It’s early evening as I weave my motorbike through the sharp switchbacks along the eastern coast of Mallorca. Arriving in the town of Deià, where sandstone homes stacked upon one another rise up from the rugged coastline, the lapis expanse of the Mediterranean frames my view to the right.
As the island’s long-time creative hub, this rural village offers something distinct from the cosmopolitan capital of Palma. It’s here, among the narrow streets lined with Bronze Age dry-stone walls, that Mallorca’s ancient heritage and modern reality most visibly collide.
While I’m always grateful to find myself on a Balearic island in June, peering over turquoise calas and surrounded by pine forests that perfume the air, I’m not here solely to delight in the island’s offerings. Rather, I’ve come to Mallorca to report on the rise of tours, projects, and hotels helping tourists connect with the handmade past and present of the island.
I throttle up the sinuous dirt road to the guesthouse Son Rullan, my home for the week as a guest on the artisan craft travel company Thread Caravan’s debut Mallorca Creative Island Retreat. A 14th-century monastery surrounded by hundreds of ancient olive trees and tucked into the UNESCO-heritage Tramuntana mountains, Son Rullan—with its lime-washed interiors, exposed dark wood beams, and wrought iron bed frames—radiates a stark Mallorcan beauty.
In partnering directly with locals, Thread Caravan curates heritage craft-centric trips with unique arts and culinary experiences across the globe. For the Mallorca trip, they collaborate with Madrid-native Clara Polanco, who spent every summer of her childhood on the island and now runs the CDMX haberdashery Donde Clara.
“Craft is a window into the land—it uses what grows there, what’s been touched and shaped by generations. When visitors create with their hands, they access a different kind of knowledge: one rooted in rhythm, care, and memory,” said Polanco.
Polanco’s words echo in my mind when we visit Llanatura, a virgin-wool initiative aimed at revaluing once-lauded Mallorcan wool, which today has been relegated to a waste product and most of it is burned.
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While Llanatura cofounder Eugenia Marcote leads us through a dry felting workshop, she explains the need for processes that use less water in Mallorca, where drought is exacerbated by a spike in population each summer as visitors arrive. Llanatura’s wool processing minimizes water usage, and the brand supports water conservation with its design ethos. “I love plant dyes. But we have a problem with water here, so we decided not to dye, which is a practical decision but also a political one,” she said.
In avoiding dyes, Llanatura exclusively works with a neutral palette, lending an organic quality to their clothing and home design items. In their showroom and store, I finger ecru-colored wool pillowcases and felted lace-up shoes in sepia tones, taking in the slightly sweet white chocolate tang of lanolin that fills the air. Nearby, cream-colored sheets of felted wool are stacked neatly, ready to be used in-house or sent to Llanatura’s partners on the island, like the creative studio Accidente con Flores.
Conversations about water conservation are also top of mind when we visit Victor Alacron of the Mallorcan fine fragrance house Viti Vinci. He guides us through a scent tasting and perfume workshop but, far from taking place in a laboratory or high-end concept shop, we find ourselves on a regenerative farm, surrounded by hearty heirloom Mediterranean botanicals that can withstand the island’s arid climate. In the perfumer’s vineyard, his sister, agro-research consultant and regenerative farmer, Clemintina Alacron, talks to us of the necessity of soil health and biodiversity on the island. Viti Vinci and projects like it, she underscored, are essential tools for demonstrating the viability of environmentally conscious projects to both visitors and business owners.
The following day, as textile artist and chef April Valencia prepares a seasonal lunch of vibrant dishes studded with island ingredients like heirloom Sineus peaches and local blue cheese, we gather for our final workshop of the trip. With the sheer drop of the Tramuntana mountains behind him, artisan Pep Toni Ferrer introduces us to the ancient Mallorcan craft of palm weaving, or llata. To tie the starting knot, his fingers nimbly braid the palm fronds I have trimmed with a tool that resembles a wide-toothed comb.
Once widely practiced across Mallorca, the time-consuming craft of palm weaving is now only kept alive by a few artisans. After hand-harvesting the plant and drying, soaking, separating, then trimming the fronds, artisans begin the weaving process. From start to finish, a single bag can take two months to make. Their handmade nature, heirloom-craft quality, and production timeline mean bags and baskets can fetch upwards of $300, while lower-quality, imported imitations can be found on Mallorca for under $30.
While we weave together in the monstera-shaded stone patio of Son Rullan, Toni Ferrer touches on the community-cohesiveness of craft. He has highly accomplished students who have been weaving for years who still return to classes, “Simply to sit and weave with others,” he says. “You’ll see that with busy hands, we can often connect more deeply.”
While Thread Caravan’s is one of the most in-depth and hands-on craft offerings on the island, it’s just one of a number of projects that have cropped up in recent years with the aim of connecting travelers to Mallorca’s handmade heritage.
There’s dada-days, a platform to link visitors with artists and artisans for curated, single-day workshops across a number of creative disciplines. “When you come to Mallorca, you know there is something deeper to explore but you just need the key to get there. We aim to be that key,” said Lucy Ehrlich, team member at dada-days.
At Anna Lena Kortman’s furniture and design firm Studio Jaia, she blends the traditional cord weaving, cordat mallorqui, with contemporary designs to create minimalist chairs, stools, and benches from selected oak, artisanal linen, and recycled cotton cords. Located just outside the hustle and bustle of Palma, the by-appointment-only Studio Jaia often inspires passers-by who recognize the craft as something their grandparents used to practice.
Lena Kortman, who started Studio Jaia six years ago, said there’s a resurgence of interest in handmade processes. “Craft is definitely experiencing a bit of revival,” she said. “It’s important that we try to find a way for this island to operate in a more sustainable way, because it has more to offer than just the beach hotels.” Up next, Lena Kortman hopes to launch her own workshops to get locals and tourists alike participating in cord weaving.
Many of the hotels here have solid offerings, too. At Son Bunyola, Richard Branson’s five-star property on the island, it took the team 23 years to secure the permits needed for construction on the building, which dates to the 13th century. With such historical pedigree, it’s unsurprising the property is steadfastly committed to promoting an authentic Mallorcan experience for its guests. Part of its efforts includes partnering with Araceli Iranzo of Antic Mallorca and La Escuela Artesana, two projects aimed at preserving the island’s llata, or palm weaving craft, from the town of Capdepera.
At La Residencia, A Belmond Hotel, a storied property perched alongside the Tramuntana mountains in Deiá, Mallorca’s creative past abounds. From the on-site 33 original lithographs from long-time Mallorca resident Joan Miró, to their artist-in-residence program, La Residencia’s core differentiator is their commitment to creativity. Guests can enroll in workshops with the artist or sculptor in residence or opt for a workshop painting siurells, traditional whistling clay figures from Mallorca.
Bringing a global craft offering to the island is the artisan and textile market, conference, and exchange XTANT, which first made its home in Mallorca in 2021 and has returned each year since. Curated by Kavita Palmar, XTANT, which hosts artisans from across the globe and island, is in many ways credited with accelerating Mallorca’s reputation as an international gathering point for artisans.
When I leave Mallorca mid-June, the island’s annual swell of tourism has begun to flood the streets. I have no doubt that the beachgoers and resort dwellers will enjoy their time on this postcard-perfect island, but I can’t help but feel grateful for the week I’ve spent connecting with Mallorca’s makers. As Polanco says while she drops me at the airport, “Exploring craft is an invitation to travel with more empathy, and to belong, even if just for a moment.”