5 Best Ayahuasca Retreats in Vietnam (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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‍Looking for a little more guidance for one of the most important decisions of your life? Watch this video.

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Ayahuasca has been used for millennia by indigenous tribes of the Amazon rainforest.  This master plant is said to instill a deep connection between your deepest self and nature, and that this is a spiritual awakening that leads to healing.  This master plant has always been used in a traditional shamanic ceremony, out of respect for the power of it, and the shaman’s role is to guide participants during a particularly vulnerable psychic state.

Ayahuasca is not currently legal in Vietnam, but there are several areas around the world where it has been decriminalized, and legal “gray” areas allow for it to be used as part of a healing ceremony.  If you are interested in looking for a professional retreat center that offers these ceremonies, consider visiting some of these locations worldwide.  Here’s a short list to get you started.

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1. Behold Retreats - Costa Rica, Mexico

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For any person interested in a healing retreat with a focus on plant medicine, Behold Retreats might be exactly what they’re looking for.  For the best ayahuasca retreat location, a beautiful beachfront villa in Costa Rica seems difficult to top, and a personalized ayahuasca ceremony led by a traditional shaman is an experience that a great opportunity for profound healing from past trauma or any other issues that may be difficult to address by Western medicine alone.

Participants at any ayahuasca retreat center of Behold Retreats are given the option of small intimate group ceremonies or a private ayahuasca ceremony, with an emphasis on personal comfort, with other healing modalities like yoga classes and meditation available.  The journey begins with you, and ends with you, and this company works hard to put an emphasis on each participants’ healing experience.

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2 Origen Sagrada - Colombia, USA

This ayahuasca retreat center has a focus on performing the traditional ayahuasca ceremony, with facilitators native to the Colombian Amazon tribes of South America.  The shamanic ceremony using ayahuasca is a very old tradition, and each healer from this retreat center believes strongly in helping the participants reconnect to Mother Earth and the powerful healing that comes from doing so

If you are looking for a basic introduction to the ayahuasca vine and a spiritual retreat in nature, contact Origen Sagrada and find the perfect time to visit the mountains and get in touch with Mother Ayahuasca, and see what experiences the master plant can unlock for you.

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3 Ayahuasca Spirit Healing Center - Spain

This beautiful retreat center has a native Peruvian shaman as its facilitator, with over 25 years of experience in leading clients on the ayahuasca journey.  Ayahuasca has been recognized as one of the most powerful forms of plant medicine, and for those seeking a spiritual awakening, or looking to enhance their healing process from other issues, an ayahuasca retreat center is a great opportunity to have this experience in a safe and pleasant environment.

Each ayahuasca ceremony is limited to 11 people, so that the participants can get personalized attention, and accommodations can be made to bring each member directly from the airport to the retreat center with no hassle.

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4 APL Journeys - Peru, Spain, Portugal

For those seeking very intimate attention and care during a stay at an ayahuasca retreat center, APL Journeys is a good match, with 6-day retreats, and participants will each have daily conversations with the master shaman, as well as flower baths before each ayahuasca ceremony.  The facilitators all have Red Cross certifications, and 15% of proceeds go to supporting traditional shaman communities in the Amazon, showing the close link between this ayahuasca retreat and the native background which it stems from.

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5 Lighthouse Retreats - Portugal

Located 50km from Porto, Spain, this ayahuasca retreat center is beautiful, with fruit trees, and participants are able to enjoy other healing modalities during their stay, such as meditation and yoga classes.  The retreat center has a vineyard, a spring water pool, and various other activities that make this a wonderful place to have a spiritual retreat individually or with loved ones.  The team of facilitators have worked together for many years, leading thousands of participants through each traditional ayahuasca ceremony, and love their work.

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