Visiting Tamera
We welcome you to explore our unique approach to community, love & sexuality and life in connection with nature. Through our different courses and programs, you can experience aspects of community life and engage with the questions that guide our work.
We share our learning with people around the world who resonate with this path: a culture of autonomous and interconnected communities and a post-patriarchal civilization free of violence and war. With over 40 years of experience, our work brings together inner and outer peacework as essential dimensions of transformation – from the individual to the global.
We look forward to welcoming you and sharing this journey together.
Our Guest Season
Tamera welcomes visitors during our guest season from April to mid-November. During this time, we invite people to join our courses, programs, and other visiting formats, and to get to know our work, our vision, and aspects of community life.
From mid-November until April, we pause and turn inward as a community. This winter break is dedicated to reflection, learning, integration, and preparing the ground for the year ahead.
General Conditions for Visiting
Our seminars, courses and service programs are designed as complete experiences. To create a shared community experience, participants are expected to stay for the full duration. This means we do not offer partial participation in a program or seminar.
Of course, if something unforeseen happens and you need to leave earlier, we understand – that’s life.
Arrival and Departure
Arrival is usually on the day before your stay begins, and departure is on the day after it ends. If you have different needs, please contact our Guest Center before booking your travel.
If you are attending multiple courses, you can stay between them if the gap is up to 2–3 days. If the gap is longer, we ask you to leave in the meantime and use this time for reflection – perhaps while enjoying the nearby marvellous Portuguese coast.
Our Programs and Visiting Formats
Tamera can be experienced in different ways, depending on your interests, previous experience, and the time you have available. Some visitors begin with the course “Introduction to Tamera,” while others come for practical learning experiences or longer periods of community service.
Below, you will find a selection of our programs and visiting formats to give you an idea of the different ways people begin to engage with Tamera.
All our seminars and the themes they explore are described on the On-Site Courses page, and the current dates and offers are listed in our Event Calendar.
Start with an “Introduction to Tamera”
Most visitors begin with the Introduction to Tamera, where we share the core ideas and vision of Tamera. This is the classic entry point into our thinking and a prerequisite for many other programs. We offer different lengths of this Introduction. Some last 7 days and some last 10 days. Some have a special focus and some don’t. This depends on the team leading the seminar.
After attending an Introduction to Tamera, you may join deepening programs such as the Love School or SD-Arts. For some courses, attending an Introduction to Tamera is a prerequisite, and some may also involve an application process. Others only recommend that you have joined an Introduction to Tamera, either on-site or online.
Experience Community Building
If you want to learn about living in a community, our Community Course is one of our most popular programs for exploring and deepening your understanding of it. It’s based on the Healing Biotopes Plan – the vision at the heart of Tamera’s work for creating global peace.
In this 4–6-week course, you’ll explore how a group grounded in truth, transparency, and trust can grow together – and how connection and cooperation with the more-than-human world is essential to the whole community of life.
Participants leave with an embodied sense of what it means to shift from an individual to a communitarian way of being.
Learn and Contribute: Hands-on Times & Olive Harvest
For those who want to combine learning and practical work, we offer Hands-on Times. During these times you help with practical work in the mornings and join introductions to Tamera’s ideas – sometimes including Forum – in the afternoons.
A joyful highlight at the end of our guest season is the Olive Harvest – a more informal time that combines the grounding work of harvesting the treasures of autumn – the olives – with group sessions in various forms to connect with the ideas of Tamera.
These more practical programs are a wonderful way to experience community life if you can’t yet commit to a longer stay.
Live and Learn in Community
If you’re ready for a longer, more immersive stay, our Community Service Program may be right for you. We offer the program 4 times during the guest season, with each “arc” lasting about 2 months. Participants mostly work in the Campus kitchen – the heart of our guest centre – or contribute their skills in areas such as media, crafts, or maintenance.
Open Afternoons
If you simply wish to visit and get a first impression, you can come to one of our Open Afternoons, which take place once a month during the season. These afternoons include a guided tour and a Q&A session.
Unfortunately it is not possible to stay overnight after or before an open afternoon.
Forum in Our Courses
Forum is one of Tamera’s social practices for truth, transparency and mutual understanding.
Because Forum is a deep inner and relational work, it is important to already have some understanding of our basic ideas and context before joining this practice as it is lived and facilitated here in Tamera.
The “Introduction to Tamera” courses offer an understanding of the principles of Forum. Some of these Introductions have a special focus and last 10 days and may also include an opportunity for first experience of a Forum. Most of the longer or deepening programs also include Forum as part of the shared learning process.
You can read more about this social practice on the Forum page.
