Taryn and Martin of Quartier Collective have turned family travel into a vehicle for connection, growth, and transformation. We first met them through Bundle Beds, handing over a set of beds for them to use as a family, and are constantly inspired by their amazing approach to life... Through their thoughtfully curated Family Gatherings, they’ve inspired countless families to rethink their paths, find clarity, and make lasting memories. Whether it’s reconnecting with loved ones, finding purpose, or simply slowing down, their approach to travel celebrates what truly matters.
We asked them to tell us a bit more about what they do and how we can all get involved in their amazing gatherings, here is what they said...
“Do you guys have conversations like this at home?” A whip-smart CEO and mother of two boys from Switzerland was asking the group, all parents, some single and some coupled, on the sand and holding paper cups of a fuzzy, sparkling wine. Their kids float and splash together in the river as it rounds the big sandy bank on its way to the Atlantic here in southern Portugal. When she said it I realised what it was we’d created; we’d made a space for these parents, for these families, to grow, and to change.
Our job since 2018 has been to bring families together in remarkable places to experience an immersive, collective kind of travel, deeper, slower and more connected. We call these Family Gatherings, and we’ve hosted them in Portugal, Japan, Greece, Mexico, Italy, Ireland, Morocco, Indonesia, Spain…
We seem to attract families who are looking for something: a shakeup, a change, a reconnection with each other or with their purpose. One family who travelled with us for a couple of months sold their home in Ireland, joined us again for more travel and finally set up a new home in Lisbon. Another family bought an Airstream and are currently towing it through the American desert. The Swiss CEO? She took six months to camp across Canada with her husband and the boys, then returned to Switzerland, to the same life, but different.
We all have the potential for massive change and growth. And there are a million reasons why we stay the same, sometimes for years, sometimes forever. Pressure, patterns, the critical eye of friends and family (famously, the ones most resistant to seeing us change). Sometimes you need to jump from the box you’re in, to find a quiet place to really listen to that bell you heard ringing.
So what does that look like? For Quartier Collective, our boutique travel company, it looks like a small group of families together for as little as a week or as long as a month, exploring, connecting with the artists, the winemakers, the makers and thinkers who make a place come alive, with long slow dinners, plenty of time outdoors, special learning days for the kids, and for whole families, lots of support, lots of conversation, usually a bit of good food and drink. We’ll be in Mallorca for March, Sicily for April and Japan again for June.
If you’ve heard a bell ringing but need some space to find out what that means for you and your family, or if you just have questions about family travel, we would love to hear from you! You can find us online or on instagram @quartiercollective.