I'm taking a group to Machu Picchu in Peru this September'26 (12-20th)

Most people aren't living. They're surviving.

Same job. Same gym. Same meals. Same conversations with the same people at the same bars, week after week after week.

Nothing new. Nothing that pulls at them. Nothing that makes their eyes light up.

Everything is safe. Everything is predictable. Everything is managed.

No risk. No spontaneity. No moments that actually stop you in your tracks.

From the outside, it looks fine. But spend enough time around someone living like that, and you can feel it. They have no edge, no presence, no real life behind the eyes.

They're not unhappy exactly. They're just dim.

And deep down, most people know it. They just don't know what to do about it.

I've spent the last 4 years trying to understand why and what actually fixes it.

It started with a one-way ticket.

About 4 years ago I bought a one-way ticket to South America. No plan. No return date. Just a decision that it was time.

My first stop was Ecuador, where I spent 2 months volunteering at an ayahuasca retreat center called Gaia Sagrada. And in those 2 months, I saw something I'll never forget.

People would arrive as strangers: doctors, lawyers, hippies, backpackers, trust fund babies, old men with terminal illnesses. All from completely different worlds and completely different walks of life.

Within days, the masks came off and the roles they had in their everyday lives didn’t matter.

Not because anyone told them to. But because the container: the place, the people, the removal from ordinary life, made it impossible to keep pretending. Everyone was just... themselves. Fully. And because of that, they connected with each other in a way that most people never experience in years of "normal" relationships.

I saw what happens when you take people out of their routines and put them in powerful & exotic places.

And I've never been able to unsee it.

After Ecuador, I went to Peru and did the Machu Picchu Salkantay Trek. I summited snow-capped mountains. Slept under the stars in glass domes. Picked coffee beans in tropical jungle. Crossed paths with wild horses and alpacas. I started the trek as a stranger alongside 2 Dutch girls and 4 Germans and by the end of it we were close friends who still keep in touch today.

It was the same magic, different place.

The answer isn't another vacation.

It isn't booking a nice hotel somewhere warm and spending a week on a sun lounger and crushing a 12-pack every day to escape your reality.

It's putting yourself somewhere completely unfamiliar. Somewhere wild and adventurous and far outside your comfort zone. Somewhere that demands something from you and gives something back that you didn't even know you were missing.

That's what Ecuador and Peru did for me. Twice.

And that's exactly why I'm going back and want to bring you with me.

This September (12–20), I'm hosting a retreat to trek to Machu Picchu via the Salkantay Trek.

8 days. 8 nights. 5 days of trekking through some of the most breathtaking landscapes on the planet with a small group of like-minded people who are ready to actually feel something again.

I've partnered with the exact same company I trekked with 3½ years ago to recreate the experience from start to finish. That means the hobbit homes. The glass domes under the stars. The coca tea at 5am. And yes picking coffee beans in the jungle on the way down.

This is the exact trek I did. The one I still think about. The one I call one of the greatest experiences of my life and I've been traveling nonstop for nearly 4 years now.

I want to share it with you.

When you come on this retreat, here's what will happen:

You'll push yourself physically and mentally and discover you're far more capable than you thought. You'll slow down long enough to actually hear yourself think. You'll share real moments with people who are after the same things you are. And you'll go home with a completely different perspective on what your everyday life can look and feel like.

Not because someone told you to change. But because you zoomed out far enough to remember what life is actually about.

And then you came alive again.

If this speaks to you, if some part of you read this and felt it, this retreat is for you.

Reply to this email or message me.

Spots are limited. This is a small group by design.

I'll see you on the mountain.

— Brandon

P.S. — I've now seen firsthand — in Ecuador and on the Salkantay Trek — what happens when the right people are put in the right place together. If you've been waiting for a reason to do something like this, this is it. Don't let this be the email you meant to reply to.