Catalina Island Hiking & Yoga Retreat on the Trans-Catalina Trail

Catalina Island is usually sold as a boozy weekend getaway from Los Angeles. Our retreat takes TSC readers somewhere else entirely: across the island on foot, on the 42-mile Trans-Catalina Trail, sleeping at beach and backcountry campsites with ocean views, campfires, and stars.

We built this for people who want a real physical challenge without the misery of traditional backpacking. We haul your gear between camps so you only carry a daypack, Zach cooks fresh, protein-rich vegan meals every day, and we end each evening with yoga to stretch out tired legs.

My husband Zach and I are both in long-term recovery, and early sobriety taught us how much confidence comes from doing hard things clear-headed. That’s what this trip offers. For sober and sober-curious readers on the West Coast, it’s an accessible, affordable spring adventure close to home.

Carrie Hoffman and Zach Minnich are a married couple in long-term recovery from alcohol addiction. Carrie has been sober since 2016, and Zach followed soon after. They founded Bigger Life Adventures in 2018 and have since hosted more than 100 alcohol-free yoga and adventure trips in six countries and four US states, and about 60% of their guests come back for another trip. Carrie is an E-RYT 500 yoga teacher, 800-hour Ayurvedic Health Counselor, trauma-informed and teen yoga teacher (Prison Yoga Project, Yoga Ed.), Wilderness First Responder, and permitted Grand Canyon guide who runs the yoga program at Flagstaff’s juvenile detention center. Zach is a holistic nutritionist, Reiki master, Wilderness First Responder, and the plant-based chef behind the cookbook Plants on Plates. Together they ran Grand Canyon Eco Retreat for five years and have traveled to 44 countries.