Your Ultimate Family Getaway

Most family vacations run on one person, probably you. You know where the passports are, which kid didn’t eat, what time the car comes, whether anybody has sunscreen on, and how many hours until the four-year-old is done. Everybody else is looking at the view. Thirteen days later they thank you for a wonderful trip, and you need a vacation from your family vacation.

It could go like this instead. You come to breakfast and you’re with your family rather than three steps ahead of them, because there’s nothing for you to decide. You all head out together on something somebody else planned, and you don’t need to hold what time the car comes back or what your tickets are for. You watch your kids make new friends from a chair in the shade, and somebody else is the one keeping count. The kitchen knows about your oldest’s allergy, and every meal comes out safe without you triple checking it. When your youngest is finished at two in the afternoon, the car is already waiting to take you both back to the property for a nap. You relax for the first time in you can’t remember how long, and for once you get to do it while everybody else is still out enjoying themselves.

That second version has a name and it isn’t a family vacation at a resort. It’s Family Camp by Winkaffe Global Travel.

Who is asking

I’m Kristin Winkaffe. I founded Winkaffe Global Travel, and the three careers I have held have come together to build this trip.

Career 1 – Childcare

The first was running programs full of other people’s children. Years directing youth after-school and camp programs in Washington with a staff of thirty, a year teaching teenagers in Peru, and more years teaching all ages in the US. It is a job nobody understands until they have done it, and it isn’t activities. It’s knowing where forty children are at every moment, knowing which two shouldn’t share a bunk, knowing that the eight-year-old who says she’s fine is not fine, and carrying two hundred small logistics in your head so that everybody else gets an easy day. Camp people recognize each other across a room. That muscle does not come from hospitality training, and it is the reason I can staff a trip like this instead of outsourcing the part that matters.

Career 2 – Human Rights

After that I did a master’s in international development and worked in human rights programming. I went in believing aid was the lever. I came out believing that money moving straight into a community, on that community’s terms, does more and does it faster than most grant cycles manage. That isn’t a marketing position I adopted later. It’s why this company exists, and it’s why at least 75 percent of what you spend on this family vacation stays in Portugal.

Career 3 – Luxury Travel

The third is travel design. I’m affiliated with Virtuoso and hosted under Coastline Travel Group. I won the Virtuoso Advisor Sustainable Leadership Award in 2024 and again in 2025, my agency won Virtuoso’s Member Agency Sustainable Leadership Award in 2025, I was named Virtuoso Sustainability Community Mentor in 2025 and named to the Travel + Leisure A-List the same year. The work has been written up in The Washington Post, Forbes, Travel + Leisure and USA Today, among others.

Honorary Career

And I have two children. In our family the person who plans the family vacations is me, so I am not describing that job from the outside. I know what it is to be physically on vacation and mentally still at work, to be the only one running the next three hours in my head, to come home needing the week back. I built this for the parent doing that job, so they can feel what family vacation is like when they don’t have to.

The part I have to tell you up front

Golden Days has not run before. This is the first one.

I would rather say it plainly: I have watched it happen hundreds of times, at camp, with other people’s children, across four years of summers. I have not yet watched it happen at Torre de Palma with your children in the room.

Here is what stands behind it instead. Two years of design, a property I know and a family who owns it, and a Portuguese ground partner, locally owned and locally run, who I have worked with countless times on clients’ luxury family vacations. My own family in the group for all thirteen nights. And a care model I have built and staffed before at the JCC in Washington, DC: 200+ children at a time, a team of thirty, over four years of summers.

What Golden Days is

Thirteen nights on one estate in Portugal’s Alto Alentejo, with up to twelve families and nobody else on the property. Fourteen days door to door, including travel.

Torre de Palma Wine Hotel is in Vaiamonte, in the Monforte council, about two hours east of Lisbon. The buildings date from 1338. It’s a working wine estate with its own cellar and vineyard, an olive grove, a stable of Lusitano horses, two pools, a spa, a tower you climb, and the excavated remains of a Roman villa out in the field. The hotel was founded by a couple from Lisbon and their daughter runs it now, so the name on the wine belongs to the family who answers for the place.

