How we vet a retreat before it earns the Solo Standard

A retreat listing is easy to photograph well and hard to run well. Before any route appears on Sola, our team has met the host on a live video call, checked their operating licence and liability insurance, and confirmed emergency arrangements within reach of the venue.

We check the things solo travellers actually feel. Are single rooms real rooms, or the twin nobody wanted? Is the communal table genuinely optional, or does skipping it make you the odd one out? Is there a named person reachable at 3am, and do they answer?

The red flags that end a conversation quickly: occupancy games (two seats left, forever), stock photography where real rooms should be, no named host anywhere on the page, and any resistance to us speaking with past guests.

Partner hosts on our marketplace pass the same checks, and the standard is enforced after listing too: a route that slips loses its badge and its placement. This is also why hosts like being here. A vetted marketplace protects the good ones from being undercut by the careless.

The whole checklist ships in our free Starter Kit, so you can run it on any retreat anywhere, including ones we don't sell. We would rather you book anywhere with confidence than nowhere at all.