Sometimes, a week on vacation is not enough of an escape from the mental stress leftover from daily responsibilities and social media notifications. Increasingly, travelers are finding respite in meditation retreats—daylong or multiday workshops during which participants engage in meditation and other mindfulness practices.
But you needn’t journey to a mountaintop monastery in Thailand or an ashram in India to give your mind a break. There are numerous meditation and Zen centers across the United States where you can deep-breathe your way to tranquility. Some focus on traditional schools of Buddhist teachings, such as Zen (which originated in China and is influenced by Taoist teachings) and Theravadan (which is the oldest school of Buddhism and is practiced widely in Southeast Asia). Some are hybrids and incorporate additional theological meditation practices (from Hinduism and Taoism, for example) and other mindfulness practices, including yoga or forest bathing. Many offer silent retreats.
Here, we’ve rounded up some of the best meditation retreat centers across the United States, so you can soul-seek without using all your miles.
Guests at Esalen in Big Sur, California, spend much of their time soaking in views of the Pacific Ocean.
Photo by Angie Smith; design by Emily Blevins
1. Esalen Institute
- Location: Big Sur, California
- Visit: www.esalen.org
Overlooking the Pacific Ocean on California’s rocky Central Coast, Esalen is part retreat center, part educational institute for philosophical theory and research. It’s just a three-hour drive from San Francisco and six-plus hours (taking into account a road closure south of the property) from Los Angeles. A number of Esalen’s retreats focus specifically on Buddhist, tantric, and other types of meditation. However, the center also offers integrative weekend and weeklong workshops throughout the year covering a wide range of topics—including dance, yoga, leadership, permaculture, and scientific inquiry.
Guests can opt for a premium room with en suite bathroom and ocean views, book a bunk bed in a dormitory, or reserve space to roll out a sleeping bag in a common area. The more than 100-acre campus includes a farm, gardens, art studio, bookstore, and clothing-optional cliffside bathhouse and natural hot springs. Since its founding in 1962, Esalen has attracted famous visitors and residents, such as Henry Miller, Joan Baez, Richard Feynman, Hunter S. Thompson, and Don Draper.
2. Drala Mountain Center
- Location: Red Feather Lakes, Colorado
- Visit: https://www.dralamountain.org
The Drala Mountain Center, two hours north of Denver, is high in the Rocky Mountains and surrounded by pine and aspen forests. It was established in 1971 by Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, who also founded the Shambhala secular meditation practice, which welcomes people from all faiths and backgrounds to seek an enlightened community grounded in basic goodness.
The center holds more than 100 programs per year, including introductions to meditation, deep dives into different practices, and multidisciplinary offerings that incorporate Indigenous traditions, body awareness practices, contemplative arts, and more. Accommodations vary, too, from well-appointed lodge rooms to shared dormitories to tents. The site is also home to the 108-foot-tall Great Stupa of Dharmakaya, one of the largest stupa (Buddhist shrine) in North America, which is reminiscent of the hilltop Swayambhunath Mahachaitya monkey temple in Kathmandu; it was built to honor Trungpa Rinpoche when he died.
Participants practice zazen, the form of meditation at the very heart of Zen practice, at Zen Mountain Monastery in the Catskills.
Courtesy of Zen Mountain Monastery; design by Emily Blevins
3. Zen Mountain Monastery
- Location: Mount Tremper, New York
- Visit: zmm.org
Set on 250 acres in the Catskills two-and-a-half-hours northwest of New York City, the Zen Mountain Monastery teaches Western Zen Buddhism. The modern and distinctly American practice draws on the traditions of Zen Buddhism as they evolved in ancient China and Japan. Curious newbies can sign up for the monastery’s Beginning Instruction sessions every other Sunday and on the second Wednesday of each month, or participate in a weekend retreat.
The center also offers longer programs, from one month to one year, during which residents have the opportunity to learn more about integrating their practice into everyday life. Visitors stay in dorms (for short courses) or private rooms (for longer retreats), and the main building, which was built as a Benedictine monastery, is a national and state historic landmark. The Zen Mountain Monastery also has a location in New York City and offers online practice groups.