Nineteen rooms, and we take all of them. No front desk hum, no strangers at breakfast, no negotiating the good table.

Monday, June 28 to Sunday, July 11, 2027. Most families will leave home on Sunday the 27th.

I host it myself, all thirteen nights, with my own family in the group.

Who it’s for

Families who would rather not do it alone.

Kids of every age, toddlers through teenagers, mixed rather than sorted. Parents who are curious and warm and quick to laugh, and who would rather eat dinner with the other families than order room service. Every kind of family. Tell me who is coming and I will build the room accordingly. People who want their children to come home understanding, in their bones, that the way we do things at home is one way to live and not the only one.

You apply for a place instead of booking one, and I read every application myself. Not to audition your family. Mostly I am working out whether your children have someone close to their own age here, who fits in which room, and if the families seem like they would get along. I can’t tell you in advance what gets you in, because it depends on who else raises a hand.

Why Family Camp vs a Different Family Vacation

My advisors can plan any of these family vacations, and I will happily point you to them instead if it’s the right answer for your family.

A great hotel, in Portugal or Europe or further out.

You’ll sleep beautifully and eat well and the pool will be lovely. What a hotel can’t hand you is other people, so the social weight stays with you: your children have each other and no one else, and by day five of your family vacation you have heard every story at your own table. Meals, guides, and childcare are priced separately and total more than you expect, and the childcare is a room on a schedule rather than a person who knows your child’s name. You are also still the one running the days.

A custom family vacation designed for just your family.

This is most of what I do for a living, and when a family wants total command of its own calendar a custom family vacation is the right answer. Two things it can’t do. It is still only your family, so the social weight still stays with you. And most custom Europe family vacations move every two or three nights, which means packing again, orienting again, learning a new town again, three or four times over. Golden Days Family Camp unpacks once. If what you want is a beautiful suite and complete control of your schedule, write to me and my team will build you that family vacation instead.

A different luxury group trip in Europe or beyond.

Most of them route you through several places, with a fixed schedule, other guests around, and children often without peers. Three differences here. We hold the entire estate, so there is nobody to negotiate with and nowhere you have to be polite. The group is families only, chosen so that your children have peers, rather than whoever happened to book. And the children are in the days rather than parked beside them.

A luxury all-inclusive family vacation.

Food, drink, and a children’s program come with it, which is the right answer for plenty of family vacations and I won’t pretend otherwise. What you are buying here is a resort shared with several hundred strangers, a children’s program on a timetable run by staff you didn’t meet, and excursions sold at a desk. The ceiling on what your children come home having done is set by what a resort can run at scale, for anyone, every week of the summer.

How the days are built

Everything on this family vacation is optional. Join what you want, skip what you don’t. That is the design decision I would defend hardest, because a full schedule you can’t opt out of is just work in a prettier place.

The shape of it: mornings have our excursions and active time to beat the heat. On at least five of those mornings, we will journey out to explore the Alentejo, visiting Arraiolos, Estremoz, Montargil, Évora and Mainova. Afternoons are slow and at the estate, with a cool pool to jump in, some activities you can join if you wish, or a bus into town if you want to explore more. Evenings are long, and dinner is set for after the sun goes down.

Which brings me to July in the Alentejo and the thing you are already thinking.

It is hot. So we built the days around the heat. Almost nothing has us out and about past two in the afternoon. Every outdoor activity is followed by time in air conditioning. Vehicles will be properly air conditioned before anyone gets in, so you are never loading a hot child into a hot van. Cool towels waiting every time we come back to the property. Shade in the outdoor areas we use most. And dinner after sundown, when the Alentejo is at its best anyway.

