About Us
A travel company on a mission to bring people to ecovillages worldwide.
Hi! I’m Cynthia,
founder of Ecovillage Tours.
Over the past decade, I’ve traveled the world visiting intentional communities, ecovillages, cohousing projects, and regenerative villages in search of a question many people are asking:
Is there a better way to live?
What I found was deeply inspiring.
Across the world, people are creating communities centered around connection, cooperation, sustainability, and a more meaningful way of life.
After visiting hundreds of communities, I created Ecovillage Tours to help others experience these places firsthand.
Our small-group journeys offer rare behind-the-scenes access to some of the world’s most inspiring communities, without the stress and logistical challenges of organizing it all yourself.
Some people join our tours because they’re considering a move into community. Others come for inspiration, learning, connection, or simply the experience of seeing what’s possible.
Sound like you? I’d love to welcome you on a future journey.
—Cynthia
Unlike any other travel experience
Access to Ecovillages
Each Ecovillage Tour opens doors to communities beyond the reach of regular travelers.
Engage directly with pioneering founders for invaluable insights into creating your own sustainable project, network with like-minded individuals passionate about regenerative living, or even discover a community that you may one day call home.
Life-Changing Itineraries
We craft each tour to be a transformative experience.
Expect balanced itineraries that include volunteer opportunities, educational sessions, ample downtime for personal reflection, and plenty of fun. More than the communities you visit, you’ll find that the connections made within your group of travel companions becomes the most treasured community experience of all.
Values-Driven Travel
It’s time for a vacation that aligns with your values.
Sustainability doesn’t mean the end of travel, it just means making every trip count. Journey to inspirational centers for sustainable community living in stunningly beautiful locations, while leaving a positive impact. Read our Ethics Statement by clicking the button below.
Meet Our Team
Our passionate team is helping you discover intentional communities.
FOUNDER & CEO
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Cynthia founded Ecovillage Tours because she wanted more people to travel with her to ecovillages, experiencing ways of living that are both sustainable and fun! She has visited more than 150 intentional communities around the world, including the Vermont ecovillage where she lives in her self-built passive solar home.
When not global-trotting to ecovillages with interesting groups of people, Cynthia works as the “community matchmaker” and director of CommunityFinders, offering programs to help people join and start intentional communities.
Formerly the co-director, Cynthia is now a spokesperson and educator with the Foundation for Intentional Community. She's a former trustee of the Global Ecovillage Network and former director of the youth ecovillage network, NextGEN North America. She holds a degree in Sustainability from Goddard College, as well as certificates in Permaculture and Ecovillage Design, and Yoga Teacher Training.
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Jess recently joined Ecovillage Tours, drawn by their mission to promote conscious living through visiting intentional communities worldwide. With almost 20 years of experience in international education, including 10 years of guiding cross-cultural service-learning projects for college students across Latin America with Peacework, Jess brings a wealth of expertise.
Prior to Peacework she worked at Manna Project International in Guatemala and The School for Field Studies in Costa Rica overseeing student and volunteer-driven community development initiatives. Jess holds a Master's in Intercultural Service, Leadership, and Management and has worked with various grassroots organizations across Latin America.
Travel has always been integral to her life journey, evolving from external exploration to internal introspection, where she discovered yoga, meditation, and indigenous wisdom. This quest has led her to seek out conscious communities worldwide. Presently based in Mexico with her partner and daughter, she is eager to continue her work connecting individuals with transformative centers for sustainable community living through Ecovillage Tours.
TOUR OPERATIONS DIRECTOR
AUROVILLE PROGRAM LEADER
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Daniel Greenberg is the Director of Networking and Partnerships of the Foundation for Intentional Community. Back in 1998, following his Ph.D. dissertation on Growing up in Intentional Communities, Daniel founded Living Routes, which ran study abroad programs in ecovillages around the world. In 2012, he started Earth Deeds, which offers online tools to account for our unavoidable CO₂ emissions. Over the years, Daniel visited over 100 communities and lived in many, including Sirius in Massachusetts, the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland, and Auroville in south India. Daniel is co-founder and past Board Member of Gaia Education and served as President of the Global Ecovillage Network from 2015-2019. Daniel’s passion is to support the development of whole people, living well and lightly together.
