How to Plan a Solo Writing Retreat During COVID-19

Before COVID, I didn’t normally go out of my way to plan a solo writing retreat.

As a former full-time traveler, I would usually accidentally end up on a little writing retreat when I stopped my travel itinerary someplace beautiful to do nothing but write. But with COVID, I obviously haven’t been able to travel anywhere, which has made me want to put more thought into planning a solo writing retreat.

This desire came only a few weeks after I escaped from Colombia, when I became tired of my writing desk and needed a change of scenery for the inspiration I was used to and, to be honest, took for granted.

Here are some ideas I came up with to help. I hope they help you too!

But First: Benefits of a Solo Writing Retreat:

• A change of scenery almost always cures my writer’s block.
• Going to bed and waking up somewhere new resets your brain to allow for more creativity.
• Exciting, new options for writing breaks also boost creativity (ex. exploring a new city, people watching, hiking, sightseeing, going to a museum, or any other activities available).
• The journey to a new place also helps reset your brain, giving you time to zone out and get ready to write.
• You can leave behind your normal distractions (unplug from the internet, forget your day-to-day responsibilities like chores).
• Setting a goal for your writing retreat will motivate you, as you’ll have a deadline to achieve that goal.
• You’re committed to using the time to write: no excuses!

Questions to Ask Yourself in Planning a Writing Retreat during COVID:

• What inspires you the most to write? See where you can find those sources of inspiration. (For example, I love writing in remote places, so I’d brainstorm ideas of where I could find that.)
• How long do you want to retreat from daily life to write? Just a day? A few days? A week? A month?
• Are you willing to venture outside your home for a writing retreat in light of COVID-19? (If not, no worries! I still have some ideas for you!)
• What will you need to write? Are you at the researching stage, where access to internet is a must? Do you write on a laptop, and therefore need access to electricity to charge it?

And now, without further ado, here are some ideas I came up with on where to plan your solo writing retreat (and safely during COVID).

Ideas of Places for Your Writing Retreat

At Home

Some people can’t go somewhere for a solo writing retreat during COVID, whether they’re in a high risk group, or in an area under lockdown, or unable to leave home for any other reason. I was in the same boat for quite some time, but I still came up with some ideas to get those creative wheels turning.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you might find one of my previous blog posts useful: How to Get Writing Inspiration When You Can’t Travel.

This is where the question of how long you want your writing retreat to be is really important. It’s easy to abandon a writing retreat when you’re not removed from your familiar surroundings, so make sure you’re super strict with your decision! Don’t give up!

Here are some places you can do a mini “writing retreat” at home; you’ll just need to use a lot of imagination with these to pretend you’re somewhere else!

Room Dedicated to Writing

Do you have space in your basement? An attic? A spare room? A rarely used room? Use it as a designated writing spot!

Separate yourself from the rest of your home and shut out everything. Start using your creativity before you even start writing by using your imagination to pretend that wherever you are in your house is actually hundreds of miles away from home.

The dishes in the sink, the laundry, the un-vacuumed floor, the dying houseplants: none of these exist, because you left them far behind.

Camping in the backyard

Yep, this is what I resorted to a few times. Some of my favorite travel experiences involved sleeping outside or in super rustic conditions. There’s something about being outdoors that makes me feel alive, and feeling alive usually equates to better writing.

Don’t have space for a tent? What about a hammock? What about just laying down on a mat or cushions under the naked sky? If it’s a warm summer night, and you don’t have many mosquitoes flying around, this can be a fun adventure!

And at least for me, adventures make creativity and inspiration easier. My definition of adventure has definitely changed since the COVID-19 lockdowns (anyone else find trips to the grocery store exciting now?), but this just makes planning a writing retreat easier!

I also think that waking up somewhere other than my bed tricks my brain into thinking that I’m far from home and somewhere new. Falling asleep to the sound of cicadas, and then waking up to chirping birds, made me feel like I was in the middle of nowhere, not roughly a hundred feet away from my bedroom.

In Your Car

Got a car? Transform it into your writing space! Put on some music, put on the air or heat (depending on weather; maybe just rolled down windows will be enough), maybe put up some decorations, and write the day away!

Going along with the benefits of going to sleep and waking up somewhere different, if you have enough space to lay down seats and roll out a mattress and sleeping bag, you can also pretend you’re sleeping in a capsule hostel bed, or perhaps parked somewhere far from home.

Rustic travel personally inspires me the most, and it doesn’t get more rustic than sleeping in the car! Just, you know, maybe put up some make-shift curtains so the neighbors don’t think you’re crazy.

Staying Somewhere Local 

Car/Van Life

And if you have a car, presumably you have the ability to get out of the house without having contact with others (i.e., you don’t have to rely on public transportation, which isn’t the safest during COVID). Can you park your car somewhere nearby for free, preferably with a nice view? Do it! And check out my guide to cheap and minimal conversion van (or car!) life while you’re at it. I have some suggestions for apps to use to find free overnight parking spots.

Have a van or RV? What are you doing sitting at home!? Go out there and enjoy your distraction-free writing time.

Or, here are your other options.

Hotels

Hotels all around the world are beginning to open up, and most are taking extra protective measures to sanitize and social distance. Does this include any hotels near you?

If you’re comfortable with it, this is a great way to support your local tourism industry. While this industry has suffered one of the biggest blows with COVID-19, you can help in a small way by planning a local writing retreat.

Like I said, I find going to sleep and waking up somewhere new to work wonders for my writing inspiration. Doing so in a hotel will make it easier to pretend you’re somewhere exotic.

