Vineyard vs Private Island
Two ways to run a company offsite, side by side — group size, budget, where each concentrates, and the estates worth booking.
Plan a RetreatVineyard
Estate wine country — long tables, tastings, and golden light.
- Venues
- 21 exclusive-buyout estates
- Typical group
- 10–400 guests
- Indicative budget
- $650–$1,300 pp/night
- Concentrated in
- Mediterranean Europe · Western United States · Caribbean & Latin America
- Best for
- celebration, strategy, leadership
Private Island
Whole-island buyout — total privacy and a captive company.
- Venues
- 18 exclusive-buyout estates
- Typical group
- 10–500 guests
- Indicative budget
- $1,200–$2,350 pp/night
- Concentrated in
- Caribbean & Latin America · Australasia · Southeast Asia
- Best for
- leadership, celebration, team building
Marcus Whitman Hotel & Conference Center
A 1928 landmark tower in downtown Walla Walla, the base camp for one of America's fastest-rising wine regions. 133 rooms, a full conference center and four tasting rooms in the building itself, with more than 120 wineries within a short drive.
Novotel Barossa Valley Resort
A 140-room resort set among vines in the heart of the Barossa, one of Australia's great wine regions. Nine purpose-built event venues seat up to 250 theater or 180 banquet, with balconies over the vineyards and Shiraz cellars minutes in every direction.
Castello di Casole
A 4,200-acre restored 10th-century castle estate near Siena, surrounded by its own vineyards, olive groves, and cypress-lined roads made for driving.
Atlantis Paradise Island
The Caribbean's only true large-conference campus that still feels like a holiday: 500,000+ sq ft of meeting space, a 50,000-sq-ft Imperial Ballroom that seats 4,000, plus 11-acre Aquaventure waterscape, an open-air marine habitat, a Tom Weiskopf golf course and a 63-slip mega-yacht marina. This is the one tropical basecamp that genuinely absorbs even several-hundred-strong companies — and well beyond — without partner overflow.
InterContinental Hayman Great Barrier Reef
The northernmost private island in the Whitsundays, taken whole, with 182 rooms, suites and villas and 15 indoor/outdoor event venues across the property. Guests arrive by a 50-minute yacht transfer from Hamilton Island, which makes the whole offsite feel like an expedition the moment it begins. Whitehaven Beach and the outer Great Barrier Reef are day-trips by tender.
Petit St. Vincent
A 115-acre private island resort in the southern Grenadines with 22 one- and two-bedroom cottages spread across the hillsides and beaches, holding up to 56 guests. No phones or TVs in the cottages, seven beaches and a whole island for an executive group.