Sabbatical Design

Something Is Off. You Have Not Had One Hour of Quiet to Find Out What.

Sabbatical Design for women who have been running on reserve long enough to stop noticing. We build the time away around what you actually need it to do, and we stay with you while you use it.

Show Me What This Could Look Like Take Me to the January Week

From $750, quoted after we talk · The first conversation is complimentary

Sound Familiar?

You cried over your cup of coffee.

You got irritated with your assistant over something simple.

Your fire for that next opportunity is not what it was.

Something is off, you are not sure what, and you cannot seem to find the space to get clear on it.

Or maybe nothing is wrong at all. Maybe you hit the goal, the one you gave years to, and what arrived after it was not triumph. It was quiet. And a question you have not said out loud to anyone: now what?

Both of those bring women here.

Lawal Travel Services has been designing travel since 2016. Jenita Lawal, who runs it, spent years as a life coach before she ever booked a client's flight. Sabbatical Design is where those two things meet: a firm that handles every logistic of stepping away, and someone who knows what to ask you once you are finally still.

What Actually Stops You Is Not the Calendar.

You have moved mountains for other people's timelines. You could move this one.

What stops you is the arithmetic you run at two in the morning: that stepping back would be self-indulgent, that the momentum would not survive it, that the people counting on you might find out you are not as unshakeable as you look.

So the thought gets set down. Again. And the next quarter absorbs it, the way the last four did.

That arithmetic is wrong, and the women further down this page can tell you why.

What Sabbatical Design Is

Time Away, Built Around What You Actually Need.

A vacation is organized around a place. A sabbatical is organized around a purpose. We start with what this season is asking of you, and the destination follows from there.

Rest and Restoration

Nothing on the calendar, nothing to perform, nowhere to be. Sleep, water, long meals, silence. The kind of week that gives your nervous system somewhere to land.

Curiosity and Creativity

Time to write, study, cook, photograph, learn a language, sit in other people's studios and workshops. Input instead of output, for once.

Purpose and Contribution

Time given to community work, service, or a question you have not had the quiet to answer. Some sabbaticals restore you by putting you to work differently.

No Two Look Alike

There Is No Single Shape for This.

Our Sabbatical Experiences run one week and center on rest. Your personal sabbatical is whatever you need it to be. Some of what clients have designed with us:

Mexico and South America

Community work and Spanish.

She spent her sabbatical moving through Mexico and South America, giving her time to community work and learning the language where it is actually spoken.

Four Months

California, Hawaii, and Japan.

She built a four-month exploration around inspiring stories and the creators behind them, tracing a route across California, Hawaii, and Japan.

Firsts

The things she would never normally do.

She decided her sabbatical was for trying what she had always talked herself out of. Skiing, among them.

One week or four months. Alone, or with someone joining for part of it. Stillness, or a calendar full of firsts. The only sabbatical that does not work is the one built to somebody else's specifications.

I Want My Own Version of This

The Point of All This

What You Come Home With.

Not a tan. Not a camera roll.

The ability to tell the difference between the parts of your work you love and the parts you have simply always done.
The answer to the question you have been too busy to hear yourself ask.
Rest that lasts past the first week back, because the time was built to restore you rather than entertain you.

When you are home, we sit down together and talk it through: what worked, what you would do differently, and whether the time did what you set it up to do. That conversation is part of the service, and it is often where the sabbatical finally lands.

Some women return with a decision already made. Some return with a first chapter. Some return only rested, and find that was the entire point.

Or Join One Already Designed

Our Sabbatical Experiences

Two small, single-occupancy weeks built entirely around rest and restoration. Every logistic is handled before you arrive, so nothing is asked of you once you are there.

Rooted · A Lawal Travel Services Sabbatical

Bacalar

Bacalar, Quintana Roo, Mexico

DatesJanuary 14–21, 2027
LengthSeven nights
Investment$5,500, single occupancy

“Your only job is to exhale.”

A private room with a king bed, a terrace, and an outdoor shower. Breakfast and dinner daily. Two signature experiences of your choosing. Round-trip transportation from Cancún, Tulum, or Chetumal, and every ground logistic in between.