And let’s be honest: If you’re in a hotel room, with the curtains shut, can you really tell the difference if it’s a half-hour from your house or halfway around the world from your house?

It’s precisely the reason why I don’t normally like staying in hotels while traveling for a writing retreat; most hotel rooms look roughly the same. But that’s a benefit now for tricking your brain into thinking you’re far from home!

Even if the hotel you stay at does advertise extra sanitizing measures (which you should ask about), here are a few tips to be extra safe:

• Wipe everything you’ll touch (doorknobs, light switches, toilet handle, etc.) with anti-bacterial wipes
• Bring your own bedsheets (or at least a pillowcase– I’d often bring my own even before COVID-19)
• Wear a mask outside of your room
• Here are some other tips.

AirBnB

Another option is AirBnB. These are great if you don’t find writing in hotel rooms to be inspiring for a writing retreat.

There are a lot of unique AirBnB’s that will cause your inspiration to flow freely. Choosing listings that offer an entire place to yourself is a much better option than just one room, and certainly a shared room. You could also message the host to ask about what sanitizing measures are taken. Some listings even offer self check-in, which is great if you don’t want contact with any other people.

Campsite

If you’re really not comfortable with staying in a place where other people have slept, try finding a campsite nearby!

See the benefits of camping for a writing retreat in the section above, about camping in your backyard. The additional benefit here is, of course, that you don’t have to pretend that you’re in your backyard.

Try to find a campsite with lots of space for social distancing and activities nearby that you might find inspiring. I love to think of story ideas while hiking or walking, so I would choose a place where I could do that.

A Writing Retreat Further Away

Maybe you live somewhere where there is truly nothing inspiring to you (I doubt it; look again!). Or maybe you’ve gotten bored and tired of your local area and have visited everything worth visiting for inspiration. Maybe everyone else in your area has had the same idea, and the places nearby aren’t safe because of overcrowding. Or maybe you just can’t mentally handle being “stuck” somewhere.

Whatever your reason, if you are leaving your local area, you should do a two-week quarantine when arriving, and when coming back home. Preferably both. Even if it’s not mandatory, you should do it.

I’ll be traveling soon, and I’ll be doing a two-week quarantine both on arrival and return, and I’m even quarantining before departure, just to be certain I’m not contagious before traveling!

Don’t have time for quarantining two or four or even six weeks total? Then maybe traveling far from home right now isn’t the best option. But if you do have the time (benefits of working online, yay!), those weeks of quarantine will in themselves be great opportunities to write!

I’m planning to use my first two-week quarantine (after I fly to visit my boyfriend in the UK) to start my new book, and I’ll be using the following ones to write more too!

Road Trip

If you live in a big country, or in a region where travel between neighboring countries is allowed, you’re in luck. You can drive off into the horizon, nothing but your mind and a laptop in the car with you! (Although of course, you should plan a bit and bring other things, like food and masks…COVID-19 is not the best time to be spontaneous).

This is probably the safest way to travel now, since you don’t have to come in contact with others in a private car. Bonus if you can sleep in the car (or van) too. I recently traveled in a camper van so I didn’t have to deal with the risks of staying in hotels and other potentially unsafe accommodation.

Check out my tips for low budget and minimal conversion van life during COVID!

So many people in U.S. are going on road trips this summer. That’s great, as it supports the domestic travel industry as much possible in the current circumstances, but it also means that you’ll encounter crowds and restrictions. So make sure that you plan ahead of time and find a safe option.

In addition to doing that, in order to find a place to go on your COVID-19 writing retreat, think about what destination you need for writing inspiration.

Will you find it in the great outdoors? A forest? By the sea or in the mountains? In a modern city, or a historic one? A small town? In the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but write?

Research your ideas for writing retreat destinations, and then research what it would be like visiting those places now during COVID-19.

Flying

If you’ve exhausted the above options, and you have the go-ahead from your country or state or city and the country or state or city you’re traveling to, (or like me, you have a boyfriend inconveniently located on another continent and you’d rather visit him than go on a local writing retreat,) a flight might be needed to reach a destination you can’t drive to. The reality is that this pandemic might stay with us for a long time, and we need to learn to deal with that.

And as evidenced by the amount of planes starting to fly above my house, lots of people are traveling by plane once again.

If you are going to be one the passengers on those planes, here are some tips:

• Don’t fly if you have symptoms of COVID
• Wear a mask at all times
• If you can handle it, try not to eat on the plane or at the airport, since you’ll need to take your mask off (fill up before you leave for the airport!); if you absolutely need to eat, keep your mask off for the minimal time possible
• Take a straw and use it to drink water, which you can’t survive without (okay, you can, but you’ll suffer dearly from dehydration!)
• Wipe down everything you’ll touch on the plane with anti-bacterial wipes
• Use hand sanitizer as often as possible
• Quarantine upon arrival!

For places to stay on your writing retreat somewhere far from home during COVID, same goes for my tips in the last section on traveling locally.

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Let’s create a list of ideas to share with each other!

What’s a place near you that you think would make a great place for a writing retreat?

For anyone in the Midwest, I’d recommend camping somewhere along the Great Lakes. I’m from Chicago, so Lake Michigan is the easiest option for me. Camping is great for writing retreats in my opinion. I love exercising for writing breaks (swims, hikes or sand dune climbing, anyone?) and the lack of Wi-Fi sucks when I need to research, but is great for getting rid of my biggest distractions.