5 Best Ayahuasca Retreats in South America (Updated 2024)

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For deeper insights into what makes up a safe and quality plant medicine retreat, check out the results from our recent plant medicine retreats survey.
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1. If you’d like a holistic understanding of your opportunities to improve your quality of life, take this self-diagnostic.

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2. If this is your first time with Ayahuasca, this short quiz will help you assess your level of mental, emotional, and spiritual readiness for this powerful and sensitive work.

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3. If you’d like to understand more about the nature of psychedelic healing work, human potential, and who and what you really are, watch the video below.

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Like most things in life, there are a broad variety of Ayahuasca retreat options, and a number of factors that effect the safety, quality, and cost of an ayahuasca retreat:

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1. Safety First: Unfortunately, many small retreat centers are not in a position to make meaningful investments into screening and safety. Even if you're fine, someone else on retreat might not be, which can affect the overall experience. Our recommendation is to choose a retreat provider that does in-depth conversational, medical, and psychological screening to protect your safety and well-being.
2. Legality: Experienced practitioners who have dedicated their lives to plant medicine typically live in locations where the work is legal, so they don't have to live in a state of uncertainty about their work Our recommendation is to travel to legal locations where you can benefit from legitimate healers who operate above the radar, so you can truly relax on retreat.
3. Size of the group: It's common for retreats to have 20, 50, even 100 people in ceremony, which can be chaotic to say the least. In such large groups you are less likely to receive a sufficient level of attention from the facilitators. Our recommendation is to choose a retreat with an intimate group, in the range of 8-15 people.
4. Length of the retreat: Shorter retreats feel rushed, do not support the cultivation of meaningful relationships, and can limit what can be achieved in time available. We recommend you spend at least a week for an ayahuasca retreat to give your mind, body, heart, and soul the attention it deserves.
5. ‍‍Comfort: We recommend you choose a retreat where you are confident that you will be physically comfortable and have your own private bedroom to decompress and integrate, especially if this is your first time. Go for the full jungle mosquito immersion another time, your future self will thank you later.
6. Alignment: Select a retreat that feels aligned with your values and allows your own subjective experience to unfold naturally. There are many different worldviews out there and having a different worldview pushed on you through the retreat may not be in your highest healing interests. This is also particularly relevant for first-timers.
7. Holistic approach: Work with an organization that takes a holistic approach to working with plant medicine, and has options to support and guide your mental and emotional evolution alongside a retreat. If a provider implies that "medicine will solve all your problems", proceed with caution.
8. ‍Service: Select a retreat that you believe can meet your individual needs. Are you being treated as a human, or as participant #22 in their fourth retreat this month? Consider whether or not they've taken the time to get to know you and understand you, or it's more of a take it or leave it retreat center.
9. Booking process: Take the time to speak with the provider before finalizing your booking. If the provider does not have a screening process in place during the booking process anyone could be sitting next to you in ceremony. Some people are not in the right place to work with this powerful plant medicine, and it is the responsibility of the organizers to ensure that only people who can handle ayahuasca are accepted onto the retreat.
10. Expertise: Find an organization that emphasizes healing, and you believe has the breadth and depth of expertise to guide your transformation. Look for facilitators and healers who have a lightness of being and a sparkle in their eyes. Healing work is all about the transmutation of energy, so you are looking for people who have the energy you aspire to. If they aren't able to keep their energy right, that tells you quite a bit about either where they are at and their capabilities.
11. Reputation: At a minimum, Google the provider, you may be surprised by what you find. If there's not much information, that is also information. A reputable retreat center will have a professional online presence with testimonials from previous retreat attendees. This is essential for you to see that they are a legitimate organization who you can trust to contain this powerful experience.
12. Volunteers: Please support ethical plant medicine work by selecting an organization that pay their team. Unfortunately, it is common practice for retreat centers to cycle through young, eager, and worn out volunteers and/or not pay healers fairly. If the people supporting your retreat aren't living their best lives , they're not going to be able to lead you to yours. Don't be shy to ask this question directly when you speak to prospective centers.

