Day 1: Arrival & Mediterranean Welcome
Settling in by the sea
- 14:00–17:00Airport transfers & hotel check-in
- 17:30–19:00Guided walk through Valencia's Old Town
- 19:30–22:00Welcome dinner with authentic Valencian paella
- 22:00+Optional rooftop drinks
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1000+
Offsites organized
10
Years of experience
200+
Retreat locations
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Why organize a team offsite?
A team retreat gives colleagues the opportunity to step away from their daily routine, spend time together in person, and focus on shared goals. Whether you're looking to strengthen relationships, improve collaboration, solve challenges, or generate new ideas, a retreat creates the time and space for more meaningful conversations.
Unlike company retreats, which bring together the entire organization, team retreats are designed for individual departments, project teams, or cross-functional groups. They provide a more focused environment for collaboration while helping teammates build stronger working relationships.
Whether you're organizing a retreat for a small team or a department of 100 people, Surf Office helps you plan memorable team retreats with accommodation, meeting spaces, activities, and logistics - all in one place.
Types of team retreats
Every team retreat has a different purpose. Some prioritize strategic work, while others focus on strengthening relationships or bringing together specific groups of employees. We typically organize six types of team retreats:
Work retreats
When productivity is the main goal, a work retreat gives teams dedicated time away from daily distractions to focus on strategy, planning, and execution. Structured work sessions are balanced with shared meals and light activities, helping colleagues collaborate more effectively while making meaningful progress on important projects.
Team-building retreats
Want to strengthen relationships across your team? A team-building retreat focuses on shared experiences that improve communication, build trust, and encourage collaboration. Activities like cooking classes, sailing, hiking, or escape rooms help colleagues connect on a personal level outside the workplace.
Remote team retreats
Bringing remote employees together in person helps turn online colleagues into stronger teammates. By combining collaborative workshops, social activities, and informal conversations, these gatherings improve communication, reinforce company culture, and create lasting relationships that are difficult to build through video calls alone.
Startup retreats
Fast-growing companies need time to align, innovate, and make decisions quickly. These retreats combine product planning, hackathons, brainstorming sessions, and team-building activities, giving founders and employees the opportunity to solve challenges together while strengthening the company's culture.
Leadership retreats
What happens when leaders step away from everyday responsibilities? They gain the space to focus on long-term strategy, make better decisions, and strengthen alignment. Leadership retreats encourage open discussions, planning sessions, and relationship building that support the organization's future direction.
Team workations
Rather than taking time away from work, a workation relocates the workplace to an inspiring destination. Teams spend part of the day coworking and the rest enjoying activities such as surfing, hiking, or exploring the local area, creating a sustainable balance between productivity, wellbeing, and connection.
Organize your next team retreat with Surf Office
1000+ retreats organized ● 10 years of experience ● 200+ retreat locations
Get a quoteSample team retreat itinerary in Valencia
A 3-day team retreat provides enough time for productive workshops, team-building activities, and informal conversations outside the office. Here's a sample retreat itinerary in Valencia.
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Organize your next team retreat with Surf Office
1000+ retreats organized ● 10 years of experience ● 200+ retreat locations
Get a quoteTeam retreat activity ideas
Great team retreats combine productive work with memorable shared experiences. Here are some popular activities that Surf Office has organized for teams.
Head to the beach
Workday, a people analytics company, hosted its company retreat in Barcelona. The team spent at the beach with activities like stand up paddle, swimming, and a surfing lesson. A beach trip is good for big groups because everyone can do what they want. Some can swim, some can play beach volleyball, and some can veg in the sun.
Take a hike
Get away from the noise and hustle of the city and bring your team for a nature hike. Our destinations in the Catskill Mountains, Zion national park, and Gran Canaria are perfect for bringing your team on a hike for some fresh air.
Treasure hunt
Break up your larger group in small teams and take a walk through the historic streets of Lisbon, for instance. See famous monuments, hidden gems, and learn about the culture of the city on a scavenger hunt. Get to know the city and each other in a fun way.
Host a speaker or Ted Talk
Invite a local expert to speak about something out-of-the-box. Or, have your employees volunteer to give informal Ted Talk-style presentations about something they’re passionate about. This approach leverages internal resources, uplifts individual interests, and shows your support for skills beyond work roles.
