Sorry, Girls. The Convents Are Full This Summer.

Forget splashy beach vacations and trips to Europe. This summer, the girls are hitting up the monastery. That means forgoing kitten heels, Hugo spritzes, and mini dresses in favor of meditating with monks for free. They’re slowing down and taking refuge from a chaotic world. Some are even going a step further by committing to a temporary vow of silence: a period of quiet designed to help you reflect and tap into the divine.

While this spiritual experience is a go-to for many who travel abroad, it’s quickly becoming more popular in the U.S. Some monasteries and convents are reportedly booked for the 2025 season. In a viral TikTok from June 23, @mc667868 — a creator who goes by MC and posts various quirky side quests — lamented not signing up for her vow of silence sooner.

In 2024, she had no problem scheduling a stay at a Catholic monastery in upstate New York. “You just email the nuns,” she said in the clip, which has over 140,000 likes.

This summer, however, when she tried to book the experience again, a nun replied that the inn was full for the next three months. She offered to put MC on a “notify” list in case a space opened up. “If [anyone wants] to cancel, let me know,” the creator said in the video. “Maybe we can start a Resy app for vows of silence.”

The comments section quickly turned into a 4,000-person group chat about convents, monasteries, and hacks for hopefully securing a spot. One person even dubbed it a “vow of silence summer” in the comments section — but is it, really?

Silence — So Hot Right Now

Monastery stays are no longer reserved for your most religious, spiritual, or travel-loving friends. Some people use them almost like wellness retreats, and many places have rave reviews, like Blue Cliff Monastery, located less than two hours outside of Manhattan. The Buddhist temple, located at 3 Mindfulness Road in Pinebush, New York — yes, really — boasts 4.9 out of 5 stars on Google.

Its July retreats (already full), which feature periods of “noble silence,” walking meditations, and community work days, booked up quickly this year. “Many people find these experiences transformative,” Blue Cliff’s Sister Joy tells Bustle. “In recent years, we have noticed a growing number of young people looking for this kind of inner retreat.”

Ana Garriga and Carmen Urbita, co-hosts of the Spanish podcast Las Hijas de Felipe and authors of the upcoming book CONVENT WISDOM: How Sixteenth-Century Nuns Could Save Your Twenty-First-Century Life, have also noticed that the temptation to take vows is growing stronger every minute — and they say your algorithm knows it.

“Scrolling on our phones lately means running into the meme of a nun with the caption, ‘Me if I get ghosted for 8+ hours then get a random ‘hey’ text,’” they tell Bustle in an email.

While most women who go for short convent stays aren’t necessarily enticed by the idea of taking a lifelong vow of poverty, obedience, and chastity, Garriga and Urbita surmise that many fantasize about taking a peaceful step back from their hectic daily lives. Convents are just that — a place offering a warm, sustainable, close-knit community that’s quiet and free of charge.

Do Not Disturb

The appeal of turning off your phone — even just for a moment — is tough to deny and even harder to do. For Kerry Murphy, a travel influencer who stayed at the Trappest Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia, for three days this January, unplugging topped her list of reasons to take a temporary vow.

As someone who works in social media and posts her life to over 177,000 followers, she was more than willing to take desperate measures. “I was like, all right, let's go live with monks,” she tells Bustle.

After committing to a vow of silence, which meant resigning to head nods and scribbled notes as a way to communicate, Murphy wandered the blue, stone halls of the abbey for a long weekend, never once speaking or reaching for her phone. It sat alone in her stark bedroom on Do Not Disturb.

Instead of yapping online, she wrote in her journal and went on hikes around the wooded grounds, only occasionally encountering other guests. The reverent atmosphere made it easy to stick to her vow, she says, adding that’s likely a big part of the viral appeal.

“A lot of us are all or nothing, right? It's hard to find that medium place,” she says. If you can’t reduce your screen time at home and feel like a strict environment might help, perhaps coexisting with a spiritual authority could be your best bet.

When you add in soaring rent prices, relentless work schedules, and the prevalence of tech bros hitting you up on Hinge, Garriga and Urbita say there’s no shortage of things to run away from. But these retreats have a lot of positive things to offer, too.

“Convents have been the space where women have been able to pursue intellectual interests, diplomatic ambitions, and relationships beyond marriage and reproduction,” they say. That’s why, for many, a nunnery is the perfect landing pad after a bad breakup; a place where you can Eat Pray Love your way to healing.

They’re also surprisingly fun. A person who lived with Episcopalian nuns last summer commented on MC’s TikTok, “It was legit the best three months of my life,” they said. “They were so cool... I worked in their garden and lived in their cottage for free.”

The comment got over 6,000 likes and thousands of replies begging for more info. Another said, “I once stayed in a monastery for a weekend. It was great. One of the monks showed us how to make jam and we had an ice cream party.”

Garriga and Urbita aren’t surprised that the FYP is finally catching on to the appeal. These spiritual figures offer a fresh perspective that can be harder to find outside the cloister.

Although the co-authors say these women are more clear-headed than the average person, they aren’t that different from guests at the monastery.

“Nuns are girls like us,” they say.