My current office and home base: Sylvie, nestled on 200+ acres in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge. A little space to live and write, with a whole lot of room to breathe.

I spent the last several days driving through Ohio. I met wonderful people, visited friends, worked on my little 1966 trailer, Sylvie, toured workshops and kept doing what I have been doing all year: paying attention to how places make me feel. From the perspective of Sanctuary Found, though, I kept coming up empty.

That doesn’t mean Ohio has no restorative places. Of course it does. It means that the places I moved through did not create that immediate sense that I had arrived somewhere I would intentionally send a person because they needed to rest, recover, reconnect or recalibrate.

Then I crossed into Kentucky and entered Red River Gorge, and almost immediately something changed. The cliffs got taller, the roads narrowed, the forest closed in and cell service disappeared in places. The landscape began demanding my attention in an entirely different way. Instead of continually scanning for what was next, I found myself looking up at rock faces, down into hollows, toward creeks, caves and trees, and into a landscape that felt far older and larger than anything humans had built within it.

That experience clarified something important about Sanctuary Found: I need to find the place before I find the property.

Until now, I have largely been thinking property first. I find an inn, retreat center, lodge or unusual stay that seems aligned with what I call restorative hospitality, and then I begin examining what the owners have created. But there is another layer that comes before that: is the destination itself restorative?

A property does not exist in isolation. You can create a beautiful guest room, perfect the lighting, remove synthetic fragrance, offer nourishing food and design quiet spaces, but if the environment surrounding the property continually overstimulates or dysregulates the guest, the property is working against its location. The reverse is also true. Put a relatively simple cabin in the right forest, beside the right river, beneath a dark sky, surrounded by silence and wildness, and the place itself begins carrying part of the experience.

I am increasingly convinced that Sanctuary Found needs to begin with geography, and by geography I do not mean scenery alone.

Places have an energetic resonance.

An entire country can feel different from another country. One state can feel completely different from the next. A city can carry a different energy from another city only an hour away. Sometimes that difference is easy to explain through population density, noise, architecture, access to nature, weather, light, elevation, culture and pace. Sometimes it is much harder to explain.

There are places where I feel my body soften almost immediately and others where I never quite settle. There are places where creativity comes easily, places that make me want to sleep, places that make me want to walk for hours, and places I feel ready to leave almost as soon as I arrive.

You cannot fully understand that from Google Maps or a hotel website. You have to go there and feel the place.

That is becoming central to how I want to curate Sanctuary Found. I want to experience the country, region, town, road into the property and land around it before deciding whether a stay belongs in the collection. The question is not simply, Is this a beautiful hotel? It is, What happens to a person when they come here?

Red River Gorge

Red River Gorge is becoming one of those places.

I am here now scouting properties for the founding Sanctuary Found collection, and rather than spending the final week before launch sitting behind my computer, I decided to go into the field. I want to walk the land, drive the roads, meet owners, understand how properties sit within the landscape and experience how the destination itself affects me.

There are places here built around cliffs, forests, creeks, glamping, sauna, cold plunge, bodywork, solitude and deep immersion in nature. Some will be right for Sanctuary Found and some will not. That distinction matters, because a property does not become restorative simply because it has a hot tub in the woods. What I am looking for is alignment between place, design, hospitality, energy and intention.

Does the environment naturally decrease stimulation? Can someone sleep deeply there? Is there a sense of safety? Does nature remain nature instead of becoming another itinerary item? Does the property give the guest room to experience the destination rather than constantly entertaining them?

Red River Gorge gives me the landscape first. Now I can look for the properties that know how to hold people within it.

Sweden

Earlier this summer, I spent a month traveling through Sweden, and in retrospect that trip became one of the earliest destination studies for Sanctuary Found. The long summer light, forests, lakes, quiet roads, swimming, sauna culture and general relationship between people and nature created a completely different rhythm. There were places where it felt natural to walk, eat, swim, sit, sleep and simply be somewhere without needing the experience continually filled with programming.

One of the properties I visited, Stocklycke on Omberg, is now part of the founding Sanctuary Found collection conversation. Stocklycke also represents something else I am learning: not every property enters the collection at the same point.

Some places are already highly refined. Others have incredible bones, extraordinary locations and the right energy but need help translating that into their positioning, guest experience, website or hospitality offering. That does not necessarily make one more valuable than the other. Sometimes the role of Sanctuary Found may be to recognize what is already there and help a property grow into its potential.

Montana

Montana was another field study. I traveled through the state this year and found huge stretches of land that felt profoundly restorative to me: mountains, rivers, open space, silence and the feeling of being able to see for miles.

I did not, however, connect deeply enough with one particular property to say, this is the Montana Sanctuary Found property, and that is okay.

I do not want to force a listing simply because I love a destination. Montana can remain on the map as a place I know I want to continue exploring. The destination passed the first test. Now I need to find the properties that truly match it.

Idaho

Idaho is not even a question.

It will absolutely become part of Sanctuary Found. It is the landscape I return to, and there are parts of the state where the combination of rivers, mountains, wilderness, hot springs, darkness and lack of sensory clutter creates exactly the kind of environment I am talking about.

I am particularly interested in exploring properties built around natural hot springs. There is something fundamentally restorative about geothermal water, especially when it remains connected to the landscape rather than being turned into an overly engineered spa experience.

Idaho has places where the water, geology and remoteness already create the foundation. I want to find the people who understand how to build hospitality around that without destroying what makes it powerful in the first place.

