Lance Avery Morgan
Founder & Native Texan Regina Tingle’s Desire To Reclaim Awe And Agency Has Turned Into A Global Movement Of Intentional Travel And Luxury Escapes For Women
By Lance Avery Morgan Photography courtesy of Duende Retreats
When she first stepped off a plane years ago into a foreign country, solo, unsure, and exhilarated, Native Texan Regina Tingle didn’t know her life would change. But it did. Not in a cinematic way, with soaring music and grand epiphanies, but in the quieter, soul-level shift that occurs when you find yourself alone, anonymous, and alive in a place where no one knows your name. Where the smells, sounds, and pace of life are unfamiliar. Where you are unhooked from routine and gently, almost invisibly, asked to meet yourself anew.
That feeling, exhilarating, liberating, even a little disorienting, became the guiding compass for what would become Duende Retreats, a luxury travel experience created by Tingle for women seeking more than just five-star accommodations and enviable photo ops. Duende is a Spanish word that means a heightened state of emotion, expression, and authenticity, particularly in creative or artistic pursuits. It’s fitting. Because these retreats aren’t just trips, they’re emotional reboots, deeply transformative and artfully designed to help women come home to themselves… by first leaving everything behind.
THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL
“I wanted to recreate the feeling of awe I experienced the first time I went abroad all those years ago—for other women,” says Regina Tingle, the founder of Duende Retreats. “That visceral sensation of being someplace foreign, somewhere no one knows you… where your internal compass is unhinged, and what you’ve only seen in movies or read in books comes to life. That shift? It wakes you up.”
For many women, especially those balancing careers, children, relationships, and the mental gymnastics of daily logistics, there is rarely space for awe. Rarely room for reinvention. Yet, as the founder explains, the magic of travel is that it dissolves expectations. “When you’re abroad, the rest of your life melts away,” Tingle continues. “Suddenly, you are undeniably the main character of your story. Travel can jar you and also liberate you.”
That idea, that agency and transformation are available to any woman willing to say yes to herself—sits at the soul of Duende. Shares Tingle, “You discover yourself within the strange new context of your surroundings, and it’s like, ‘Oh, so this is who I’d be if I were walking down a wet cobblestone street after being caught in the rain without an umbrella on a Sunday in Paris.’ That version of you matters.”
A RETREAT DESIGNED FOR WOMEN, BY A WOMAN WHO GETS IT
What makes Duende Retreats unique isn’t just the dreamy settings, though, from Italian villas to Portuguese estates, they are certainly that. It’s the acute understanding of what modern women need most: space to breathe.
“Women love a fabulous itinerary, yes. But what they really love is not having to create one,” Tingle explains with a knowing smile. “So many of my clients have young children or hold executive positions, they carry so much responsibility. For five glorious days, there’s no grocery list, no team to manage, no laundry. No one’s needs but your own. It’s not just about where you’re going. It’s about everything you’re leaving behind.”
This freedom, the freedom to surrender, to not plan, to not be in charge, feels like the ultimate luxury. And for many women, it truly is. One repeat guest insists on never looking at the daily itinerary because she wants to be surprised by each moment. “It’s the only time in her year she doesn’t have to orchestrate someone else’s life,” the founder shares.
TRANSFORMATION IS ON THE ITINERARY
The results are often profound. Guests arrive with anticipation, some with anxiety, many not knowing a soul. But by the end of Day One, magic is already in motion.
“There’s a visible softening that happens,” Tingle muses. “You see shoulders lower, faces relax, eyes brighten. They start calling each other by name. They share stories, burdens, secrets… and laughter. And I swear to you, everyone becomes more beautiful.”
There was the woman in Tuscany who returned home and retired from her high-stakes job. The one who finally left her toxic boss and started her own business. Countless others didn’t change anything major, but everything subtle shifted: how they spoke to their children, how they treated themselves, how they remembered their worth.
“Travel can transform us if we let it,” Tingle says simply. “I think the right kind of journey can be a mirror, a permission slip, and a reset button, all in one.”
BUILT THROUGH ADVERSITY, POWERED BY PURPOSE
Launching a travel business sounds glamorous, but the reality, especially during a global pandemic, was anything but. In the same month that she launched Duende, Regina Tingle discovered she was unexpectedly pregnant. Then came COVID. In the UK, where the Native Texan now lives, lockdowns were severe and long-lasting. Not only was international travel at a standstill, but so was everyday life.
“I was trying to keep a newborn alive and nurse a dream that felt like it might die,” she recalls. “It was a deeply destabilizing time. Everything I knew, my routines, my support systems, even my identity, just disappeared.”
But rather than abandon the vision, Regina Tingle let it evolve. “You couldn’t have convinced me at the time, but those years actually forged something unshakable in me. I came out of it angry, honestly, angry that so many parts of myself had vanished. And I decided I was going to claw my way back to her.”
That fire became fuel. “Building Duende has been my way of reclaiming agency, of creating something beautiful from the rubble,” she emphasizes. And in doing so, I like to think I’m helping other women find their way back to themselves, too.”
COMMUNITY AT THE CORE
Perhaps what guests of Regina Tingle’s Duende Retreats value most isn’t even the escape, but the connection. With others. With self. With possibility.
Picture this: a slow sunset in the hills of Umbria, glasses of Prosecco in hand, crickets humming and laughter pealing through the warm air. Around the table are women who just days ago were strangers, now telling secrets, swapping life stories, and making plans to visit each other’s cities. “The camaraderie becomes part of the transformation,” the founder notes. “These women arrive alone and leave with lifelong friends.”
Regina Tingle adds, “There’s something deeply powerful about being surrounded by women who are living, breathing proof that joy, reinvention, and magic are always on the table, no matter where you are in life.”
THE FUTURE OF DUENDE
As for what’s next, Duende Retreats continues to expand, new locations, new themes, new partnerships, but always with the same intention: to offer women an extraordinary, empowering pause. To not only remember who they are, but to be inspired by who they could become.
In a world that often demands women be everything for everyone, Duende Retreats invites them to be everything for themselves, for just a few sacred days.
And in those days, something shifts. Something heals. Something sparks anew.
Because sometimes, all it takes to change your life is a passport, a plane ticket, and a reminder that you’re still the main character of your own life story, you just need to turn the page.
For more information on Duende Retreats, visit here.