We don’t want you to feel trapped on someone else’s schedule, so there are a few things we built on purpose to give you flexibility:

• A bus runs into town in the afternoon on the quieter days on the property, if you want off the estate for a few hours
• Every outing that runs into the afternoon has a nap vehicle, so a two-year-old who is finished can go back and sleep while the rest of the group carries on
• Every outing has a spare vehicle on standby, so a family can leave early without ending anybody else’s day
• If you want a car of your own for the whole trip so you can come and go independently of the group, say so and I will help you arrange the rental
• And you can skip a dinner, or a lunch, or an excursion. Nobody reads anything into it

One more thing here, because it protects you more than it protects me: we reserve the right to remove a disruptive party from the trip. To be clear about what that is not. A toddler coming apart at dinner is not a disruptive party, it is a Tuesday, and we expect it. Neither is a fifteen-year-old who has decided the entire thing is beneath them, and my money is on the horses fixing that by day four. What I mean is the rare person who makes the group worse to be in: unkind to the staff or to another family, careless with the estate or with the people whose town this is, or unsafe in a way that costs everybody else their week. A group this small only works if everyone in it is easy to be around, and I will protect the group.

The thirty experiences

Thirty of them. All included, none required. Some of the highlights:

For the Family

• The cooking class, on the fourth evening, with a local chef in the estate kitchen and the group eating what it made at one table
• The three artisan days, in clay and cork and cloth, built with the makers themselves
• A guided morning inside the walls of Évora, including the Capela dos Ossos, which is better explained before lunch than after
• A full day at Montargil: canoeing, paddleboards, inflatables and boats, with a certified lifeguard on the water activities and lunch in town
• Sessions with the Lusitano horses across the two weeks
• Cante Alentejano at the welcome dinner, sung the old way with no instruments, and a Rancho Folclórico Alentejano at the farewell
• The stargazing night, because the Alentejo has some of the darkest skies in Europe, and a child finding the Milky Way for the first time makes a noise you will want to be standing near
• The sunrise balloon, the one paid add-on, at €395 a person, ages five and up. Balloons fly on the weather, and the wind picks the route rather than the pilot
• A day at Mainova, a wine and olive oil estate, with a tour and tasting, a long lunch out in the grove, and an afternoon where your kids paint a bottle of their finest for you to bring home

For the Adults

• The adults’ evening at Fita Preta: a tour and a full tasting with cheese, dinner with the wines, and Fado to close it
• Another adults-only outing, which is a jeep trek out into the cork forest
• A night in the cellar with an acoustic guitarist for the adults who want to stay up late, and some more adults-only activities sprinkled throughout the weeks

For the Kids

• The Battle of the Ancient Alentejo Warriors at Arraiolos, traditional Portuguese village games with a bag of Portuguese toys to take home, Roman for a Day out at the excavated villa, and a Kids Olympics with inflatables and water games on the last artisan day
• A treasure hunt that runs from the second day to the last one and gets competitive
• Two nights in the Bunk House for the older kids who want them, with the team on through the night, and a pizza and cinema night for the younger ones while the adults are out

How does childcare work?

Under six.

Your family gets its own nanny, and it is the same person for the whole two weeks, not whoever is on the schedule. She joins the activities that make sense for your child, and she has a bag of others they will like better on the days a Roman ruin is not it. She is there for the kids-only activities and for the evenings on the property, and whether you use her is entirely your decision.

Six to twelve.

The full program, at one counselor for every four children, in small groups built with kids close to their own age. For scale, the American Camp Association’s standard for a residential camp is one counselor to six children at ages six to eight, and one to eight from nine to fourteen. We are at one to four.

Teens.

Their own counselor and their own program, which is not a taller version of the little kids’ day. Swimming, riding, watersports, and the things thirteen to seventeen-year-olds want, which mostly means each other plus enough independence that it feels like their idea rather than yours. And to say it plainly: nobody’s teenager is looking after anybody else’s child. The childcare team is the childcare team.

Naps and off-switches, every age.