Share a meal
EVBox is a company focused on providing charging solutions for electric vehicles. Their group of 200 people joined Surf Office for a company retreat. In the process, we hosted a special dining experience in Lisbon with traditional dishes and drinks. Organizing meals can be a challenge for large groups: read what we’ve learned about making restaurant reservations.
Hackathon
If you want to keep your team bonding business-focused, host a hackathon. Divide the large group up into small teams and work on a project. A traditional hackathon focuses on creative problem-solving – emphasis on “creative.” Don’t be afraid to make the hackathon open-ended to foster innovation.
FAQs about team retreats
What is a team retreat?
A team retreat, sometimes called a team offsite, is an event that brings employees together outside of their usual work environment to collaborate, strengthen relationships, and spend time together in person. Team retreats often combine work sessions, team-building activities, and social experiences.
Why do companies organize team retreats?
Companies organize team retreats to improve communication, strengthen company culture, align on goals, encourage collaboration, and give employees the opportunity to connect face-to-face.
What are the benefits of a team retreat?
Team retreats can improve teamwork, increase employee engagement, strengthen workplace relationships, boost morale, and help teams align around shared objectives.
How long should a team retreat be?
Most team retreats last between 2 and 5 days. The ideal duration depends on your goals, team size, budget, and whether the retreat focuses primarily on work, team building, or a combination of both.
What should be included in a team retreat agenda?
A successful team retreat agenda typically includes work sessions, workshops, team-building activities, meals, and informal social time. The best retreats create a balance between productivity and relationship building.
What activities work best during a team retreat?
Popular team retreat activities include sailing trips, cooking classes, surf lessons, city tours, hiking, escape rooms, scavenger hunts, and collaborative workshops. The best activities encourage interaction and participation from the entire team.
How often should companies organize team offsites?
Many companies organize team offsites once or twice per year. Remote teams and fast-growing organizations may benefit from more frequent gatherings to maintain alignment and strengthen relationships.
What are the best locations for a team retreat?
The best team retreat locations combine comfortable accommodation, professional meeting spaces, convenient travel connections, and memorable activities. Popular destinations include Rome, Prague, Valencia, Vancouver, and Tokyo.
How much does a team retreat cost?
The cost of a team retreat depends on factors such as destination, accommodation, group size, duration, transportation, and activities. Many companies set a budget per attendee and adjust the retreat format accordingly.
How do you plan a team retreat?
Start by defining the goals of the retreat and selecting a venue that supports those objectives. Once you've chosen the venue, create an agenda, organize travel and accommodation, plan activities, and communicate expectations to the team. Many companies work with retreat planners to simplify logistics and coordination.
💛 Wall of love 💛
We couldn't do it without you. You were a huge support for us. We did a feedback survey asking the team how everything was, asking about the hotel, the food, the program etc. and they were able to rate from 1 to 10, & overall we have a 9.5 So it was really really successful!
The expectations were really high. We put a lot of pressure on you since the start, telling you about our last events in the Moroccan desert and in Eiffel Tower. But it was great. The organization was really smooth. The event was beyond expectation!
We did a survey with the guys, we have like mostly 9/10, or 10/10. People were really having so much fun… they were very happy with the choice of the place. The venue, the weather, the team dynamics, it all came together really well.
I really felt having you being part of it was such an asset. Just knowing that you were point in organizing this and then also if there was a question or problem we could just reach out directly was really helpful.
Everybody loved it! We did a post-offsite survey, and it was all vibes! Everything went to plan. One thing that we were all saying internally as well is like - I honestly don't think we would have made happen unless we had Surf Office.
It was great! People loved the balance of free time and activities. They loved that we gave them options on activities.
We have been doing this since 2008, so it was the 17th event this year. And the consensus was that this was the best ever. Everybody was super happy, they had lots of fun. So it was great.
People got together, people got to see each other. We had really good internal sessions, and also a lot of off time sessions. I feel Surf Office thought of a lot of things that one would not think when you're planning an off site in another country.
