There’s no single “best” ayahuasca retreat. The right one depends on what you need, and this page is built to help you work that out. What we can offer is a selection of centres that have operated openly for years, screen guests properly, and have a track record you can verify.
Below, we explain what each centre does well, who it may suit, and where it falls short.
A best-of list is only useful if you can see the criteria behind it. So we’ve laid out our criteria and scored every centre against the same five measures.
We run our own retreat near Medellín, Colombia. We have deliberately kept it out of the scoring below so the comparison stays honest — hold it to the same five criteria and judge it the way you would judge any centre here.
If you are new to this, read what an ayahuasca retreat actually is first. The legal position for Americans is on ayahuasca and US law.
Looking to attend a Ceremony? Book a free 30-minute phone call.
The Criteria
We judge every retreat on the same five things.
- Screening. Does a real medical and psychological intake happen before you are accepted, and do they turn people away? A centre accepting everybody is not screening.
- Medical cover. Is somebody with medical training on site during ceremony, and is there a plan for an emergency that does not rely on hoping?
- Legal footing. Is the centre operating lawfully where it sits? This decides whether it can be insured, inspected and held accountable at all.
- Lineage and staffing. Where does the medicine come from, who pours it, and how long have they done this? The ratio of facilitators to participants matters as much as the headcount.
- Integration. What exists after you fly home? Most centres are weakest here, and it is the thing that most decides whether anything holds.
Two things we do not weight: how luxurious the accommodation is, and how transcendent the testimonials sound. Neither predicts anything about safety or outcome.
The Centres
Seven centres clear the bar of operating openly, publishing a screening process and naming their facilitators. Here is how each lands against the five criteria.
| Centre | Country | Screening | Medical cover | Legal footing | Lineage & staffing | Integration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Temple of the Way of Light | Peru | Extensive published intake | On-site, plus psychological support | Traditional use recognised in Peru | Shipibo onanya, women and men, long-tenured | Structured programme |
| Ayahuasca Foundation | Peru | Published intake | On-site staff | Traditional use recognised in Peru | Shipibo maestros plus resident teachers | Courses and apprenticeships |
| Nimea Kaya | Peru | Published intake | Limited on site | Traditional use recognised in Peru | Western-owned, working with Shipibo maestros | Light |
| Spirit Vine | Brazil | Psychological screening foregrounded | Limited on site | Religious use permitted; commercial retreat use is a grey area | Western-run, resident facilitators | Structured, therapeutic framing |
| Arkana Spiritual Center | Peru | Published intake | On-site staff | Traditional use recognised in Peru | Shipibo ceremony, Western-facing staff | Moderate |
| Rythmia | Costa Rica | Published medical intake | Doctors on site | Contested (see below) | Visiting facilitators, large operation | Full wellness programme |
| Behold Retreats | Various | Screens you, then places you | Set by the partner centre | Set by the partner centre | Not its own; brokered | Concierge support |
Temple of the Way of Light (Peru)
Temple of the Way of Light sits in the jungle outside Iquitos and is probably the best-known serious centre in the world. It works with Shipibo onanya, both women and men, on week-long and longer programmes, with extensive screening and a real integration programme. Expensive, remote and intense. Suits people who want the traditional Shipibo container and can commit to a week or more. Less good for a first short exploratory retreat.
Ayahuasca Foundation (Peru)
Ayahuasca Foundation, near Iquitos, puts unusual emphasis on education, running apprenticeship and plant-study courses alongside retreats, with traditional dieta formats available. Suits people who want to understand the tradition and also experience it. Less good for somebody wanting a short structured stay with no curriculum.
Nimea Kaya (Peru)
Nimea Kaya, near Pucallpa, is smaller and Western-owned, working with Shipibo maestros, and it runs small groups. Less institutional than the Temple. Suits people wanting the traditional setting at a smaller scale. Less good for anybody who needs substantial medical infrastructure on site.
Spirit Vine (Brazil)
Spirit Vine, near Itacaré in Bahia, has run a long time and puts psychological preparation and integration ahead of ceremony volume, in small groups. On legal footing it sits in a softer version of the Rythmia question: Brazil has permitted religious use since 1987, but the CONAD framework that governs it expressly disapproves of commercial and touristic exploitation, and a Western-run therapeutic retreat is not a religious congregation. That has not caused it problems over many years of operating openly. Suits people wanting the therapeutic framing foregrounded. Less good for those seeking indigenous-lineage ceremony specifically.
Arkana Spiritual Center (Peru)
Arkana Spiritual Center runs locations in the Sacred Valley and near Iquitos, mixing Shipibo ceremony with a Western-facing programme and shorter formats than most Peruvian centres. Suits a structured first retreat in Peru. Less good for a deep traditional dieta.
Rythmia (Costa Rica)
Rythmia is the most commercial operation in the field, with doctors on site, a medical intake and a full wellness programme around the ceremonies. Two things you should weigh before booking it. Its advertising has offered a money-back “life-changing miracle” guarantee, and no plant can promise that. And its legal footing is contested: Costa Rica has no ayahuasca licensing regime, so what a centre there holds is a Ministry of Health facility licence rather than permission to serve the brew. Our own legal page sets out why Costa Rica is frequently misrepresented as a legal destination, with DMT controlled under Law 8204 and charging for ceremonies falling under trafficking provisions. Suits people who want doctors, comfort and structure, and who can read the marketing critically. Less good for anybody wanting a traditional container or a settled legal position.
