This is How You Design a Space That Slows Down Time

Montreal-based hinter has spent eight years answering that question across a growing collection of architect-designed retreats.

ByJ.P. Karwacki

February 17, 2026 · 5 min read

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Boutique hotels offer disconnection, cabin rentals promise an escape, but when does it reach beyond being a nice, secluded place with good Wi-Fi where you'll still check your email anyway? It can feel as though, then, the revered practice of slow travel can easily become a phrase that means everything and nothing.

The Montreal-based founder of hinter Mauricio Padilla wanted something different. Before launching the company in 2017, he'd spent a decade in tech, travelling regularly to Copenhagen and Oslo for work. During this time, he developed obsessions with architecture, nature, and branding—Nordic experiences would give the first two in abundance with clean designs embedded in wild landscapes, but when he came back to Quebec, the question that would eventually become hinter: why don't we have this here?

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