Why Culture-First Companies Are Going Elsewhere
by Darren Swayne, Elsewhere CEO and Founder.
There’s a quiet revolution happening in how the best companies think about offsites. No more beige boardrooms. No more awkward icebreakers. No more treating retreats like a last-minute admin task. In 2025, ambitious teams are designing offsites that drive clarity, connection and creativity- and they’re turning to Elsewhere to help them do it.
At Elsewhere, we work with scaling, culture-first companies who understand that real progress happens not in back-to-back Zoom calls, but in the moments between. Around long dinner tables. In wildflower meadows. During goat yoga, graffiti workshops, or 90 minutes of strategic thinking that finally land because no one’s checking email under the table.
We offer a full-service model, meaning we manage everything, from understanding the purpose of the retreat to recommending a soulful Elsewhere venue, designing the agenda, handling all logistics, delivering original team-building experiences, hosting on-site, and even reporting on post-retreat sentiment. No third parties. No chaos. Just one team, managing the entire experience.
And that experience is built to reflect your team- not someone else’s template. Whether it’s aligning after a funding round, welcoming new hires, or just giving your people a much-needed moment to breathe and reconnect, we design offsites that feel intentional, energising, and original. Our venues aren’t hotel ballrooms; they’re Tudor manors, design-led barns, or countryside campuses where the environment becomes part of the experience.
We’ve built retreats for teams from Acast, Nike, Faculty, Cochlear and more. And every one of them started with the same question: “How do we do something different?”
“We've been working with Elsewhere for six years and we really wanted a partner that would understand us and create offsite experiences that really brought our culture to life,” says Lizzy Pollot, Head of Brand and Communications at Acast. “We love working with great people, and working with Elsewhere is a win-win”
What we’re seeing from the best companies this year is a shared mindset: offsites aren’t perks. They’re business-critical moments. When teams come together in the right way, momentum builds. Trust deepens. Alignment sharpens. People leave changed.
If you’re planning an offsite in 2025, and you want it to return big- please get in touch, we would love to hear all about it.