut on site. It shows people what your trip is like, and it’s ready to post the week you get home.
Your headshot. Taken by a professional photographer, for your page, your profiles and everything else for the next two years.
Your prework exercises, templates and worksheets. Sent when you sign up, so you arrive with the groundwork done and spend the three days on the work that needs us.
The Other Half checklist. Every step in order, from the first decision to the next trip, so you can run it again for every trip after this one.
A year of The School. The Guild’s $99 a month membership: weekly office hours with Anna, Robert or Stacy and the full Library, so the work carries on after January.
And you get one-to-one time with each of us
Thirty minutes with Anna on your operations and your budget
Thirty minutes with Robert on filling it, and knowing whether it’s working
Thirty minutes with Stacy on your page, your video and your emails
Plus thirty minutes with Elise, our photographer, on both of your videos and your headshot.
All of this, and your lodging, every meal and the activities. All included.
Everything you need to plan, fill and run your next trip, in one place, with the three of us beside you.
I want them to feel like they got a lot done, like almost everything, by the time they leave.
Anna VanAgtmael, on what the week is for
Who you’ll work with
We start with the end in mind: Anna on the week itself, Robert on getting it found, and Stacy on getting it booked.
Anna VanAgtmael
Delivering the week
Anna started Wandering Roots in 2018 and has since hosted retreats from Banff to Scotland to the Smokies. Woman’s World has written about her, and for years she has mentored other women on hosting retreats that are transformational and profitable. She teaches the budget session, and she’ll tell you up front that it always turns into a conversation about money mindset.
At the Residency
Friday: Itineraries and teams
Saturday: Budget and profits
Sunday: Plan Bs and liability
Plus thirty minutes one-to-one on your operations and your budget
Robert Earl
Getting you found
Robert is an Air Force veteran who has spent twenty-five years building affiliate-marketing sites that earn their traffic. His strength is structure: he sets up content the way search engines, and now AI, want to read it, so it gets found and cited. That work runs through Racing Passport, his travel companion for race fans, and through licensing guides that have helped more than ten thousand people start real estate careers.
At the Residency
Friday: How to fill your retreat, and what it costs
Saturday: How do I know it’s working? Measurement and iterating
Sunday, with Stacy: Implementing your plan, and every marketing question you have left
Plus thirty minutes one-to-one on filling it, and knowing whether it’s working
Stacy Earl
Getting you booked
Stacy has spent twenty years in marketing and business development, getting real people to notice, trust and choose. Her work includes leading marketing for a consumer rewards app that landed at #11 on the 2024 Inc. 500, and she has been building websites since 1999. She is also a licensed travel advisor with a small travel company of her own, and she holds an executive MBA from Johns Hopkins.
At the Residency
Friday: The messaging in your videos
Saturday: Your website, your email funnels and your tracking
Sunday, with Robert: Implementing your plan, and every marketing question you have left
Plus thirty minutes one-to-one on your page, your video and your emails
Five days
The shape of the week.
You arrive Thursday afternoon and leave Monday morning. In between are three full working days: Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with two teaching blocks each, and camera time and one-to-ones running alongside every afternoon.
It costs you two days of vacation.
Monday 18 January is MLK Day. Saturday and Sunday are the weekend. So if hosting is still the thing you do alongside a job, which for most people it is, the only workdays you spend are Thursday and Friday.
That is not a coincidence. It is why the week sits where it does on the calendar.
Day oneThu 14 Jan · arrivals
Arrive between 3 and 5pm. Cherry Capital airport is ten minutes away. Dinner at six, welcome and introductions, and we schedule everyone’s video recordings. The evening ends on the founder’s video conversation, so you sleep on it before the cameras come out.
Day twoFri 15 Jan
Robert, 8:30–10am: how to fill your retreat, and what it costs.Stacy, 10–11am: the messaging in your videos. Then two hours outside, hiking or snowshoeing, before lunch. Anna, 2–4pm: itineraries and teams. From four until dinner, founder’s and brand video recordings run alongside one-to-one coaching.
