We catch up with Colleen to hear what inspired he to start these retreats and what you can expect on your trip.
In recent years you’ve started hosting women’s kiteboarding retreats, what was the motivation for starting this?
When I was younger, I was pretty heavily into the snowboarding scene where I had a huge group of women around me to hike into the backcountry with, or push each other in the park, always working on progressing our level. When I starting getting into kiteboarding, I was almost always the only woman on the water.
As I started competing and travelling the world, I found a crew like this to ride with, but I think a lot of ladies out there experience the same thing I did at their local spot and don’t have the ability to travel the globe to find their tribe. Additionally, my partner Sensi Graves, and I find it incredibley empowering to bring together groups of women who are all united by a common passion: kiteboarding!
What is the main focus of the retreats?
As an organiser, the goal is to plan a kiteboarding trip that will be one of the best trips of our lives! We want women to be able to get off the plane and not worry about a thing. All the details are arranged and each day is loaded with lots of time on the water, fostering the ideal environment for progression, confidence building and camaraderie.
How has your experience as a professional team rider prepared you to organise these trips?
It can be overwhelming to organise a kiteboarding trip especially if you want to do it with a group of friends. You have to coordinate schedules, find the best place to go, best place to stay, plan three meals a day, transportation and so on. Over my professional career I’ve been to dozens of kite spots and travelled to more countries than I can list off the top of my head - some trips have been epic and some have been a flop. We take our experience and expertise into deciding where and when to go, planning our trips at only the best spots and thinking through the details well ahead of time. I also love that we bring together women from all over the globe who leave the trip with a whole new crew of kiting friends.