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Want to know what a well-run retreat is like? We asked some of our past guests to do the impossible and summarize their retreat experience with us in 1 word.

Watch the video to get a sense of the magic that's possible:

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Ayahuasca is an increasingly popular plant medicine used for healing the body, mind, and spirit. This master plant is a psychotropic preparation obtained by two different sacred plants that originated in the Amazon basin in South America. The begging of the use of this powerful date back to pre-history and its use has always been connected to ceremony and healers.

Because of its amazonian origins, the societies of South America are more aware of the healing aspect of the preparation and its connection to ceremony, healing, and deep transformational nature. But this is not the case in many countries in the world. 

Most countries view this sacred plant medicine as harmful because of its psychotropic qualities. This becomes even more evident in cultures that are far away from South America as Asian countries. 

The distance from its birthplace and the lack of understanding of the plant makes it almost impossible to be part of a legal Ayahuasca ceremony in Asia. Therefore, if your goal is to connect to the plant and its profound healing properties the best you can do is to go to Central/South America and experience the ceremony in one of the many retreats available as the following. 

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1.       Behold Retreats, Valle de Bravo, Mexico

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Behold Retreats sets the standard for safe, legal, and transformative plant medicine retreats in idyllic destinations. Retreats are kept to a small group size, and attendance is by invitation only.

Behold does not facilitate Ayahuasca in Asia, but does offer options in Costa Rica and Mexico. Other popular retreat options include Psilocybin in the Netherlands and with the powerful God Molecule 5-MeO-DMT in Mexico or Portugal.

Ready for deep healing and transformation?

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2.       Refugio Altiplano, Ayahuasca Retreat Iquitos, Peru

Refugio Altiplano is an Ayahuasca retreat tucked deep in the pristine Peruvian forest. It offers a safely guided shamanic healing journey at affordable rates. The sessions are in private residences with laundry and kitchen services. Participants have vast stay options, from a 7-day retreat to an immersion program that lasts for 26 days.

Typical activities at the Refugio Altiplano include traditional ayahuasca ceremonies, individualized shamanic ceremonies, and one-on-one interaction with a shaman. Participants take plant or shaman diets and study more about sacred plant medicine.

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3.       Healing Center Shanayoy, Sibundoy, Colombia

Shanayoy Healing Center is one of the ayahuasca retreats in South America that conduct authentic ayahuasca ceremonies. Indeed, the healing center employs the sacred indigenous Kamëntsá people from Sibundoy Valley to oversee the plant medicine retreats. They use their ancestral knowledge to guide you through various healing rituals and help you find peace and a deep inner connection, healing your body, mind, and spirit.

A typical plant medicine retreat at the Shanayoy Healing Center runs for nine days. They entail personal consultations before and after the healing experience, sacred plant ceremony practices, optional plant baths and plant remedies, group and individual counseling sessions, yoga classes, meditation, plant medicine walks and education, and mountain hikes.

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4.       Residencial Bosques del Eden Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic

Residencial Bosques del Eden Jarabacoa is an Ayahuasca retreat that offers plant medicine teachings to anyone starting their spiritual ayahuasca journey. The retreat is in a professional and respectful environment in the high mountains, 2 kilometers from Jarabacoa town. Here, locals and visitors participate in ayahuasca ceremonies, meditation sessions, reiki, and yoga classes. Likewise, there are optional excursions, massages, and Kambo. 

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5.       Pisatahua Ecolodge, Aquicuana Reserve, Bolivia

Pisatahua Ecolodge is an idyllic ayahuasca retreat that presents a relaxing opportunity to anyone escaping fast-paced city life. Indeed, this sacred space is in the Bolivian Amazon, on an 80-acre Aquicuana Reserve. Here, a team of healers and facilitators organize healing rituals that include master plant ceremonies, guided nature hikes, yoga and meditation classes, and canoe rides. The activities last for 10 to 12 days for small groups that seek a shamanic path. Participants get a nutritious traditional ayahuasca diet and reside in secure cabins fully equipped with private bathrooms and showers.

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