Behold Retreats (various)
Behold Retreats is a placement service rather than a centre: they screen you and match you with partner facilitators, mostly for higher-cost private or small-group work. That model has a real advantage, in that they can decline you or route you elsewhere, and a real drawback, in that you are one step removed from whoever actually pours. Suits people wanting concierge handling who can pay for it. Less good for anybody who wants to vet the operating centre directly.
Longer head-to-head write-ups of these and others sit under alternatives.
When a Centre Comes Off This List
A centre comes off this list if any of the five criteria stops holding. Concretely: a documented screening failure, or a participant harm event the centre does not account for openly. A change of ownership or lead facilitators, because the container is the people and not the property. A loss of whatever legal footing it had. Integration support quietly dropped while the price stays the same. Or a shift to volume, meaning bigger groups against the same facilitator count.
The Rythmia entry is the live example. It scores well on screening and medical cover and poorly on legal footing, and if you weight the criteria differently from us you will rank it differently. Hence a table rather than a ranking.
The Cheap Ones and the Ones Near You
Retreats advertised in the United States, the United Kingdom or most of Europe are operating illegally, whatever they say about religious status. That is a structural point rather than a moral one: no licence, no insurance, no inspection, and a strong disincentive to call an ambulance. The legal position is on ayahuasca and US law and the church exemption.
On price, a serious multi-day retreat generally runs 450 to 3,000 US dollars, based on what we see across the centres we track as of 2026. Several centres in the table above sit at or above the top of that range, and Temple of the Way of Light and Rythmia sit well above it for a full week. The bottom of the range is mostly a Colombian and Peruvian cost base, not a warning sign: our own retreats sit there. What a price cannot tell you is whether the medical intake is real and whether more than one sober person stays awake through the night, and those are the questions worth asking at any price. The breakdown by country is at ayahuasca retreat cost.
How to Choose Between Them
Sort yourself before you sort the centres. There are broadly two people reading this. The first has a life that is basically intact and wants to see something more clearly, and for them a shorter structured retreat with good integration usually fits better, because a month-long jungle dieta is not the answer to a question they have not asked yet. The second is carrying something heavy and old, and there the longer traditional formats earn their length.
Then ask every centre the same questions and watch how they answer rather than what they answer. Do they ask about your medications before you ask about theirs? Do they say no to anybody? Can they tell you where the medicine comes from without a speech? Is there anything at all after you fly home? A place that welcomes those questions is a good sign, and one that treats them as a lack of trust is telling you something too.
The twelve questions worth asking, and what the answers mean, are on how to choose a safe ayahuasca retreat.
Integration Decides More Than the Centre Does
The centre matters less than most people booking one believe. A good container reduces the chance of harm and raises the chance something useful surfaces. It does not do the work.
What decides the outcome is what you do in the weeks afterwards. Ceremony without homework very rarely changes a life. I have watched people have an extraordinary night at an excellent centre, go home, change nothing, and end up back where they started. I have also watched somebody have a quiet, unremarkable ceremony and slowly reorganise their life around what they saw, because they took the after seriously.
So pick a place that screens you properly and can hold you if the night gets hard, and then plan the after. Integration is the page that carries that. All the best with the decision, wherever you land.
FAQs
What is the best ayahuasca retreat?
There is no single best one. The right centre depends on whether you want a traditional Shipibo container, a therapeutic framing or a medically-staffed structured stay, and on how long you can commit. Judge any centre on screening, medical cover, legal footing, lineage and integration support rather than on photography or testimonials.
What is the best country for an ayahuasca retreat?
Peru, Brazil and Colombia are where traditional or religious use is recognised in law, which is what allows a centre to be insured, medically staffed and held accountable. Peru has the deepest concentration of traditional Shipibo centres, and Colombia and Peru are generally the least expensive. Costa Rica is frequently listed as legal and is not: DMT is controlled there under Law 8204 and charging for ceremonies falls under trafficking provisions.
Are expensive ayahuasca retreats better?
Not reliably. Above roughly 3,000 US dollars you are usually paying for accommodation quality rather than better screening or facilitation, though several of the most experienced centres do sit above that range. At the low end, price often reflects the local cost base rather than a corner being cut, which is why Colombian and Peruvian retreats can be inexpensive and still well run. Ask what the price includes instead of reading the number.
Which ayahuasca retreat centres can I verify?
The ones that operate openly, publish a screening process and name their facilitators and lineage. That includes Temple of the Way of Light, Ayahuasca Foundation and Nimea Kaya in Peru, Spirit Vine in Brazil, Arkana, and Rythmia in Costa Rica. Being checkable is not the same as being right for you, and one of those has a contested legal position.
Are there good ayahuasca retreats in the US?
Ayahuasca is illegal in every US state, so a domestic retreat cannot be licensed, insured or inspected. Some underground circles are careful and experienced, and there is no external standard letting you tell which from outside, which is the problem. See ayahuasca and US law.
How do I know if a retreat is legitimate?
Ask what would disqualify you, and see whether they have an answer. A legitimate centre screens medical history and medications before accepting you, turns people away, names its facilitators and their experience, can say where the medicine comes from, and offers something after you leave. An organisation that cannot answer those specifically usually has nothing specific to answer with.
Oliver