One gentle gathering with the group. Otherwise the week is yours: sleep late, swim in the lagoon, read, nap, or do nothing at all with real conviction.

See the January Week

Rooted · A Lawal Travel Services Sabbatical

Douro Valley

Douro Valley, Portugal

DatesSeptember 2027
LengthSeven nights
InvestmentAnnounced soon

Terraced hillsides, a slow river, and nowhere you have to be.

Portugal's Douro Valley has been shaped by the same vineyards for centuries, and it keeps a pace to match. Long views, slow mornings, harvest season in the hills, and the sort of quiet that leaves room for thinking.

Built on the same structure as Bacalar: single occupancy, meals and ground logistics handled, one shared gathering, and a week that asks nothing of you. Dates and pricing are being finalized now.

Tell Me When Douro Opens

What Makes This Different

We Design It, and Then We Stay.

Most travel planning ends when the confirmations land in your inbox. A sabbatical needs more than that. The hard part is rarely the booking. The hard part is what happens once you are out there, when something goes sideways or the quiet gets loud.

Jenita worked as a life coach before founding Lawal Travel Services, and that training is built into this service. You get someone asking the right questions while the sabbatical is being designed, someone reachable while you are living it, and a conversation about all of it when you are home.

The Design

An intention conversation before any destination is on the table
Destination, duration, and pacing matched to what you need the time to do
Lodging vetted for your rhythm, not just its rating
Flights, rail, ground transport, and the transitions between them
Local contacts, guides, classes, and experiences where you want them
An itinerary with deliberate room left in it
Contingency planning before you go

The Support

Questions and strategies to help you walk out the intention you set
Someone reachable the whole time you are gone
Illness, weather, cancellations, and closures handled from our end
Rebooking, rerouting, and re-sourcing lodging when plans break
A debrief when you are home: what worked, what you would do differently, and whether you met your intention
Changes carry their own fees, set out in your agreement. Making the calls does not.

What "we stay" actually means

One client fell ill during a leg of her sabbatical in Sedona. We called the hotel and extended her stay, moved her flight, and reset her ground transportation while she rested. She made one call, and it was to us.

We do not hand over a plan and file it away. We stay with it while you are living it, which matters more than it sounds: for a number of our clients, this is the first time they have really traveled alone, without a business agenda attached to the trip.

The Process

It Starts with a Conversation.

We talk

About the season you are in, what has been depleting you, and what you want this time to give back. No forms, no intake survey. A real conversation, and it is complimentary.

We design

We build the sabbatical around the intention: where, how long, at what pace, and how it all fits together. You see a complete plan, and you tell us what to change.

We stay with you

Once you are out there, we are the ones making the calls when something shifts. And when you get home, we talk through how it went and whether the time did what you needed it to do.

Investment

What This Costs.

Everything under The Design and The Support above is what the fee buys. Where yours lands depends on three things: destination, duration, and complexity.

Designed Reset

One to two weeks in a single destination, with the logistics and the intention work handled end to end.

From$750

Extended Sabbatical

Three weeks to two months across one or two countries, with pacing, transitions, and in-trip support built in.

From$1,500

Immersive Sabbatical

Two months and beyond, multi-country, with extended-stay lodging sourcing and ongoing coordination throughout.

From$2,500

How This Is Paid

Half the agreed fee starts the work. It covers the intention conversation, the research, the sourcing, and your first complete plan, and it is not refundable, because that is real time spent on your behalf.

One revision is included. When the first plan reaches you, tell us what is off and we rebuild it. That sits inside the fee rather than on top of it. Pace is what we most often get wrong the first time and right the second.

The balance is due only when you approve the plan, and before anything is booked.

If the revised plan still is not right, we stop there. You owe nothing further. The plan and the notes are yours to keep, and you are welcome to take them anywhere, including somewhere that is not us.

Changes made after the plan is approved carry their own fees, and your agreement sets those out plainly before you sign. Trip costs (flights, lodging, experiences) are quoted separately as we build.

You will never pay full price for a sabbatical you do not want to live.

Let's Scope Mine

Why Lawal Travel Services

Jenita Lawal, founder of Lawal Travel Services, in Mérida, Mexico

We Have Designed This from the Inside.

