CONCEPTION, Mo. — Remember quiet?

It's that sound of not much at all, a fall breeze over a still pond, a car on a gravel road, frogs.

Conception Abbey, which sits among the hills and farms of northwest Missouri, a few miles east of where cell-phone service dies, has that good kind of quiet, the kind that holds the promise of going on and on.

The abbey, home to about 65 monks, is one of several Roman Catholic Benedictine monasteries around the world that are open to groups and individuals looking for a little time to reflect, pray, escape or just stare off into space.

Retreat options abound across the U.S. and beyond. There are retreats for Quakers and wayward Catholics, body-cleansing retreats and marriage retreats. Retreats are held in tepees and four-star lodges. Many are religious. Some are not.

Retreat packages vary, but the point is usually similar. Retreats are meant to be different from a vacation, which these days can be more exhausting than daily life. At a retreat, the idea is to do a little personal work, even if that means working at just being still and enjoying the quiet.

While Conception Abbey also provides guided group retreats, individual stays are simpler and don't require a lot of planning and organizing. Just a phone call or two, and if rooms are available, a traveler is welcome.

The Benedictine monks have a tradition of hospitality and welcoming people, says the Rev. Patrick Caveglia, director of the abbey's guest center. While the tradition calls for hosting "those from the household of faith first," all manner of people aiming to unplug are welcome. And Caveglia has seen them all.

"There are a lot of people out there looking for some peace and quiet," Caveglia says. "There are a lot of baby boomers like me, thinking, 'I'm probably mortal, and I've taken early retirement, or early redundancy, and maybe I ought to think about what I ought to do with the rest of my life.' "

Some visitors show up at the abbey for a night or two, alone, in a group, or with a spouse. Some want to talk to a monk. Others want to be left alone to roam the grassy path around little Lake Placid or walk the wooded trail that includes the stations of the cross.

Jennifer Phelps started coming to the monastery five years ago. Now she travels the 140 miles from her home in Iowa once a month to rest and pray.

"Frequently, napping is the first thing I do at the monastery," says Phelps, 60. "I usually don't go with an agenda. ... I like to go where it is soothing, calm and tranquil.

"Not everyone I know thinks it's necessarily a good idea that I go so often. ... But when my work schedule gets heavy, and I miss a month or two, I can really tell."

Scott Killgore, pastor at the Wyatt Park Christian Church in St. Joseph, has been coming to the abbey several times a year since 1999.

"The quiet is a huge part," says Killgore, 53. "My cell-phone service is not very good up there. That's a gift from a God."

Killgore is also drawn to the prayers and services, even though he is a pastor in another denomination.

"As soon as I hit the ground up there, I know I'm on holy space, and I just feel my stress level and everything go down," he says. "As a pastor I get so busy doing church stuff, sometimes, as ironic as it may sound, I have to get away from church to have some me-and-God time."

Abbey guest rooms are simple. Most have two twin beds, shelving and a toilet and sink shared with the room next door. Showers are down the hall, and meals are in the guest dining room. If you arrive late, get at the welcome center and leave payment in the mail slot.

A single room costs about $25 a night during the week. It's an additional $5 for weekends. If you choose to dine with the monks, it costs about $7 a meal. Reservations are required. Tours of the abbey grounds, the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and the abbey's "printery" - where cards, calendars and the like are made — are $10.

Prayer, of course, is also encouraged. At Conception Abbey, where the ethic seems to be more peaceful reflection than rosary- kneading, the prayer schedule is extensive, with six a day.

Prayers and services in the basilica are all among the dark-robed brothers, whose voices don't so much break the quiet as soothe it.

On a recent evening with a nearly full moon rising beyond the large red-brick basilica, conspicuous among the farm houses dotting the landscape, the monks slid promptly and quietly into their places near the altar. They sang their prayers, a sort of reverent, gentle farewell to the day.

Afterward, the monks — some older, some looking like college kids — lined up and just as quietly left the sanctuary, leaving a traveler alone in the pews — with the quiet.