Course Language
All of our courses are held in English. Occasionally, a course may be offered in German; this will be clearly indicated in the course title.
To fully experience Tamera and connect with other participants and the course team, a good basic understanding of English is important.
Our Accommodations
The prices for our seminars and programs include basic shared accommodation or space for your own tent or van.
For an additional fee, we also offer accommodation in a wooden hut, a double or single bedroom in our Guest House, or one of our individual tents.
With the exception of the Guest House, for all accommodation, showers, toilets and laundry machines are shared and in separate buildings. Please note that most of our toilets are compost toilets.
During registration, you can check the availability of the different accommodation options. If there is an additional cost for your choice it will be added to the price of your stay.
For detailed information, including prices and pictures, please visit the “Our Accommodation” page.
Food
In line with the intention to live in cooperation with all beings in a field of nonviolence, meat and fish are not permitted anywhere in Tamera. The food served in our kitchens is vegan, organic, seasonal and as regionally sourced as possible, as part of the work toward regional autonomy.
All meals are served as a buffet, with a variety of warm and cold dishes. Coffee is offered in the morning, and herbal tea and drinking water are available throughout the day.
Visitors are invited to help with dishwashing from time to time after meals.
Meal times are:
- Breakfast: 8:00–8:45
- Lunch: 13:00–13:45
- Dinner: 19:00–19:45
On Sundays, brunch is offered at 11:00 instead of lunch.
If you have allergies or food intolerances, please indicate them during registration. If we know in advance, we will do our best to accommodate your needs.
Please note that the possibility of bringing your own food is very limited. In the Guest House, there may be space in a fridge. If you are staying in a dormitory or tent, we cannot offer fridge space for private food, and food cannot be kept in the accommodation, as it will attract rats or wild boars.
Wi-Fi & Phone Reception
Our visitors have access to free Wi-Fi in parts of Tamera. As we share a limited bandwidth, we ask visitors not to stream videos or make video calls on the general network.
Mobile phones can be used on-site, but Tamera is located in a valley in rural Portugal, so reception can be limited depending on the provider and the location on the land. We also ask for awareness that this is a shared space and that loud phone conversations, video calls, or watching videos in common areas may disturb others.
For occasional video calls, we offer one or two individual spaces, but we cannot guarantee their availabilitywhen you need them. A high-quality internet connection cannot be guaranteed on-site. If such a connection is important, please check in advance whether your phone provides reliable mobile data in Portugal.
Please also note that Wi-Fi and mobile phones are present in most parts of the Guest Center area. Visitors who are sensitive to radiation should take this into account when planning their stay.
For some visitors, time in Tamera can also be an opportunity to step back from everyday online habits and be more present with the place, the people, and the experience.
Love & Sexuality
Love, relationships, and sexuality are central areas of the research in Tamera. Our work explores how love can unfold free from fear, control and violence, and how trust can grow within a community context. This is part of Tamera’s wider peacework and Healing Biotope vision.
Encounters in love and sexuality are based on awareness, mutual consent and personal responsibility. Clear communication, respect for boundaries, and a genuine “yes” from all involved are essential. The ethical guidelines Tamera publishes on free love are intended to support a field of trust in love and sexuality.
Because this work can touch deep personal and relational layers, visitors are encouraged to take time to observe, reflect, and understand the context before engaging.
Some courses explore these topics more explicitly – such as our Love Schools – while in others they remain part of the wider background of community life and research.
You can read more on the Healing of Love page and on the Ethics of Free Love.
Inclusion Statement
In Tamera, we want to become a place where people from diverse backgrounds, contexts, and life experiences can feel welcome, safe, and valued.
We understand inclusion as an ongoing journey that asks us – both individually and as a community – to look deeply at how we live together, to recognize and heal the wounds of separation, and to learn how to stand as real allies with one another. This includes recognising the experiences of people from historically marginalized communities and committing ourselves to creating a culture of belonging.
We also know that this work is never finished. It is a transformative process that continues to shape us and to show us where we still need to grow.
To share more about where we currently stand on this path, we have written an Inclusion Statement. It reflects our present understanding, what we are able to offer at this point, and how visitors can support this journey.
We warmly invite you to read it before your visit.
Please Read Tamera’s Visitor Guidelines and Policies
Before enrolling, we ask all participants to carefully read Tamera’s Visitor Guidelines and Policies.
These guidelines outline our ethical principles, our position on Palestine and how these shape our work, our learning spaces and our expectations of visitors.
Please read them carefully before enrolling, so you can make a conscious decision about coming to Tamera.
Accessibility
Tamera warmly welcomes visitors who wish to experience our community, projects, and vision for a future of peace. At the same time, we want to be transparent about the limitations of our current infrastructure.