PORTUGAL + GREECE GUIDE
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Catarina is a Lisbon native raised between the countryside and the ocean. She has worked as a tour guide since 2017, sharing her deep knowledge of Portugal’s history and landscapes with curious travelers. Beyond guiding, Catarina has a decade of experience as a dancer and teacher with the Orchidaceae collective, blending urban, traditional, and contemporary dance forms. She has performed and taught at festivals across Europe and Asia and co-organizes the Orchidaceae Dance Intensive in Lisbon, an annual gathering attracting students from around the world.
An eco-feminist activist, biologist, and founding member of the Dunas Livres Association, Catarina advocates for the preservation of Portugal’s wild coastline. She is a core team member of the Ecoversities Alliance, supporting alternative education and sustainable livelihoods globally. Her current project, EVOLVE, integrates art and science through movement workshops that connect participants with nature and evolutionary history.
Catarina’s diverse passions, from translating across three languages to organizing transformative festivals, make her a dynamic and inspiring guide for participants on the Portugal Ecovillage Tour.
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Jason is the founder of Regeneration Nation Costa Rica, a podcast exploring who's doing what to bring Costa Rica toward environmental and social well-being. As a permaculturist with a background in business, he bridges ecologically-focused entrepreneurs with the 21st-century tools and business practices he’s found useful in his own endeavors.
After a decade of traveling, visiting intentional communities and permaculture projects all around North and Central America, Jason settled on Costa Rica as his home. In 2009, he co-founded Finca Fruition, a permaculture education center and homestead in CR. During his dozen years dedicated to that project, he hosted hundreds of guests, volunteers, interns, and students, produced events, taught a little, and learned a lot.
Jason’s been a dedicated earth steward for more than 20 years. His current mission is to promote & network regenerative projects throughout CR, hoping to enhance their potential to make their intended impact and thrive.
COSTA RICA GUIDE
MARKETING DIRECTOR
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Mika believes that connection—in all its forms—is what brings true joy and meaning to life. As Marketing Director for Ecovillage Tours, she is focused on sharing the stories of people and movements around the world who are reimagining what it means to live regeneratively and in community. Mika’s approach to marketing is rooted in storytelling and the belief that wellbeing and sustainability flourish through genuine human connection.
Mika also does promotion and facilitation with the transformational plant medicine retreat organization she co-founded in Ecuador, Ayllu Medicina. She shares the practices and ways of being in communion with the Earth that have served her path, inviting people to connect with themselves and their purpose through meditation, purification, and ceremony.
Originally from Rhode Island and based in Ecuador for the last 13 years, Mika has collaborated with organizations including Global Citizen Year, Kalu Yala, The Wellbeing Project, and Amazon Learning. Her background living in ecovillages, in experiential education and community ecotourism has taken her deep into the Andes and Amazon, where she’s learned from indigenous elders, local projects, and guided young changemakers through cross-cultural immersion.
She is also the founder of Joyful Connection Co., a project dedicated to facilitating programs in mindful nonviolent communication and immersive travel experiences in Ecuador. When not hosting retreats or crafting stories, Mika can be found in the ocean, practicing yoga, searching for waterfalls, convening meaningful gatherings, or creating through art and music.
BALI PROGRAM COORDINATOR
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Kavitha was born as third generation into one of the world’s largest Ecovillage-Intentional community known as Auroville, in South India. She is Dutch and Indian by nationality. She studied Sustainable Development at Leiden University in The Hague. She later returned to Auroville where she worked in various fields of alternative education, alternative governance, and founded the YouthLink organisation.