Costa Rica will become the deeper study

Costa Rica is where I want to take this destination-first methodology much further.

I lived in Central America for years, and Costa Rica was an important part of the path that eventually led me to write The Restorative Power of Place. When I return, I do not want to approach the country as someone collecting hotels. I want to approach it as a full destination study.

I’ll be doing that with my friend Alejandro Castro Alfaro and his wife, Alina Flores Valle, of Wiköl Travel Costa Rica. Alejandro has deep experience in sustainable tourism, destination marketing and tourism strategy. I haven’t met Alina in person yet, but everything I have seen of her work makes me excited to know her. She brings more than 17 years of experience across tourism, hospitality, sustainable tourism, operations and product development. Together they run Wiköl as a Costa Rican boutique travel company centered on conscious, tailor-made travel and meaningful connection to the destination.

What excites me most is that they have already found extraordinary places in parts of Costa Rica I have yet to discover. That is exactly why I want their perspective beside mine. I do not want to arrive with Costa Rica already mapped out in my head according to the places I know. Part of this work is allowing local knowledge, relationships and experience to reveal destinations I may never have found on my own.

The Osa Peninsula will be a major focus for me because I already know the power of that landscape and want to study it much more deeply, but Osa will be an anchor rather than a boundary. Wiköl works across Costa Rica, including places such as the Caribbean Coast, Central Valley, Arenal, Monteverde, Nicoya, Papagayo, Río Celeste, Tortuguero and other regions that I am excited to experience through their eyes.

That feels far more interesting to me than building a collection from a list of famous destinations. I want to understand the places that reveal themselves through local knowledge and by actually being there.

Luna Lodge and Lana Wedmore

One of the people I most want to spend time with on the Osa Peninsula is Lana Wedmore of Luna Lodge.

Luna Lodge sits deep in the Osa Peninsula rainforest and has built its identity around conservation, community, biodiversity, nature immersion and holistic wellness. Guests can hike rainforest trails, explore waterfalls, experience guided nature excursions, practice yoga and engage with wellness offerings while remaining deeply embedded in the surrounding landscape.

But what interests me most is not the list of amenities.

It is Lana.

To me, Lana is the epitome of restorative hospitality. She was doing this work long before “wellness tourism” became an industry category. Her own story makes clear how central yoga and inner practice have been to her life and to building Luna Lodge; she says she could not have built the lodge without yoga in her life.

That distinction matters enormously.

There is a difference between a hotel that installs a cold plunge because guests now expect one and a property whose entire existence grew from a belief about how humans should live in relationship with themselves, each other and the natural world.

Lana did not add wellness to a hotel because wellness became marketable. She created a place from a worldview. The rainforest, conservation, healing, movement, food, community and hospitality grew together.

Those are the people I want Sanctuary Found to learn from.

Sanctuary Found × Haven

In one week, I am launching the founding Sanctuary Found collection in partnership with Haven.

Haven is the technology platform underneath the collection. It gives independent hospitality operators a branded direct-booking website, payments, reservations, calendar tools, guest guides and a way to build a direct relationship with guests rather than relying entirely on large booking platforms. It can support anything from a single property to a hotel, resort or multi-property portfolio.

What excites me most is that every property does not have to use Haven in exactly the same way.

Some properties already have beautiful websites, strong brands and established marketing systems. For those properties, Sanctuary Found can serve primarily as a discovery and curation layer, while Haven can support the direct-booking side of the guest relationship.

Other properties need considerably more help. They may have an extraordinary location and wonderful hosts but weak positioning, no effective direct-booking infrastructure or a website that does not communicate why the place matters. Haven can create a complete branded hospitality website, import property information, support booking and checkout, house guest guides and local recommendations, and bring multiple properties together within one branded site.

That creates a model I am increasingly excited about.

Sanctuary Found can curate the places. Haven can power the bookings.

And I can work with owners at whatever level they actually need, from simply inviting an exceptional property into the collection to helping reshape the positioning, storytelling, guest journey and physical experience of a property that wants to become more restorative.

The collection is therefore not simply a directory of places to sleep.

It is becoming an ecosystem.

The map is taking shape

Sweden has already been an early field study. Montana has been explored and will remain on the list while I continue looking for the right properties. Red River Gorge is happening now. Southern Appalachia and the Nashville region come next.

Idaho will absolutely become a major focus, particularly properties connected to wilderness, rivers and natural hot springs. Costa Rica will become one of the most in-depth studies I undertake, with Alejandro and Alina helping me understand parts of the country I already love as well as places I have yet to discover, and with the Osa Peninsula receiving particular attention.

There will be others: deserts, islands, river corridors, mountain communities, forests, geothermal regions and perhaps entire countries whose culture and pace create a kind of restoration before you ever enter a hotel.

But I no longer feel any need to have geographic coverage simply for the sake of having it.

Sanctuary Found does not need a property in every state, and it does not need hundreds of listings. I would rather tell you, with complete conviction, why I would send you to this particular place.

That is the realization Red River Gorge finally crystallized for me. The property is only one layer of restorative hospitality. The land matters. The culture matters. The pace matters. The people matter. The energy of the place matters.

Sometimes the destination itself is the medicine, and the property’s job is to understand that, support it and—perhaps most importantly—not interrupt it.

— Carley Montgomery

Explore

Luna Lodge — Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica https://lunalodge.com/

Wiköl Travel Costa Rica https://wikoltravelcostarica.com/

Haven — Direct Booking for Independent Hospitality https://www.bookwithhaven.com/

---

Originally published on Substack.