Due to the rural landscape, the design of many of our buildings, and the resources available so far, we are unfortunately not able to provide safe and adequate access for people with certain physical or visual disabilities. Paths and roads are unpaved, steep, or uneven, and many areas can only be reached by stairs or narrow walkways. Essential spaces such as seminar rooms, dining areas, and accommodations are not equipped with ramps, lifts, accessible bathrooms, or orientation systems for blind visitors.
Because of these conditions, we are currently not able to host guests who depend on mobility aids such as wheelchairs or who require barrier-free orientation and support. In some cases, a visit may still be possible for people with certain physical limitations if they come accompanied by another person. If this is relevant for you, please contact us in advance or mention it in your registration so that we can assess together whether a visit is feasible.
Tamera is located in southern Portugal, where summer temperatures can become very high. Our rooms and common spaces are not air-conditioned. For people who are sensitive to heat, we therefore recommend visiting in spring or autumn rather than during the hottest months, usually from July to September (more information is provided further down).
We regret these limitations and hope to become more accessible in the future!
Visiting with Children
In general, we recommend that parents make their first visit to Tamera without their children. A first experience here can be intense and moving, and at present we do not usually have the capacity to offer meaningful integration for children while parents participate in a course.
For this reason, family visits are currently not regularly offered. Occasionally, however, a hands-on time may have the capacity to receive families and include them in the experience.
You can read more on our Visiting Tamera with Children page.
Visiting with Animals
Tamera is home to rich and diverse wildlife, and we try to preserve a balance between our domesticated animals and the surrounding ecosystem. To help preserve this balance, we ask visitors not to bring animals with them and to arrange care for their pet before coming to Tamera.
If it is truly not possible to find care for your pet and you feel strongly called to come, please write to us in advance. We will consider each situation carefully, though in some cases this may still not be possible.
Animals & Wildlife
Tamera is home to a rich ecosystem that includes both domesticated animals and wildlife. Wild boars, in particular, have increasingly appeared here over the years, finding in Tamera a hunting-free zone with water and food. They also occasionally come into the Guest Center area. Tamera’s broader work in this field includes research into cooperation and communication with animals and the more-than-human world.
The wild boars in Tamera are usually not dangerous if they do not feel threatened. Still, visitors are asked to keep a respectful distance and not to try to touch or approach them.
The wildlife on the land includes, in addition to wild boars, foxes, badgers, martens, rats, mice, snakes, scorpions, and centipedes.
To learn more, please visit our pages on Cooperation With All Beings, Wild Boar Research, and the Dog Sanctuary.
Weather & Seasons
Tamera is located in southern Portugal, with mild winters and hot, dry summers. Most of the rainfall occurs in the winter months, usually in short periods rather than long stretches of cloudy days.
Summer temperatures can become very high. July and August are usually the hottest months and temperatures may occasionally rise above 40°C. Heat waves can already occur in June and may continue into September. In recent years, the weather has become less predictable, with periods of stronger heat, longer drought, and sometimes also more intense rain.
Please note that our rooms and common spaces are not air-conditioned. For people who are sensitive to heat, we therefore recommend visiting in spring or autumn.
You can find a current weather forecast for our area here: [Weather forecast (Meteoblue)]
January – February
Rain: Likely (about 8–9 days/month)
Average daytime temperature is 14–15°C / 57–59°F
Average nighttime temperature is 9°C / 48°F but on some nights it can drop to around 0°C / 32°F or below
March – April
Rain: Very likely (about 12 days/month in March and 12 days/month in April)
Average daytime temperature is 17–20°C / 63–68°F
Average nighttime temperature is 10–11°C / 50–52°F
May – June
Rain: Likely (about 7 days/month in May and 4 days/month in June)
Average daytime temperature is 22–25°C / 72–77°F
Average nighttime temperature is 12–15°C / 54–59°F
July – August
Rain: Very unlikely (about 1–2 days/month)
Average daytime temperature is 27–28°C / 81–82°F, but there can be days with over 40°C / 104°F (dry heat)
Average nighttime temperature is 17–18°C / 63–64°F
September – October
Rain: Likely (about 4 days/month in September and 8 days/month in October)
Average daytime temperature is 26°C / 79°F in September (but there can be days with over 40°C / 104°F) and 23°C / 73°F in October.
Average nighttime temperature is 17°C / 63°F in September and 14°C / 57°F in October
November – December
Rain: Very likely (about 11 days/month in November and 8 days/month in December)
Average daytime temperature is 16–18°C / 61–64°F
Average nighttime temperature is 11–13°C / 52–55°F