Simultaneously, she had worked for the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), as Trustee and as Education Director for the Asia-Oceania regional network. She has also co-founded the Auroville GEN-Desk, and her central focus has been to conduct Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) certified programs, which she has now done for over a decade. She is also Permaculture Design certified, and has worked on project design and fundraising for various initiatives in Auroville.
Kavitha has now moved to Bali, with her husband and two children, where she manages the Retreats and Educational programs held at their Alaya Ecolodge. She also continues to organise Ecovillage Design Education programs, amongst other trainings related to regenerative practices, wellness, and local empowerment. Together with her husband and colleagues, they are working on designing an Ecovillage Learning Campus - as a space to develop new curriculum for residential programs relating to Ecovillage and Intentional communities.
Kavitha has been discovering Bali over the last few years, developing her network of like-minded people and projects. As a faclitator for the Bali regional program, she is excited to share with you some of her favourite sites in Bali !
She helped grow Village Farm Agrihood, a tiny home community centered around a certified organic farm just 8 miles outside of Austin, Texas.
After this, she co-founded and managed and a 10-acre homesteading community in Central Texas called Radical Roots Ranch, where they hosted Permaculture Pow Wow Land Activations bringing people together to restore the land and cultivate sustainable living practices.
She now resides on a ranch located near the healing vortex energy in Sedona, Arizona.
A tiny home specialist, ecovillage enthusiast, and advocate for the “Agrihood”—residential neighborhoods designed around sustainable agriculture—Rebecca is passionate about helping people reconnect with the land and each other. Through her work, she inspires and supports those looking to exit the mainstream system and build a more intentional, resilient future.
Want to join the team?
Explore our open positions.
SPAIN GUIDE
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Fernando is a passionate community facilitator and ecovillage enthusiast, with years of experience in the Iberian Ecovillage Network (RIE) and in regenerative projects across Europe. With a background in architecture, group facilitation, and community living, he has managed colivings, coordinated Erasmus+ youth exchanges, and created spaces where people feel at home and connected.
He lived for a period at El Molino de Guadalmesí, a community close to his heart where he still returns often to spend time, host, and facilitate projects. Deeply committed to sustainability, permaculture, and regenerative cultures, Fernando brings together his love for nature, food, and human connection to craft transformative experiences. He believes in the power of community to inspire personal and collective change, and he is excited to guide participants through Spain’s vibrant ecovillage landscape.
His intention for this journey is to not only discover inspiring projects, but also to co-create a strong group spirit, share meaningful conversations, and have fun together, experiencing first-hand what it’s like to live in community.
PORTUGAL + GREECE GUIDE
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Mikey is a musician, facilitator and event producer with a great emphasis on getting people together and creating meaningful connections. As a facilitator, Mikey aims to nurture human connections in group settings through integrated participatory methodologies. His facilitation experience started young with leading and guiding groups of children and youth in summer camps, and is growing to animating musical workshops and facilitating workshops in all sorts of contexts, focused on personal development and group dynamics.She helped grow Village Farm Agrihood, a tiny home community centered around a certified organic farm just 8 miles outside of Austin, Texas.
After this, she co-founded and managed and a 10-acre homesteading community in Central Texas called Radical Roots Ranch, where they hosted Permaculture Pow Wow Land Activations bringing people together to restore the land and cultivate sustainable living practices.
She now resides on a ranch located near the healing vortex energy in Sedona, Arizona.
A tiny home specialist, ecovillage enthusiast, and advocate for the “Agrihood”—residential neighborhoods designed around sustainable agriculture—Rebecca is passionate about helping people reconnect with the land and each other. Through her work, she inspires and supports those looking to exit the mainstream system and build a more intentional, resilient future.
