What To Bring & Daily Life
Welcome to Tamera – a peace education and research community, where we aim to live in connection with the sacred alliance of life by honoring social, ecological and ethical principles based on cooperation and trust.
On this page, you will find practical information to help you prepare for your journey and your stay with us. It includes guidance on what to bring, what not to bring and what to expect in different areas of daily life in Tamera.
Please read this page carefully, as it will help you come well prepared and support a meaningful experience in Tamera.
We are looking forward to welcoming you soon.
A Brief Reminder About Some Basics
As you prepare for your stay, please take a moment to review these brief reminders about some of the basic conditions for visiting Tamera.
You can find the full information on our Visiting Tamera page.
Invisible
General Conditions for Visiting
Tamera can be visited from April to November through a seminar, program, or Open Afternoon. We do not offer overnight accommodation or guided tours outside these offers.
Our seminars, courses, and service programs are designed as complete experiences, so participation is expected for the full duration.
Read more…
Arrival and Departure
Arrival is usually the day before your stay begins, and departure 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 it is longer, we ask you to leave in the meantime.
Food
All food served in Tamera is vegan, organic, seasonal, and as regionally sourced as possible. Meat and fish are not permitted anywhere in Tamera.
Please make sure you have informed us about any allergies or food intolerances.
The possibility of bringing and storing your own food is very limited. You cannot keep food in dormitories or tents, as it will attract wildlife.
Our 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.
Read more…
Wi-Fi & Phone Reception
Free Wi-Fi is available in parts of Tamera, but bandwidth and mobile reception may be limited.
If you need a reliable internet connection, please check in advance whether your mobile data works well in Portugal.
Read more…
Money Money…
According to our Payment Policy, please pay all fees in advance. If anything is still outstanding, please pay in cash when you arrive.
We do not accept credit cards and there is no ATM on site. The nearest ATM is in the neighboring village of Relíquias, about 5 km away.
It is also a good idea to bring some cash for the café and evening bar.
Arrange Your Pick-Up
Funcheira is the closest train station to Tamera, about 20 minutes away by car.
If you arrive by train, please book our community pick-up at least 1 week in advance by writing to guest-centre (at) tamera.org. Later requests may not be possible.
The pick-up costs up to €24 and can often be shared with other guests.
Please choose an earlier train, as our Reception Team is available until 7 pm. We cannot receive the late evening train.
You can book your train ticket on the CP website and find more information on our How to Get to Tamera page.
What to bring
Tamera is in a rural setting in southern Portugal, where temperatures can shift a lot throughout the day – from hot afternoons to cool mornings, evenings and nights.
Depending on the season and your accommodation, a few essentials will help make your stay more comfortable. We also ask you to bring environmentally friendly products that support our natural water treatment system.
For your time in Tamera, we recommend bringing:
- Summer clothes as well as warm clothes for cold mornings and chilly evenings
- A sunhat, a water bottle, sturdy shoes for walks and sandals for everyday use.
- Between September and May, also bring rain clothes, including rubber boots.
- Swimwear and towel to use for swimming in one of our lakes.
- Biodegradable and cruelty-free cosmetics, shampoo, soap, and similar products, as we use a natural greywater treatment system.
- A flashlight, if you prefer not to use the one on your phone.
- A notebook, which is also available in our book shop.
- Cash for use on-site, as there is no ATM and no card payment. You may want cash for the bookshop, the bar, or the café.
If you are staying in a dormitory or tent, please also bring:
- A warm sleeping bag, as nights can be cold even in summer.
- A mosquito net for your bed is recommended from May onward.
Our Reception also has a small number of useful items available to rent, including sleeping bags, thick blankets, individual tents and towels. Please ask in advance if you would like to reserve any of these.
If you booked a room in our Guest House:
Bedding, towels, and mosquito nets are included. For outdoor use, please bring your own towel, or rent one at Reception, as the towels provided in the Guest House are for indoor use only.
What Not to Bring
To help protect the land, the community and our shared infrastructure, we ask guests not to bring the following items:
- Camping stoves, candles, incense, or any other open flame, as open flames are strictly forbidden due to the high fire risk.
- Dogs, cats, or other pets. More info you find here.
- Hair dryers, as their high energy use puts strain on our supply system.
- Non-vegetarian food items.
- Personal food items, as we do not provide storage for them and some foods may attract animals such as rats or wild boars. More info you find here.
Cultural Center
Our Cultural Centre is a lively meeting place for visitors and Tamera residents. It includes a café and a bar, a bookshop, a playground and outdoor spaces that invite connection and conviviality.
Our café is open 2 days a week, and the bar is open on most evenings. The Cultural Centre also regularly hosts cultural events such as political cafés, networking events, dance evenings and concerts.
