A Calling Toward the Wild: An Invitation to REWILDING on the Basque Coast
There's a particular kind of quiet that arrives when you've been moving too fast for too long. It's not exhaustion, exactly — it's softer than that. A nudge from somewhere beneath the surface. A whisper that says: come back. Come back to yourself.
If you've felt it lately, this is for you.
This September, we're gathering a small, soulful circle along the savagely beautiful French Basque Coast for REWILDING — two distinct retreats designed for those who feel a quiet calling toward something deeper, slower, and more alive. Whether you're drawn to the hush of the forest or the pull of the tide, consider this your invitation to step beneath the surface of your everyday and remember a different rhythm.
Two Waves. One Coastline. Choose Yours.
From September 10–13, 2026, the Inland Retreat: Forage & Ferment invites you into the bucolic green hills above Biarritz. Picture mornings spent walking alongside a local mycologist through dappled forests, baskets in hand, learning the names of wild plants and mushrooms. Picture a long lunch in the hills, prepared from what you gathered just hours before. Picture an afternoon at the fermentation workshop — hands in salt, hands in possibility — followed by sauna, ocean plunge, and a candlelit dinner of foraged ingredients, wild game, and natural wine pulled from the very terroir beneath your feet.
From September 15–18, 2026, the Coastal Retreat: Ocean to Table turns its gaze seaward. Here, the wild larder is the tide pool, the rocky shore, the cold blue Atlantic. With a marine forager as your guide, you'll move along the coast at low tide — gathering samphire, sea herbs, and intertidal treasures. Afternoons hold space for surfing under the watchful eye of former pro bodyboarder Julien Kervédou, or simply for stillness. Evenings unfold at the long table, where the day's ocean harvest becomes a meal you'll remember in your body long after you've gone home.
Can't choose? A few of our guests are joining us for both — the bridge between forest and sea, the full arc of the season. The land sets your roots; the ocean unburdens them.
Who's Holding the Space
Co-leading this season is the brilliant Jocelyn "Joss" Ueng — a Taiwanese-Chinese American chef whose résumé reads like a love letter to the wild kitchen: The French Laundry, Satoyama Jujo, and most recently, noma. Before she ever stepped into a professional kitchen, Joss worked as a strategy consultant, and you can feel it in the way she approaches food: rigorous, intentional, deeply rooted in place. She brings a master forager's eye, a fermentation alchemist's hands, and the kind of generosity that lingers long after the last bite.
Alongside her, you'll find Maggie, WHISK's founder and experience designer, holding the throughline — Reiki-certified, breathwork-trained, and quietly devoted to the art of helping people return to themselves.
What You Came For (Even If You Didn't Know It Yet)
This isn't a retreat about doing more. It's about doing less, with more presence. About moving slowly enough to taste the sea air, to feel the cold shock of the Atlantic on your skin, to laugh around a table with seven strangers who, by week's end, won't be strangers anymore.
Each experience is intentionally limited to just eight guests. Small enough that the fire feels intimate. Small enough that you'll be seen.
You'll leave with foraged knowledge in your hands and salt in your hair. With a softer nervous system and a steadier breath. With the quiet, unshakeable memory of what it feels like to live in your senses again — to be a little wild, a little curious, a little more yourself.
Come Find Your Wave
Spaces are open now, and with only eight seats per retreat, they tend to find their people quickly. If something in you has been nodding along as you read this, trust that. Reach out with any questions, or step in directly through the link on our retreat page.
The forest is waiting. The tide is turning. We hope you'll beckon the call.
— With warmth from the WHISK team
