Planning For A Yoga Vacation

By Author: Dylan Hunt
Total Articles: 1
Comment this article

The beauty of a yoga retreat is the fact that it takes you away from your daily home environment and puts you in a space where you can completely immerse yourself in the experience, leaving behind all your cares, worries, stresses and distractions. Your mind body and spirit will benefit from daily asana practice, time for meditative contemplation, healthy food and relaxing atmosphere. You’ll make new friends and create bonds that last a lifetime. Whether you’re interested in participating in a yoga retreat or want to organize an event, you’re likely to find yourself presented with many options on the location, the intensity of the physical practice, diet and foods Yoga Vacationsoffered, and the activities included in the package.

Whatever your motivation for considering a yoga vacation, you may find it a challenge to first choose a location, especially if you’re traveling outside of your country. Take Costa Rica as an example. There are so many beautiful locations in Costa Rica, each offering a different experience. There are spectacular beaches surrounded by jungle, erupting and dormant volcanoes, majestic mountains, ...
... meandering rivers and many cascading waterfalls. There are yoga resorts in Costa Rica so remote that you must take a boat or 4-wheel drive to get there, while others are located within a short walk or cab ride from a town or village. Some are on the beach, others built around waterfalls, and yet others within dense jungle buzzing with wildlife. Consider what you want from the setting of your yoga vacation and seek out professional companies such as Pura Vida Yoga Vacations that have experience organizing events in the region or country where you’d like to go, to mitigate cultural differences and address your questions and concerns regarding travel in a foreign country.

One of the foundations for a yoga retreat is the daily physical practice offered during the event. Yet, each one of us is different and one size does not fit all. Therefore, it is important that you choose a vacation that compliments your lifestyle and existing physical capabilities, or as a body arts instructor, that you create an event that will match the needs of your students. As a yoga retreats organizer, we found that many retreat participants are concerned that a yoga retreat will be too intense physically or that other guests will be much more advanced in their practice and are thus worried if they will be able to keep up. The beauty of a well-planned yoga vacation, though, is that most often the instructor can align the physical program with the group – at least at some level. Never feel like you cannot ask up-front about what type of physical practice you should expect during the vacation, or share concerns about your experience level and physical ailments. This will also help you ascertain how responsive the event organizer or instructor are to your individual needs.

Typically a yoga retreat is not just about the physical practice and having fun. Well, it can be only about that if that’s all you want out of it. But if you’re looking to develop a deeper connection with your spiritual self and reflect upon your life journey, one of the best conduits for this is participating in a yoga retreat. Trust your intuition here and choose the type of retreat that offers additional meditations, workshops, or a location that will help you to search within and give your soul what it needs. Are you looking to gain a deeper understanding of your life? Do you want to reflect on certain events? Do you need to heal your mind or your heart? Consider that a yoga retreat will give you many opportunities for contemplation and can leave you with tools on how to continue a personal transformation in your daily life.

Of course, for most, a yoga retreat will also be your vacation. Other considerations such as meals and activities must play their part, although they may not be the most important aspects of choosing a yoga vacation package. Here’s where you’ll likely once again have a multitude of options. Most retreats include meals, but are the meals actually good? Are you a vegetarian or vegan or staying away from certain foods? Or are you looking for a cleansing diet to help detoxify the body during your vacation? Here’s where working with an established retreat organizer can once again come in handy, giving you more insight into meal options and food quality of various resorts. In addition, a retreat organizer with knowledge of the local market will have in-depth knowledge of what types of activities are most desirable at what locations, and during which time of year.

Everyone can benefit from attending a yoga retreat, even individuals new to yoga. Follow your heart and trust in your decisions as you choose your next yoga retreat or plan such an event, and trust that the universe will unfold as it is meant to. Feel free to contact Pura Vida Yoga Vacations at retreats@puravidayogavacations.com to find out about our yoga vacations or about how we help yoga and body arts instructors create a memorable yoga retreat in Costa Rica.

Anna Hunt and Leah MacLauchlan host yoga retreats in Costa Rica organized by Pura Vida Yoga Vacations (www.puravidayogavacations.com).