You will also find our bookshop there, which is open every Sunday morning after the matinée and sometimes on other announced occasions. In the bookshop, you can buy books written by the founders of our project and other community members, as well as books by a wide range of authors for deeper study of the ideas shared in Tamera.
As we encourage guests to take notes during courses and to keep a diary, we also offer a variety of notebooks and stationery for different needs and budgets.
We also offer delicious and healthy homemade teas and remedies from Tamera, as well as handicrafts from the region. If you forgot to bring something, you will also find a selection of biodegradable toiletries, batteries and other useful items.
Drugs & Alcohol Policy
Illegal drugs, including cannabis, are not permitted in Tamera. Please respect this rule both on our land and in the surrounding neighborhood, as part of the shared space and consciousness we seek to hold here.
We also ask visitors to be conscious in their use of legal substances such as alcohol, sugar, cigarettes and coffee.
Smoking is only permitted in designated outdoor areas and we ask visitors to be very vigilant with the high risk of fire.
Fire Risk
From June to October, Portugal is at high risk of wildfires, so it is important that we all follow these safety rules:
- open fires are strictly forbidden, as are candles and incense, including in dorms and tents;
- smoking is only allowed in designated smoking areas, and walking around with a lit cigarette is forbidden;
- please collect all glasses and bottles you use, or any you see lying around, and bring them back to the kitchen or bar, as sunlight passing through glass can spark a fire;
- please only park in designated parking areas and do not drive or park on dry meadows, as the heat from the exhaust can set fire to the grass.
We have a fire brigade and emergency protocols that you will be introduced to upon arrival.
If you would like to read in advance about what to do in case of fire, please see our Fire Protection Paper.
Swimming
Over the years, we have created a beautiful water retention landscape, with several ponds and lake ecosystems spread across the land.
Lake 1, at the entrance to Tamera, is a protected natural area, so we ask visitors not to swim there, except children and those accompanying them.
Visitors are welcome to swim in the Grey Lake near the Campus terrace.
Because we welcome people from diverse cultural backgrounds, and because a public road passes through Tamera, we ask everyone to wear appropriate swimwear when swimming.
Our Neighborhood
Relíquias and Colos are the nearest villages to Tamera – about 5km away – where you’ll find restaurants, small stores and ATMs.
Please respect the local culture by wearing shoes and shirts when visiting the surrounding villages.
Odemira is the nearest town, about a 30-minute drive from Tamera.
Vila Nova de Milfontes is a popular beach town with magnificent beaches on the Atlantic coast, about a 40-minute drive from Tamera.
Basic Health
To help you prepare well for your stay, we have gathered some basic health information below. This includes guidance on medication, medical support on-site and what to do in case of emergency.
Medication
As Tamera is an emerging healing biotope and aspires to be a place of healing and reconnection with the sacred matrix, many visitors ask whether they should stop taking medication for physical or psychological conditions while they are here.
We strongly ask you to continue taking your medication and to let us know about it during the registration process, so that we are informed and can support you as needed. Healing takes time and proper accompaniment, and we cannot provide this for visitors.
We ask all visitors to take responsibility for their own physical and mental health during their stay in Tamera.
If we realize that your physical or mental condition is too demanding for you, for us, or for the group you are with, we may ask you to leave Tamera and seek appropriate accompaniment and support outside of Tamera.
Doctors On-Site
Our approach to healing is to create conditions within community in which blocked life energy can begin to flow again. We combine different forms of medical treatment with consciousness work.
If you need urgent medical care, please contact your group facilitators. They can inform you about your options in Tamera and in the surrounding region.
Hospitals & Emergencies
If you have a medical emergency, it is usually best to use the Portuguese health care system.
There is a health center (Centro de Saúde) in Odemira, about 30km away, which can help with minor injuries, and a larger hospital in Santiago do Cacém, about 60km away.
Before going to a public hospital emergency department, please call SNS 24 on 808 24 24 24.
The hotline is available 24hours a day and can advise you on the best next step. In a life-threatening emergency, call 112.
English may be spoken by some staff, but this cannot be guaranteed.
Contact to the Community
Many people who come to Tamera wish to get to know as many community members as possible. While the Guest Centre is part of Tamera, it is located a little apart from the center of community life.
Most of your contact will be with your Tamera group leaders, the Guest Centre team and the community members who join your seminar or program to share insights into different aspects of life in Tamera.
Other places where you may meet community members are the Cultural Centre – during bar evenings or cafés – and the matinée.
The wish for more contact is understandable. At the same time, it is important to remember that Tamera is the permanent home of our community members, and they are not always available or in the space to meet visitors who are only here for a short time.
Our Matinée
Every Sunday from 10:00–11:00, we gather in the Aula – our central auditorium – for the matinée. Through talks, interviews and shared reflections, community members and guest speakers offer insight into lived experience, research, expertise and questions connected to Tamera’s work and beyond.
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 generally 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