Free time every afternoon, and a van back to the property whenever anybody needs a nap. That includes the adults, and I would encourage it.

How we build the group.

We choose which families come so that every child has a peer. Nobody’s fourteen-year-old is going to arrive and find a room full of six-year-olds. If your child’s age band isn’t there this year, you are not the right fit for this year, and I will tell you that rather than take your money and hope it works out.

Adults’ time, plural.

There is not one grown-up evening, there are many. One to two off the property, several on it, plus two daytime outings for adults and two daytime electives on the estate. Childcare is fully staffed for every one of them. And to be clear about why it exists: it is there so that nobody in your family has to be the person running everything, not so that you can get away from your children.

If you are pregnant, or might be.

If you are pregnant now, add the baby to your family count. If you become pregnant after you book and the baby arrives before the trip, tell me and we will work it out together.

What happens if something goes wrong?

The unglamorous answers, because these are the questions I would ask.

• The childcare team is background checked, and they speak Portuguese and English
• Members of the team hold current CPR and first aid certification for both children and adults
• A certified lifeguard will be present at every scheduled water activity
• A first aid kit is on site, and a local nurse is on call
• Centro de Saúde de Monforte, the public health center, is ten minutes from the estate
• Portalegre District Hospital, the Hospital Dr. José Maria Grande, is 30km north of us, and it is where you would go for anything serious
• A car and a member of the WGT team are on the property twenty-four hours a day and can drive anyone to care at any hour.
• Allergies come to us in the camp paperwork before you travel. The kitchen gets them and plans around them, and the answer is never a plain chicken breast in the corner

Two more practical things. Fourteen days including travel is a long time to be away, but there is not a shorter version, because a group like this only works because we will be together the entire time. I know that might rule out some of you reading this. Know that we will offer family camps of various lengths throughout the year, so be sure to join our email list to be the first to hear about upcoming camps. For those that can make 14 days work but will still need to get some work done while with us, we will have a small business center set up, and the estate has fast and consistent Wi-Fi.

What’s included

Everything on the ground is in the price.

• Thirteen nights, the entire estate, no other guests
• Every meal is covered. Thirteen breakfasts, thirteen dinners and lunch every day, with breakfast and one other meal a day coming out of the estate kitchen under head chef Eduardo Grilo, who grew up in Arronches up the road, and the others eaten out. Wine and beer with dinner for the adults, and a daily apero for all.
• Thirty experiences included, none of them required
• The care team: your own nanny if you have a child under six, one counselor to four children from six to twelve, a dedicated counselor for the teens, a children’s program lead, a certified lifeguard at every scheduled water activity, and two supervisors in the room on sleepover nights
• Private airport transfers both directions, a bus into town on quieter days, a nap vehicle on every afternoon outing, and a spare vehicle on standby
• A photographer and a videographer for the camp, a session for your family, and an edited gallery afterward, so somebody other than you is holding the camera
• A nurse on call, a first aid kit on site, and a car with a WGT staff member available twenty-four hours a day

What it costs

Prices are in euros, because that is what Portugal invoices in. Everything you need is below, so you can build your own number rather than emailing me to find out what your family costs.

Your family	Price
Two adults and one child, Double Superior	€50,000
Two adults and one child, Junior Suite	€51,500
Each additional child	add €4,400
An additional Junior Suite	add €14,500
An additional Double Superior	add €13,000
Not traveling with a second adult	take €5,800 off

Two families cannot be combined on one registration, so if you are traveling with another family, register separately and tell me you are together and I will build the group around it.

Your family	Rooms	Total
One adult, one child	Double Superior	€44,200
Two adults, one child	Double Superior	€50,000
Two adults, one child	Junior Suite	€51,500
Two adults, one child	two Double Superiors	€63,000
Two adults, one child	Junior Suite plus Double Superior	€64,500
Two adults, two children	Junior Suite	€55,900
Two adults, two children	two Junior Suites	€70,400
Two adults, three children	Junior Suite plus Double Superior	€73,300
Two adults, four children	two Junior Suites	€79,200

If your family is not in the mix above let me know, and I can tell you exactly what your family vacation will cost.

