Hey, we are Hannah and Jack, a young couple with a big dream: We want to build a sustainable Nature Resort in the south of Portugal. With this, we are exploring a different way of living, a way that will allow us more freedom in our day-to-day-lives and enables us to reduce our environmental impact.
But why do we want to do a project like this? Well, we’ve both been working regular 9-5 jobs for most of our careers but soon realized, that this is not the way we want to spend the rest of our lives. We would much rather have more time to do the things we really enjoy than to earn the big bucks but only live for the weekends. So we made a list of things that are important to us, to find a way of living that would enable us to earn money but also give us plenty of freedom to follow our interests and hobbies. Pretty soon we arrived at the idea of building a boutique hotel, which lets people reconnect with nature in a new way.
Two years ago we decided to make this dream a reality and bought 1.6 hectares of land in the Algarve. The land is nestled in a very tranquil area between the beach town of Portimão and the gentle hills of Monchique. This neglected piece of land was completely overgrown with blackberry bushes and rock roses when we bought it. But not much longer! We are planning to build a boutique Nature Resort, which will feature four individual units for visitors, a shared swimming pool, and a house for us to live in. Everything will be constructed and run as environmentally friendly as possible, whilst at the same time providing all the amenities and luxury visitors are looking for in their holidays. It will showcase that a beautiful holiday resort does not have to (literally) cost the earth.
We are also aiming to revitalize the land, using permaculture principles. It’s our aim to create a food forest and permaculture garden, which will provide plenty of organic fruits and vegetables, whilst also serve as a place for guests to relax and reconnect with nature. This will also be an example of how a neglected piece of land can be transformed and rejuvenated to mitigate climate change, maybe inspiring others to rethink their environmental impacts or even to do similar projects.
We are currently living on our land, in a mobile home, which we completely renovated and transformed into a beautiful off-grid tiny house to live in whilst we build this resort. On here we share this journey with anyone who is interested. We also document this project on Instagram and YouTube, make sure to subscribe to follow this transformation. Oh and please do feel free to get in touch, we always love to connect with new people.