Visitors are now able to access Esalen as well as other businesses and trails in northern Big Sur via twice-daily convoys on Highway 1 operated by Caltrans.
Convoys run only at 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. each day. These are the only opportunities to travel into and out of Big Sur, so visitors must plan accordingly.
In the wake of the devastating Southern California wildfires, we are thinking about how we can be a place of support to those affected and seeking some calm and respite as the journey to rebuild begins.
We are offering everyone a discount of 25% for March 3–7, for an opportunity to be held in the arms of Mama Esalen with the dedicated care of our resident faculty.
In the wake of the devastating Southern California wildfires, we are thinking about how we can be a place of support to those affected and seeking some calm and respite as the journey to rebuild begins.
We are offering everyone a discount of 30% for February 3–7 and 25% for March 3–7, for an opportunity to be held in the arms of Mama Esalen with the dedicated care of our resident faculty.
Self-Guided Explorations is a retreat experience that provides a sanctuary for reconnecting with yourself, your dreams, and your desires.
Whether awakening dormant passions, healing past wounds, or simply reconnecting with the joy of being alive, Self-Guided Explorations provides a supportive and nurturing environment for transformation.
This is an opportunity to cultivate a sense of vitality and well-being. Whether you need a week full of embodiment practice and writing, or a weekend filled with solitude and quiet enjoyment of the land, Self-Guided Explorations offers the container you need to reset, refresh, and recalibrate.
Opening and closing circles with your cohort bookend a journey that presents you with options. You might take advantage of the opportunity to deepen your yoga practice, explore breathwork and meditation, enjoy conscious dance, immerse yourself in the creative arts, attend presentations by guest faculty, take a long soak under the stars, and so much more — or much, much less. Elevate your self-discovery journey with Esalen® Massage and/or a selection of alternative healing services offered by compassionate practitioners.
With an array of classes, activities, and therapeutic modalities to choose from, you have the freedom to tailor your experience to your individual needs and interests. Your Esalen experience is shaped by your own intuition and curiosity.
Sample Open Class SchedulePlease note: On Wednesday September 20, online registration may be unavailable for up to 15 minutes while system maintenance is performed. If the 'Register Now' page does not load, please wait about 15 minutes and try again.
Grounded in Esalen's ethos of openness and exploration, our teachers are seasoned, credentialed facilitators who offer a unique blend of expertise and encouragement to our Self-Guided guests. With a diverse array of backgrounds spanning psychology, mindfulness, somatics, creative arts, and holistic healing, they provide a supportive framework for personal exploration, guiding individuals through immersive experiences designed to cultivate introspection, creativity, and inner growth. Participants are empowered to delve deep into their inner landscapes, fostering profound insights and shifts in consciousness.
Below are sample open class descriptions. Kindly not that actual offerings will vary from day to day and week to week. View a sample schedule.
Join Sam for a deep-dive into Esalen's archives to explore the transformative origins of the Esalen Institute and Human Potential. Discover the roots of a movement that forever changed the landscape of personal growth and self-discovery.
Meditate with the surging energy of the waves and let tension dissolve on the ocean breeze. Adorned with flowers and local healing herbs, this unique experience at the Esalen baths blends personal inquiry, herbal education, and sensory delight. Each ritual is an emergent collaboration of sound, sensation, intention, and floral offering to the sea. Come early, class size is very limited.
A spacious, slow-paced exploration of the body home using therapeutic yoga and other somatic modalities to make space for breath, alleviate tension, and access greater mobility and fluidity — in flesh and bones, and in life. Accessible to all levels.
A transformative breathwork journey rooted in rhythm, designed to reconnect you with the innate cycles of your body and the natural world. This dynamic practice weaves together accessible breathing patterns, sound, and movement to foster deep connection, release stress, and bring you back into balance. By harmonizing your breath with the pulse of life, Breathscapes helps you heal burnout, cultivate self-love, and gain clarity, offering a profound space for transformation and embodied presence. Whether you seek renewal or reprieve, Breathscapes is a powerful gateway to inner alignment and vitality.
Yoga Nidra is a guided meditation that brings you to a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping. This practice reprograms and repatterns your mind and body to prime your creativity to flow freely through you and onto your page.
Sink below the mind chatter and external layer to tap into your authentic voice and share who you truly are. Meditation, movement, and written reflections.
The Healing Circle is a space where you are invited to step out of ordinary time into a safe, accepting environment in which to explore, witnessing and sharing with an open heart. Experience breath and meditation, facilitated heart sharing, ritual, and group reiki.
An all-level Hatha-inspired physical practice paired with breathwork and mindfulness to rediscover your intuition and cultivate your mind-body connection.
So, you’ve finally arrived at Esalen — welcome home! Join us in exploring Esalen’s historic, culture-shifting origins, the vision for human potential, and our core values, as we embark on another 60 years of transformational education. Prepare to learn, grow, experiment, and evolve as we shepherd you on how best to integrate into this unique community and get the most out of your time on this sacred, ancient land.
MojaFlow is an experience to provoke and elevate you to discover new realms of energy and inspire you to experience the joy of going beyond barriers in your own practice and life. Class will include a somatic warm-up, breath-work, and strengthening exercises to support the body/mind connection.
In class we contemplate spiritual/philosophical teachings, slow down and move mindfully by co-ordinating breath with movement, sustain poses to deepen focus and awareness, practice breathing exercises and meditation to hone skillfulness in listening to the inner subtle experiences.
This is a conscious dance practice for people who love or are curious about movement. Here in the company of non-dancers and dancers, we get supple and strong, we explore expressions, we celebrate creativity, we expand empathy, we move and are moved.
Take a somatic dive into the depths of the self with an enlivening, vigorous moving meditation that borrows from a variety of modalities, incorporates ancestral movement, and culminates in seated stillness. Shake, sound, and dance your way to deepened connection with your miraculous body, and with the body of the world.
This interactive, process-based class explores the playful and generative intersections of art and artificial intelligence. Guided by the philosophy of the human potential movement, participants will become co-creators with AI, engaging in hands-on projects that transform their voices across languages, create music, and engage in philosophical conversations with AI, challenging their perceptions of art, creativity, and technology.
Esalen Institute
55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920
US: 1-831-667-3000
info@esalen.org
