Esalen Institute is open! However, Highway 1 to the south is closed — please review the current travel advisory.
Learn More.

Learn more.

Due to road closures along Highway 1 to our north and south, Esalen is closed through April 11.
Esalen Institute is open! However, Highway 1 to the south is closed — please review the current travel advisory.

Esalen opens May 3, 2024

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.

Learn more.

Winter is coming...

December 13–15, 2024*

December 16–20, 2024

January 27–31, 2025

*December 13–15 guests may register to stay an additional night for an extra charge.

Weekend of December 13–16, 2024
|
Week of December 16–20, 2024
Choose Your Dates

Join us for Go Within, our annual winter festival — a communal gathering that invites the passage of illuminating light during these inward months of hibernation and darkness. Through the embrace of the arts and our own creativity, we unite again to unleash the pulsating, reverberating inner curiosity that fuels imagination, sparks innovation, and nourishes the soul.

Last year, ambient music pioneer Laraaji, indigenous wisdom keeper and musician Snow Raven, and ethereal harpist Mary Lattimore — alongside a cast of supporting and emerging artists and musicians — joined forces with resident Esalen faculty to curate a rich tapestry of experiences.

Some 200 guests gathered together to engage in deep listening practices, be transported by experimental breathwork, indulge in sound experiences at the Baths, dive into intuitive art making, be nourished by the healing waters and of course, by the sweet medicine of community.

To create and turn things outward, we must first look inward to explore with a greater heightened sense the depths of what our hidden potentials hold. Winter is a mysterious season — she can be kind and soft. Rather than fear and avoid her, let’s celebrate her (and our own) complexity.

To find and uncover our light, let’s together and individually embrace the dark, far reaches and prepare to launch into a new year, 2025, ever more illuminated.

We hope you’ll join us.

Turn within and re-energize.

Expect an artful juxtapositioning of nurture-inward and blossom-outward programming — with the ever-present invitation to commune with yourself, and with the land. You'll have the opportunity to participate in embodiment and presencing practices, personal reflection, community-building, land-based inquiry, intuitive art-making, and play, as well as deeply restful contemplative experiences, an exploration of dreamwork and dream medicine, wildcrafting and art-making for actionable inspiration, transformative breathwork, and meditation.

For all we nurture within and inwardly, we then need the space for release; to that end, you’ll enjoy nightly howls up into the big, open starry sky, fireside music jams, site-specific sonic journeys, and dance parties designed to ignite the mind, body, and soul.

Feed mind and body.

Savor three hearty, healthy meals per day. Our kitchen draws on global culinary traditions, using the fruits of the Esalen Farm & Garden and other local Big Sur providers to create delicious meals that support holistic health — for you and for the earth.

Create space for reflection.

Esalen’s beloved mineral hot springs perch dramatically over the Pacific Ocean, a juxtaposition of intimate and infinite. A core part of Esalen from its inception, the baths and tubs are an ideal place to reflect, find clarity, and set new intentions.

Photo: Jens Wazel
A man dances facing the Pacific Ocean on the pool deck at Esalen.

Imagine if you pressed pause
on your life for four weeks to
give yourself time and space
to transform.

Choose Your Dates

*December 13–15 guests may register to stay an additional night for an extra charge.

December 13–15, 2024*

December 16–20, 2024

January 27–31, 2025

Please 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.