4. Rolling Meadows
- Location: Brooks, Maine
- Visit: rollingmeadowsretreat.com/maine-retreats/
Intimate Rolling Meadows offers a handful of silent meditation and yoga retreats each year at its restored 1840s New England farmhouse. It’s two hours from Portland, Maine, and seven hours from New York City (and more than worth the travel time). The interdisciplinary approach here combines yoga poses, meditation, and breathwork (which has its roots in yoga, tai chi, and Buddhism) to encourage participants through personal transformation to a higher level of awareness.
Unstructured time is also a cornerstone of these meditation retreats and sets them apart from others. Guests are encouraged to stroll along walking paths and through the flower and organic vegetable gardens of the 100-acre property, relax in the sunroom or library, or unwind in the wood-fired sauna as a valuable part of the experience. Meals are vegetarian and feature produce from those same on-site gardens.
Find solitude in the Northern California countryside at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
Photo by Stacy Evett-Miller/Spirit Rock Meditation Center; design by Emily Blevins
5. Spirit Rock Meditation Center
- Location: Woodacre, California
- Visit: spiritrock.org
Despite being less than an hour outside of San Francisco, just across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County, Spirit Rock seems worlds away from any metropolitan hustle and bustle on its 411 acres of quiet, hilly countryside. The primary meditative practice here is a mindful Vipassana, or insight meditation, which is rooted in the Theravada tradition. The teachings at Spirit Rock also draw on other practices, including mindfulness through breathing and loving-kindness meditation, which focuses on compassion. All levels are welcome here, whether you’re looking to dip your toe into a two-hour drop-in group or commit to a silent retreat. The center also offers classes online.
6. Insight Meditation Society
- Location: Barre, Massachusetts
- Visit: dharma.org
Set in the peaceful central Massachusetts countryside about 90 minutes from Boston, the Insight Meditation Society teaches awareness and compassion through Vipassana and loving-kindness meditations. The wooded campus consists of two facilities: the Retreat Center, which offers more than 30 courses that range from a weekend to three months, and the Forest Refuge, which welcomes experienced meditators (who’ve completed a minimum of six weeks in past structured retreats) for as much as a year or more. Guests spend their days in silent practice, alternating sitting and walking meditations, enjoying vegetarian meals, and sleeping in simple single rooms.
Pair meditation with yoga or an Ayurvedic experience at the Art of Living Retreat Center in North Carolina.
Courtesy of Art of Living Retreat Center; design by Emily Blevins
7. Art of Living Retreat Center
- Location: Boone, North Carolina
- Visit: artoflivingretreatcenter.org
The 380-acre Art of Living Retreat Center in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina is based on the ideals of the eponymous movement started by the humanitarian and spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in 1981. About three hours from Raleigh and two from Asheville, its multidisciplinary offerings include happiness, silent, yoga, and meditation retreats.
One of the center’s biggest draws is its Ayurvedic wellness programs. Ayurveda, a sister science of yoga, approaches wellness based on a person’s constitution. There are three different constitutions, and at the Art of Living Retreat Center, guests can learn how to improve their diets and lifestyles based on them. All programs can be supplemented with Ayurvedic treatments, so you can pair bodily health with mental well-being. Guests can choose between boutique hotel rooms and simpler retreat rooms.
8. Cloud Mountain Retreat Center
- Location: Castle Rock, Washington
- Visit: cloudmountain.org
Built by a U.S. military veteran who encountered Buddhism while serving in Guam during the Vietnam War, Cloud Mountain is deep in the woods of southwest Washington, between Seattle and Portland, Oregon. The nonsectarian center hosts retreats that range from 3 to 13 nights, for a wide variety of experience levels, with a central focus on Theravadin teachings and bodhicitta (striving to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings). Since 2019, Cloud Mountain has also included a nuns’ initiative in its programming, hosting retreats led by former ordained nuns (bhikkhunis) and ex-nuns, with the goal of making the center more welcoming to women and nonbinary practitioners. Retreats are silent—after all, who wants to spoil the natural sounds of a 15-acre campus that’s full of wildlife, from deer and owls to river otters and black bears? Single rooms are available, though tent or van camping is also permitted, and meals are vegetarian—check out the Cloud Mountain Cookbook online.
This article was originally published in January 2020 and was most recently updated in July 2025 to include new information.
