For the new year, I’m planning on taking some time away from the computer to contemplate the next few months, practice some yoga and do some quiet meditation. While searching around for a retreat location, I kept running into meditation retreats and centers that had some sweet tiny houses, yurts and cabins for rent. Each of them are also located in some beautiful locations.
Staying at one of these meditation or yoga retreats is not only a good way to cleanse your body and soul, but you can also get some great tiny house and small space ideas.
The Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm in Grass Valley, California teaches classical yoga, ayurveda, vegetarian cooking, jyotish and vedic sciences, and permaculture. You and your family can stay in several different accommodations including a tent, a dorm and shared or individual cabins located in a beautiful valley.
The El Capitan Canyon luxury nature lodging (a little out of my range) is not a spiritual retreat, but does offer some beautiful cabins and yurts to stay in on the California Coast. The center offers massage, food and room packages and tours of the coastal area. You can stay in safari canvas tents, yurts and tiny cabins with names like “Peace Tree”, “Lone Stone” and “Shaded Creek”.
The San Francisco Zen Center at Tassajara offers an introduction to Zen meditation and has several places you can stay like wooden yurts and Japanese tatami cabins. The center is quiet, rustic, gets its power from solar energy and offers vegetarian meals. The redwood yurts like the one shown above have views of trees and mountains and can accommodate up to three guests.
Affordable retreat cabins which happen to be next to bubbling waterfalls are available at Spirit Falls in Pine, Arizona. The small cabins (Cave of the Heart, Hopi Creek and Bodhi’s Place) are located in the pine trees with views of local wildlife like elk, deer and hawks.
Photos by Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm, El Capitan Canyon, San Francisco Zen Center, Spirit Falls
By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]
Know any places like this on the east coast?
I would be interested in knowing that as well!
I can tell you Long Beach Island in NJ is affordable. PA state parks have some nice cabins but you have to reserve way in advance.
Wishing you good karma.
Thank you for the information, Dennis.
Do you know of any in the Midwest?
Yes, I too would be interested in an a retreat within a days drive of Chicago.
Woolman Hill in Deerfield, MA has tiny cabins (they aren’t as polished as these…but they are very sweet).
Thank you Dawn and Susan for more information on tiny spiritual retreats. Many of these centers understand the appeal of small hermitages.
For the person asking about individual retreat facilities near Chicago, Liberation Park in Wisconsin is one such place (liberationpark.org), about 4 hours north of Chicago near La Crosse. Buddhist based, they have got two cabins built so far, I think.