As a musician, Mikey uses voice, guitar, and electronic instruments through live looping and sampling. He often incorporates voices of the audience, as part of his duo project À La Loop - something between a performance and a workshop, the duo record and sample the audience to create a track of music that is unique and exclusively ephemeral. giving people a special experience with the opportunity to hear themselves and express themselves in a new way and to create together, this leads to empowerment of the individuals and of the groups they have worked with. playing in various contexts, such as youth movement conferences, seminars for community leaders, team-building workshops, as well as street-performance.
He is part of BONA, an artistic collective for community event production who share skills for producing events and establishing connections between people. The resulting events, such as parties or festivals, are collectively created among BONA members and the local community of unexpected urban locations. Their main focuses are community, a sense of unity, and artistic creation, particularly emphasising music and visual art. BONA have developed methodologies to integrate groups to the location, to dream together, to be beneficial to the place and to the local community all through fun and interactive events. The collective organises about six events annually, each with a different group or community.
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Safir brings over a decade of immersive community living to the Italy Ecovillage Tour, with a heartfelt passion for group facilitation and creating joyful, harmonious ways of being together in alignment with nature. His work draws from a wide spectrum of practices, including Permaculture, Sociocracy, Consensus, Dragon Dreaming, CLIPS, Social Permaculture, Open Space, World Café, Word Circle, Inner Transition, and Nonviolent Communication.
He has lived and learned within vibrant ecovillages and projects full of life, guided by master facilitators and fellow travelers on the path of community. Since 2012, Safir has been an active member of the Italian Ecovillage Network, where he once served as co-president and now focuses on community relations and organizational development.
His commitment extends globally through his involvement with the Global Ecovillage Network, where he co-facilitates empathic listening spaces at international gatherings. He is also a collaborator with the widespread community of Piumani, dedicated to shared values and mutual support.
Today, Safir works as a facilitator and trainer with both well-established and emerging community groups across Italy. With more than 25 years of exploration in the arts of inner transformation, he brings a depth of insight into body, mind, emotion, and energy—supporting meaningful connection, self-discovery, and collective growth.
ITALY GUIDE
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Giovanni brings a rich blend of experience in group facilitation, holistic healing, and conscious living to the Italy Ecovillage Tour. He has led Cerchi di Uomini (Men’s Circles), fostering shared leadership and empowering individuals to recognize their inner strength—a practice that continues to shape his approach to group dynamics.
A dedicated practitioner and teacher of Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication and its couples-focused adaptation, IMAGO, Giovanni helps others cultivate deeper empathy and connection in their relationships. He is also passionate about Sociocracy and the dynamics of intentional communities, offering valuable tools for collaborative and effective group governance.
Giovanni’s background in holistic health includes training as a Reiki operator, BARS Access Consciousness practitioner, and Ayurvedic massage therapist. He has practiced Transcendental Meditation for over 14 years and shares a variety of meditative techniques, supporting individuals in discovering the practice that best suits them.
Since 2024, Giovanni has served as an Environmental Hiking Guide, integrating his love for nature with personal growth by leading transformative outdoor experiences that connect people with the land—and themselves.
ITALY GUIDE
Reviews
Learn why past participants are raving about their tour experience.
One of the greatest experiences I have ever had. A completely unique journey to some wondrous ecovillage projects, full of inspirational humans. To share the tours with others with similar visions was enriching and a real privilige. I left feeling fulfilled and educated.
— Adam Bates
It is an experience worth paying for. You get to know places and people who are on the real hands on effort for bringing change and make local ecosystems more resilient.
— Edward Bryce
Best summer camp ever! A must see!! People, food and lodging were more than I could have hoped for in a travel experience like this!! Definitely will be back.
—Megan Zimmerman
Ecovillage Tours has put something really special together. The amount of research and care they have put into this trip is impressive in and of itself and have helped facilitate meaningful connections both within the tour group and with the communities hosting us. This eye opening experience has the potential to change your life by exploring more unique paradigms.
— Nathan Oxenfeld
Questions?
We’d love to chat with you about your dream ecovillage tour.