Jenita Lawal founded Lawal Travel Services in 2016, after a career in corporate human resources and hospitality asset management.

In that work she reviewed hotel operator financials, audited performance, and inspected properties from the owner's side of the table rather than the guest's. That is why the logistics under a sabbatical hold up, and why she knows who to call when they do not.

She also built a life with room in it, relocating from Nashville to Mérida, Mexico in 2018 and running the firm from there since. She knows what it takes to step out of a familiar structure.

Sabbatical clients get both halves of that: a travel firm that handles the machinery, and a former life coach who helps you use the time well.

Jenita Lawal, M.B.A., VTA
ASTA Verified Travel Advisor
M.B.A., Human Resources
Signature Travel Network expert
Former life coach
Founded 2016, approaching a decade in business
Based in Mérida, Mexico since 2018

FAQ

What Most People Ask First.

How long does a sabbatical have to be?

There is no minimum. Our designed Experiences run seven nights. Personal sabbaticals we have built have run from a single week to four months. Length follows the intention, not the other way around.

I have never traveled alone. Is that a problem?

It is more common than you would think. For a number of our clients, a sabbatical is the first real trip they have taken without a business agenda attached, and often the first they have taken alone. We build the itinerary with that in mind and we are reachable the entire time.

Do I have to leave my business or my job?

No. Most clients design around what their business or role can genuinely absorb, and we build the itinerary to fit what you can actually step away from.

What if I do not know what I want it to be yet?

That is a normal starting place, and it is exactly what the first conversation is for. Most people arrive knowing something is off and leave the call knowing what the time is actually for.

What happens if I do not like the plan?

One revision is included in the fee. If the revised plan still is not right, we stop there, you owe nothing beyond the initiating payment, and the plan and notes are yours to keep. You approve the plan before the balance is due and before anything is booked.

What if something goes wrong while I am away?

You call us, and we handle it. Illness, weather, a cancelled flight, a hotel that falls through: we make the calls, find the alternative, and rebook. Changes carry their own fees, set out in your agreement, but you are never the one working the phones from a hotel room.

Is this only for solo travelers?

Solitude suits many sabbaticals, and plenty include company. A partner for the first week, a daughter for the middle stretch, a friend meeting you somewhere along the way. We design around what restores you.

Can I combine an Experience with a personal sabbatical?

Yes, and it works well. Some clients open a longer stretch with a Rooted week to fully land, then continue on their own with the rest of the time designed around them.

How far in advance should we start?

Longer sabbaticals want more runway. Three to six months is comfortable for most, and more is better when extended-stay lodging or a multi-country route is involved. Shorter resets can move faster.

What does it cost?

Sabbatical Design begins at $750 for a one-to-two-week reset and scales with destination, duration, and complexity. Half starts the work, the balance is due only after you approve the plan. Trip costs are separate, and the first call costs nothing.

Let's Begin

You Already Know How the Next Twelve Months Go If Nothing Changes.

One path

Another year of being the one everybody counts on. Another December where you meant to and did not. The same conversation with yourself, over the same cup of coffee.

The other

Thirty minutes on the phone with us this month. By next month, a plan with your name on it and a date you have said out loud to your family.

To recap: the call is complimentary and takes about half an hour. Design begins at $750, quoted by destination, duration, and complexity before you commit to anything. Half starts the work. You approve the plan before the balance is due and before a single thing is booked. One revision is included, and if it still is not right, you keep the plan and owe nothing more.

I'm Ready to Stop Postponing This

Complimentary · No obligation · Roughly thirty minutes

P.S. You approve the plan before you pay the balance, and before anything is booked. One revision is included. If it still is not right after that, you keep the plan and owe nothing more.

P.P.S. The Bacalar week is January 14 to 21, 2027, single occupancy, and the room count is fixed. When it is full, it is full.

P.P.P.S. A four-month sabbatical wants six months of runway. If you are picturing something long, the conversation that makes it possible is the one you have now, not the one you have in spring. And if you are not ready to plan anything at all, take the call anyway and say so. Naming what is off, out loud, to someone whose job is to listen for it, is worth thirty minutes on its own.