Day threeSat 16 Jan
Robert, 8:30–9:30am: how do I know it’s working? Measurement and iterating.Stacy, 9:30–11am: your website, your email funnels and your tracking. Recordings and one-to-ones until lunch, where Abbey talks through the food, and how to hire someone like her. Anna, 2–4pm: budget and profits. More camera time, dinner, then yoga nidra to land the mindset work the budget session always kicks up.
Day fourSun 17 Jan
Stacy and Robert, 8:30–11am: implementing your plan, and every marketing question you have left.Anna, 11am–1pm: plan Bs and liability: what to have in place, and when to call a lawyer. The session nobody enjoys and everybody needs. Final recordings and one-to-ones after lunch, then a cocktail or mocktail hour that runs as an ask-us-anything.
Day fiveMon 18 Jan · departures
Breakfast and goodbyes, departures from nine. You leave with the work done rather than a folder of notes to action later.
This is the working schedule from Anna’s planning document. Session titles are final; exact times may shift a little before January.
A teaching block. Laptops out, because the work happens in the room.And the bits between the blocks, which are where most of it lands.Two blocks a day, every day. A whiteboard, not a slide deck.
From Anna’s Traverse City retreats, 2021–2023, in earlier years and a different house.
January, and nowhere else to be. Which is exactly why the work gets done.
Also in the house
A private chef and a professional photographer.
Two of the deliverables depend on them. You are not cooking, and you are not photographing yourself against a wall at home.
Private chef
Abbey Hunter
A Michigan maker: welder, jeweller and personal chef, who has cooked Anna’s retreats from Michigan to Banff for years. She checks everyone’s allergies and preferences before you arrive and builds the menu around them.
At Saturday lunch she does a session of her own: what the food actually costs, and how to hire someone like her for your own retreat.
Elise runs Mod Bettie Portraits in Grand Rapids, an empowerment portrait studio going since 2014, and she was named a Remarkable Woman of West Michigan in 2023. She has been the resident photographer on Anna’s retreats for years.
She shoots your headshot and captures the founder’s and brand videos across the week. If being photographed is the part you dread, she is the specific reason it turns out to be fine.
Sixteen seats across two of Lakemore’s houses. You sleep in a guest house; every meal and every session happens next door, in the house the team stays in.
One price, everything included: the teaching, the filming, the photography, the one-to-ones, the year of The School, your room, every meal from the moment you arrive, and the activities. The only thing that changes the number is where you sleep.
Shared room, two beds
$5,000
A room with two beds, shared with one other host. The most sociable way to do the week, and the least expensive.
Limited
Private room, twin bed
$6,000
A twin room to yourself. A door that closes, at the lowest private price.
Limited
Private room, queen bed
$6,500
A private queen room. The most common room in the house.
Limited
Private room, king bed
$7,000
The king room on the main level.
Limited
How paying works
$999 holds your seat. You pay the balance in equal monthly payments, and the last one is due on or before 15 December 2026. If you’d rather pay in full, you can do that at checkout. Enrollment closes on 14 December 2026. Every seat includes a year of The School.
Payments are non-refundable, so we strongly recommend buying travel insurance when you book. If we cancel the Residency, you get a full refund. Full terms.
Travel to Traverse City isn’t included. Everything from the moment you arrive is.
Seven lakefront houses ten minutes from Traverse City’s airport and fifteen from downtown. We take two for guests and one for faculty. In January the lake is frozen, the fireplaces are lit, and there is nowhere else to be, which is exactly why the work gets done.
Photographs courtesy of Lakemore Resort.
Before you book
Questions people ask us.
If yours isn’t here, book a call and ask us directly, or email us and one of us will answer.
What’s actually included in the price?
The teaching, the filming, the photography, all four one-to-one sessions, a year of The School, your room, every meal, and the activities. One price, and the only thing that changes it is which bed you sleep in.
Travel to and from Traverse City isn’t included. Everything from the moment you arrive is.
How does paying work?
