“What’s your Ithaca?” The question is posed to me by Mary Vandorou, Euphoria Retreat’s spiritual teacher, as I sit cross-legged on a floor scattered with oversized cushions, looking out across the mountains of the Greek Peloponnese.
Truthfully, I’d only learned what Ithaca was about 20 minutes earlier. For anyone else whose knowledge of Greek mythology begins and ends with Disney’s Hercules: Ithaca is the homeland of Odysseus, hero of Homer’s epic poem, whose journey home after the Trojan War took 10 years—repeatedly delayed, sometimes by forces entirely outside his control, sometimes by his own distraction (a seven-year detour with the enchantress Calypso, for one). For many people, particularly Greeks, it’s a story stitched into the fabric of life. At its core, it’s simply a tale about the messiness of being human, and how we find our way through it.
Sitting opposite Mary, the question now suddenly feels loaded. What’s my Ithaca? You tell me, Mary.
At 35, I have the same anxieties that many millennials seem to be grappling with right now—except saying them out loud immediately makes them sound both incredibly trivial and also overwhelming. Is AI about to make my career obsolete? Am I ever going to meet the love of my life? Do I actually want children, or am I simply panicking because society insists I should know by now? What, exactly, is my life supposed to look like?
Somewhere down the line, many of us have become obsessed with finding our purpose. We just haven’t become any better at actually finding it.
It’s these questions that have brought me to Euphoria Retreat, a holistic wellness sanctuary tucked into the foothills of Mystras in southern Greece, for its five-day Odysseus Journey program. Founded in 2018, Euphoria blends ancient Greek philosophy with traditional Chinese medicine, and its signature Methodos approach is designed to help guests better understand how they move through the world, particularly during periods of transition.
Photo: Stavros Habakis
Timed with the release of Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming adaptation—starring Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, and Robert Pattinson, to name but a few of the star-studded cast—the retreat reimagines Homer’s ancient tale as a framework for modern self-discovery. As it turns out, plenty of us are still trying to find our way ‘home.’
The setting certainly doesn’t hurt. Unlike some luxury wellness destinations, which can occasionally feel like new-age hospitals, Euphoria manages to feel genuinely soulful. After flying into Athens, it’s a three-hour drive through olive groves and winding mountain roads until the resort suddenly appears, perched above the town of Sparta with Mount Taygetus in the distance.