Your card is charged in US dollars, and the dollar amount of each payment is calculated from the euro amount due, using the exchange rate in effect on the date that payment is charged. Four payments of 25 percent: when your family is accepted, then November 1, 2026, January 5, 2027 and March 1, 2027. Or pay in full by bank transfer within 14 days of acceptance and take 3 percent off. The rate will move between now and March 2027, so budget a little either way. The euro price you are quoted is the euro price you pay.

Not included: flights, insurance, and gratuities. Insurance is required, not recommended. The sunrise balloon, on the seventh morning, is the one optional add-on, at €395 a person, ages five and up, weather permitting.

Where the money actually goes

Two charges, doing two different jobs, and neither of them is a room rate with a markup on top.

The family charge is not just the room. It covers your room plus your family’s share of everything else that has to exist. Private transfers. The nurse on call. The lifeguard. The photographer and the videographer. Space rentals. The childcare team. Supplies.

The per-person charge is food and per-head activities. That’s all it is. Your fifth person costs what your fifth person eats and does. There is no second markup riding on the size of your family. So a six-year-old is not priced like an adult: an additional child is €4,400, which is what that child eats and does across thirteen nights.

Now the part where I would normally invite you to price-check me, and can’t. The retail numbers aren’t hidden. Most of what you’re buying just doesn’t exist as a thing to buy.

The cooking class is not a product anybody sells. A local chef teaches it in the estate kitchen, on our evening, and the whole group eats what it made at one table. The artisan days were built with the makers, at our pace, with room for children’s hands. The Fado evening at Fita Preta is an evening we arranged. The sleepovers, the Kids Olympics, the treasure hunt that runs the full thirteen nights, the stops we negotiated into tours that are otherwise entirely standard: all of it made, none of it on a shelf. You could absolutely book Portugal yourself. You could book a beautiful hotel, a good guide, a cooking class that runs to a timetable. You could not book these thirty experiences, because until we built them they weren’t there.

Where the money lands

At least 75 percent of what you spend on Golden Days stays in Portugal. The industry average is somewhere around 30 percent.

The estate is family owned. Our ground partner is Portuguese, locally owned and locally run. So is every other supplier we use, and where a product can be sourced locally, it is. Keeping the money in the place opens it up: the farmhouse that has never taken a booking through a big site, the guide who grew up on the road you are driving, the maker who will tell you the real story instead of the one on the placard.

The terms

If you cancel, you get back what you have paid less a percentage of your total cost, and the percentage depends on when we hear from you. Cancel before November 1, 2026, and you get back everything you have paid less 10 percent of the total trip cost. After that and before January 5, 2027, it’s 25 percent. After that and before March 1, 2027, it’s 50 percent. After March 1, 2027 there is no refund. That is the shape of a group buyout: the closer we get, the more of the money is already committed to an estate, a care team and a ground operation built just for these thirteen nights.

Travel insurance is required and you buy it separately. The right coverage can reimburse up to 100 percent of your non-refundable costs for a covered reason, and if you need to cancel we will help you file the claim. Buy it within ten days of your first payment, because the cancel-for-any-reason cover most families want has a purchase window of roughly two weeks from that first payment.

If we have to cancel the camp for any reason, you will get a full refund or a credit toward a future Family Camp, your choice. If a force majeure event makes it impossible, we postpone to a new date or give you a credit.

How to get in

The waitlist closes Sunday, August 16 at 8pm Eastern. Everyone on it by then gets the first round of applications, which opens Tuesday, August 18 and closes Tuesday, August 25. I read them together and announce on Tuesday, September 1. Whatever’s left opens to everyone on Wednesday, September 2, and from there it runs until the group is complete.

Join the waitlist

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