I needed alone time, so I sequestered myself in the Faroe Islands
There’s getting away from it all, and then there’s taking a few days on your own in a chain of tiny islands in the North Atlantic called the Faroes, a Danish territory. Comfortably remote and sparsely populated, the archipelago of 18 volcanic islands sits between Iceland and Scotland – the 70,000 doe-eyed Faroese sheep easily outnumber the population. I had a hunch the far-flung landscape would offer me the peaceful environment I’d been craving after an exceptionally hectic four months. For three days I visited tiny villages, taking in breathtaking vistas of craggy cliffs with the sea roiling below. I explored the fishing village turned capital city, Tórshavn, home to 14,000 of the country’s 55,000 people, where often it was just me walking its cobblestone streets and mossy paths. I watched ducks putter around in a stream that leads to the National Gallery, home to a dynamic collection of works from Faroese artists.
I was charmed by the Hobbit-like houses with turf-covered roofs, a thousand-year-old tradition that helps with thermal insulation. I savoured meals on my own, trying out ROKS, a Michelin-recognized restaurant (one of two here) housed in a cottage by the harbour. I had to confess my ineptitude to a server, when she brought me a Greenlandic snow crab. She offered advice and, once I finally threw in the napkin, we commiserated over the inevitable mess. This quiet place helped quiet my mind. I can’t wait to go back – I might even bring someone with me. —Maryam Siddiqi
I attended a luxury cannabis retreat
One of the cedar-clad lakeview cabins at ‘Dimensions’. Courtesy of Dimensions
I’m lying on a poofy mat in a bougie geodesic dome in the woods of Ontario’s Algonquin Highlands. Two psychotherapists and one “plant elder” are leading me and four other women through breathing exercises and meditations while building a sound bath around us with ceremonial instruments. Every 15 minutes or so they invite us to inhale from a vape packed with a cannabis blend that’s optimized for a psychedelic experience. I’m ready to – as the therapy girlies say – do the work.
And work it is. While this chic, 17-cabin lakeside resort also offers weed-free weekend wellness getaways, what retreat centre Dimensions is really interested in is cannabis-assisted psychotherapy. And what feels obvious to me, at least, is that they’re laying the groundwork for the moment when more heavily psychedelic medicines like psilocybin become legal. But for now, it’s weed.
I’m here for their five-day Ascend retreat and it’s intense. For a girl who thought she was just going to have a nice time getting high in the woods, I wasn’t totally prepared for the amount of meditating, journalling, breathwork, group therapy and individual psychotherapy I’d signed up for. Weed isn’t even as central to Ascend as I expected: The cannabis ceremony itself is only a few hours long and is considered the culmination of all the inward-looking exercises you do before, during and after the retreat.
Did I have a mind-bending psychedelic experience that changed me forever? No. But I did have a surprisingly insightful week and some excellent body treatments – and I was finally convinced that sugar-free, plant-forward food can feel gourmet. When the government legalizes psilocybin, I’ll definitely be coming back to that dome to do it all again. —Leah Rumack