$999 holds your seat. The balance is split into equal monthly payments, and the last one falls on or before 15 December 2026, a month before you travel.
Enrollment closes the day before, on 14 December 2026. The prework goes out ahead of the week, and the week only works if everyone arrives having done it. (Two dates a day apart, and both are right: 14 December to book, 15 December for the last payment.)
We don’t store your card and nothing is charged automatically. Each instalment arrives as an emailed invoice you pay when it lands, or you clear the balance early if you’d rather be done with it. You can also just pay in full at checkout.
Is it refundable?
No. Payments are non-refundable, and we say so plainly rather than burying it: we commit to the house, the food and the team months ahead on the strength of the seats that are booked, and those costs don’t come back to us if someone can’t come.
So buy travel insurance, and buy it when you book rather than later. It’s cheap next to the price of the week and it’s what covers you for illness, a family emergency or a Michigan January doing what Michigan Januaries do. If we cancel, you get everything back.
Where do I sleep, and where does the week happen?
You sleep in the guest house. Every meal and every session happens next door, in the house the team stays in, so the working room is never the room someone is trying to sleep in.
Lakemore has seven lakefront houses. We take two for guests and one for faculty. The rooms page has the four room types, the prices and the floor plans.
How much time off work does this cost me?
Two days. It runs Thursday 14 January to Monday 18 January, and Monday is MLK Day, so for most people the only working days you spend are the Thursday and the Friday.
That was deliberate. The three full working days in the middle are Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Three nights somewhere else costs less. Why five days?
Because you’re paying for working days, not nights. The Residency has three full ones, and the price is everything: your room, every meal, the filming, the photography, all four one-to-one sessions, and a year of The School, which is $1,188 on its own. From $5,000, that’s about $1,670 a working day with nothing left to buy.
The other difference is what you carry home. Sixteen seats, three teachers who between them cover the whole job: the week itself, filling it, and being found in the first place, and you leave with the video, the page and the budget finished, not notes.
How do I get there?
Fly into Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City. The houses are about ten minutes from the airport and fifteen from downtown.
Arrivals are Thursday between 3 and 5pm; dinner is at six.
I run group trips, not retreats. Is this for me?
Yes. A women’s reset in Costa Rica, a writing week in Michigan, twelve people going to the Indy 500: underneath, it’s one job. A fixed number of seats, a fixed date, and a deadline that doesn’t move.
That job is what the week teaches, and it doesn’t change with the theme.
Do I have to join the Guild first?
No, and you don’t need to join separately either. A year of The School, the Guild’s $99 a month membership, is included in your seat.
If you’d rather start smaller and see the community first, The Community is $19 a month and you can walk in today.
Can I ask a question before I book?
Please do, and there’s no form to fill in. Book half an hour with Anna, Robert or Stacy. It’s free, and nobody sells you anything on it.
Ask Anna about the week itself and Stacy about filling your own room; either can answer anything. If the Residency isn’t right for where you are, we’ll say so and tell you what we’d do instead. Rather write? [email protected], answered within three days.
Not ready to book yet?
Start with The Other Half, our free checklist of the whole job in order, and see where you already are. Or book a free 30-minute call with Anna, Robert or Stacy and ask us anything. If the Residency isn’t right for where you are, we’ll tell you on the call.
Same week, same three of us, same co-ed room, just a different mountain and a warmer month. Dates and the house aren’t settled yet, so we’re not going to pretend otherwise.
Put your name down and you’ll hear it first, before it goes on the site. That’s the whole promise: no sequence, no countdown, one email when there is something real to tell you.
How booking works
There’s no application.
Nobody is deciding whether you’re allowed in. You pick a room, you pay the $999, the seat is yours. That’s the entire process, and it takes about two minutes.
Want to ask something first? Book half an hour with Anna, Robert or Stacy. It’s free, and nothing gets sold on it.
If the Residency isn’t right for where you are, we’ll say so on that call and tell you what we’d do instead.
Rather write than talk? [email protected]. One of us replies within three days.