We have grown so much since our last event, so were a lot of people, and we needed those three days to talk, to interact with everyone... You handled it so beautifully. We did not have to worry about organizing or arranging anything. You guys did an amazing job.
Organize your next team retreat with Surf Office
Get a quoteHow does it work?
1. Tell us more about your plans
We'd love to learn more about your team and how we can make your next team offsite a success.
Are you bringing together one department or the whole company? Is your priority strategic planning, team building, or simply reconnecting in person? The more we understand your goals, the better we can tailor the experience.
2. Planning with your dedicated project manager
Planning a successful team retreat involves much more than booking accommodation. From restaurants and meeting spaces to activities, airport transfers, and dietary requirements, there are dozens of details to coordinate.
Our experienced project manager will guide you through the entire process - from recommending the right destination to organizing activities and coordinating every part of your retreat.
We'll be your one-stop shop for all the logistics. Your dedicated Retreat Planner will book and coordinate everything from A to Z, giving you peace of mind and access to our trusted local partners at the best possible prices.
According to our repeat clients, the biggest value we provide isn't just saving time - it's knowing every detail is taken care of, allowing your team to focus on the experience.
3. Detailed plan and schedule for your team retreat
Before your team arrives, you'll receive a detailed itinerary covering accommodation, meeting spaces, activities, transfers, restaurants, and free time.
Every detail is carefully planned, ensuring your retreat runs smoothly from arrival to departure.
You focus on your team - we'll take care of the logistics.
7 Tips on planning a team retreat
Here are a few steps we’ve put together based on our experience with the teams we’ve had the pleasure of working with here at Surf Office.
1. Decide how many days your retreat should take.
For a retreat to be successful, it needs to take at least 2 days, as 1 day should be spent off-site. The ideal number is typically between 3 and 5 days – depending on the size of your distributed team and if you need to focus on larger tasks. Sometimes, we even have teams stay for 2-3 weeks.
2. Set the retreat budget
The retreat budget consists of transport costs, accommodation costs, meal allowance, and team activities. For instance, Buffer sets their budget for the annual retreat at $5,000 per person and the mini-retreats at $1,400 per person. You can read more on how to optimize the retreat budget here or contact us for more help and advice.
3. Pick the right location
Picking the right location is the single most important decision you make during the retreat planning process. It directly influences the costs and team satisfaction with the retreat. You may be drawn to more affordable locations like Prague or Lisbon. Many teams prefer sunny locations near the beach, such as Ericeira or Gran Canaria. Other teams prioritize fun activities in historical cities (Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin). To help make your decision easier, we divided locations into categories. Our tool called Location Finder can help you find the ideal location for your next retreat, if you have a distributed team.
4. Select the type of retreat venue for your team
Many teams put more emphasis on the retreat venue than the location. Imagine you have a team of 30 members and you want to have your team together all the time. A great way to do this is by making a full-buyout of a retreat villa (or small boutique hotel). The villa that suits the exact number of your team members can be hard to find. Therefore, finding the villa with the right capacity matters more than its location – it is less important if the villa is located near Barcelona, Valencia, or Lisbon.
5. Draft the structure of your retreat
The best retreats are a blend of working and team building. There needs to be a balance between getting busy with work tasks and having some fun. For example, teams in Lisbon like to start off their day working from the office in the morning. Then they go surfing after lunch and wrap it up with some more work in the afternoon – i.e. brainstorming sessions or presentations, leaving the evening for more bonding over dinners/drinks.
6. Keep everyone from the team in mind
Due to the nature of their job, some of your team members won’t be able to be there all the time. Those who work in sales or customer service will need to spend at least some time during the retreat on their daily tasks. Unless you have someone covering for them, remotely or in the headquarters of your company.
7. Plan the goal of the work sessions, meals, and team building activities
Do you plan to fix some company problems during your retreat? Or will you innovate through a hackathon, design sprint, or product roadmapping? The mornings are ideal for getting work done, and believe us, being off-site and out of your office can definitely help focus. There are also teams that choose to spend more time team bonding than working. After all, what will your coworkers remember the most? Fun team-building activities of course. PS: Don’t forget about your teams’ cuisine preference, and dietary restrictions when planning team meals!
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