At Barefoot Yoga Retreats, we believe that yoga and travel are perfect together.
Many yoga retreats isolate you in a retreat center, where you are surrounded by people, food, and customs that are familiar to you. With Barefoot Yoga Retreats, we take you deep into the natural and cultural wonders of unique islands. We want you to have a life-changing, authentic travel experience. We want you to talk to people with wildly different ideas, taste flavors you have never heard of, and see animal life you never knew existed. We want you to hear a local band play, explore village streets, and spend time giving service to people that you hardly know. We want you to feel, even momentarily, that you are in a different world altogether than the one you live in.
It is sometimes only in these moments of feeling lost that you find your true self.
As Anthony Bourdain said of travel writers, Barefoot Yoga Retreat travelers “seem to seek not just other places, but their own place – as if trying to position themselves in a large and ever-shifting landscape.”
The practice of yoga is similar to the experience of traveling. The poet Danna Foulds describes yoga as “a journey and a coming home.” Just like geographic travel, the biophysical and emotional travel of a yogic path pushes us to experience every unknown sensation, so that we can find our center. Why do we bother putting our knees behind our ears, or our feet high in the air while perched precariously on one hand? We are learning to observe ourselves through the journey of sensations. Every day and every pose are completely new and different, as our minds and bodies are changing constantly. As yogis, we try to experience every possible combination of sensations, and then we learn to identify the one and only thing that stays constant throughout every single asana and meditation: that we call our true self.
Join us on our journeys around the globe. Discover an island that is beyond your wildest dreams, and at the same time, find your home.
Islands have it all...
Marine life, jungles and mountains, storied histories, unique cuisines. When you step onto an island, you feel like the whole world has been shrunk down and fit onto your little mass of stone and sand.
Because of their isolation, islands are known for their very high rates of endemism – that means that they have high numbers of plants and animals that are found nowhere else on earth. The concept of endemism extends beyond biology. The little worlds created by island isolation led to the evolution of beautifully unique cultures, languages, food, and art. The diversity of experience you can have when island hopping is mind-blowing; just jumping over a channel of water from one rock to another will lead you to brand new sights and sensations.
Although each island is remarkably different, they also share a commonality that is intangible and almost indescribable. Island people are warm and loving, welcoming and heartfelt. Island people are in touch with nature and grounded by this connection. Islands are the perfect place for deep, enjoyable journeys.
Barefoot Yoga Retreats, LLC, is owned and operated by husband-and-wife team Dan and Melissa Bos. We live on the Hamakua coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. We have a 2-year old son, Julian, and one more son on the way.
Melissa has traveled to over 40 islands in 18 countries around the world, primarily working as a coral reef scientist and conservationist. Dan has traveled throughout Micronesia and Europe and has lived in the Southern Philippines.
We love adventures.
We once walked across two countries with nothing but our baby in one backpack and a few supplies in another backpack. We love yoga. We practice as a family and think that our toddler does the cutest down dog in the world (yes, we are biased.)