Cibukan | Eco-Hotel

"Let’s Host A Creator Trip"

In 2018 my agency decided to host a trip in the Dominican Republic with a few dozen creators and a couple clients we worked with. It was a charity & content trip, any remaining funds we made from the trip we donated to our friend Austin who lived down there to build a school. My team and I were winging it the entire time, but it was life-changing, for both our guests and the team. Many of the guests are still close friends, some ended up dating, etc. There's something about being offline in the jungle with creative humans.

"Let’s Build A (Venture) Village"

My partner and I connected with the founder of the resort we were staying at, the Dominican Treehouse Village, we talked about opening our own project down the road. The conversation was between 4 dreamers, literally drawing plans on napkins. Any problem that arose was quickly and creatively solved. We couldn’t let the idea go.

We had a concept in our minds, a venture village, where the entire venue is one intentional trip. Like a convention, but in the jungle and centered around creators, of all types.

Eventually, we had a property picked out and funds wired down there to build. This process took exactly a year.

The Experience

Most of the building management was remote for my partner and I, via WhatsApp. We visited a few times during it's development. With the pandemic happening about 4 months into building, naturally, the project went over budget and timeline. 4 years later, it's hosting people actively and set to be officially complete and open to the public sometime in 2024.

I've recently decided to exit the project. I like the idea of starting completely fresh and this 'one person business' has been going so well, I plan to build a project like Cibukan down the road, with less cooks in the kitchen. 🧑‍🍳

I learned a lot from this project and I will always be grateful for the experience. I'm also grateful to be out of the project too. Free's up time to move forward in life. 🙏