Full-Service Retreats In Naivasha, Kenya
We have a lot of flexibility to customize our offering to your needs. The right shape for your retreat depends on who you are, what you are trying to create, and what kind of partnership will serve that best. A short conversation makes most of it clear.
What follows is the range of work that happens at Ishq. Different modalities. Different audiences. The same land, the same hosts, the same standard of care.
Every retreat at Ishq can be paired with our adventure programme — cycling and walking safaris in Hell’s Gate, game drives in Nakuru and Soy Sambu, the walking safari on Crescent Island, and the volcanic crater lake on the escarpment above Naivasha.
Two Ways to Be Here — Attend or Host
There are two ways to be at Ishq for a retreat. You can attend one of the retreats we run ourselves. Or you can bring your own group and run your retreat in Kenya at our venue.
Both happen on the same land, with the same staff, the same chef, and the same standard of care. What changes is who is leading the work.
Attend a Retreat We Run
The retreats we run ourselves use a somatic group process for those ready to do real inner work. Most are co-facilitated by Heath and Jana.
These retreats happen several times a year. They are limited in size. The work is serious and so is the application process — we have a short conversation with everyone before confirming a place, because the wrong fit hurts both the participant and the group.
The kinds of retreats we run:
Foundations retreats — for participants new to the work
Deepening retreats — for participants who have done the foundations and are continuing
Leadership retreats in Kenya for founders and executives — depth work specifically tuned for people who lead
Couples and partnership retreats — held by Heath and Jana for couples doing the work together
Contact us to learn about upcoming retreat dates.
Host Your Retreat at Ishq
If you are a facilitator, a yoga teacher, a coach, an organisation leader, or a community holder — you can bring your retreat in Kenya here.
We host facilitators bringing groups across the full range of work: yoga retreats in Kenya, healing retreats, somatic and trauma-informed retreats, leadership retreats, corporate retreats, women’s circles, men’s work, plant medicine integration, writing retreats, executive off-sites. The shala holds twenty in circle. The property sleeps twenty across the main house and cottages. The four-night minimum applies. We can host up to thirty utilizing neighboring cottages with advance notice.
What you bring: your work, your participants, your facilitation. What we bring: the land, the venue, the meals, the staff, the logistics, the visa support, the airport transport, and the felt sense of a Kenya retreat center actually held by hosts who are present.
For first-time facilitators bringing a group to Kenya, we provide more support. Pre-retreat consultation. Program design help. Whatever you need to make the leap. For experienced facilitators who have run retreats elsewhere, we tend to step back and let your work happen — present if you need us, out of the way if you do not.
Why Facilitators Come Here
A handful of things, repeatedly, in our conversations with facilitators who have run retreats at Ishq and elsewhere:
The land does part of the work. Sessions land faster. Participants arrive more open than expected.
The container is genuinely held. Operational details disappear. Facilitators can focus on the facilitation.
The shala is one of the few practice spaces in Kenya designed for serious work, not for marketing photos.
Heath and Jana are facilitators themselves, so the support comes from people who know what facilitators actually need.
Kenya works as a destination for international participants. Africa has a power. The journey is part of the offering.
Yoga Retreats
A yoga retreat in Naivasha at Ishq is held in our 130-square-metre shala, on land that does much of the work itself, with full board from our private chef.
We host yoga teachers from Kenya and abroad. All styles. All traditions. From slow-paced restorative weeks to the more demanding ashtanga and vinyasa immersions. The shala holds twenty people in circle. The land holds whatever the practice asks of it.
What you bring: your students, your sequencing, your voice. What we bring: the space, the meals, the logistics, the staff, the land. Optional add-ons include sound healing, in-house massage, and integration walks down to the river.
For yoga teachers who have done retreats elsewhere and are looking for a Kenya retreat venue that meets the seriousness of the work — this is that place.
Healing Retreats
A healing retreat in Kenya at Ishq is for the work that asks more than a yoga week can hold. Somatic process. Trauma-informed practice. Breath work. Plant medicine integration. The slower, deeper modalities that need a container most retreat venues are not built for.
We host facilitators in this space and we run our own healing and wellness retreats here using the Avalon methodology. Either way, what makes Ishq function as a healing retreat in Kenya is not just the shala — it is the cottages where integration can happen alone, the team that holds the practical container so the facilitator does not have to, the land that does part of the work itself.
For trauma-informed and somatic practitioners specifically: this land at this elevation in this ecology creates conditions that accelerate the work. Participants consistently arrive more open than they expect, often more quickly than the standard first-session timeline assumes.
Corporate Retreats
A corporate retreat at Ishq is what an offsite becomes when it stops being a slide deck in a hotel.
We host corporate groups of eight to twenty for full-service off-sites. Exclusive use of the property. Three meals a day. The shala for any structured sessions. The garden, the river walks, and the firepit for the conversations that actually move things. We can run it as a facilitated experience or step back and let your team’s own facilitator run it. Startups and accelerators regularly use our space for focused sprints and sessions.
There is something about the land that loosens the patterns people brought with them from the office. Conversations go deeper. Trust forms faster. The work the team came to do gets done, and the team that goes home is not quite the same team that arrived.
This is also one of the more accessible corporate retreats in Kenya — ninety minutes from Nairobi, transport handled, dietary needs understood, internet that actually works. For Nairobi-based teams, we offer day-use options. For international teams, we handle the visa support and ground transport from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
Family & friends Safari Retreats
A family safari in Kenya at Ishq is built around one simple principle: when your group arrives, the gates close behind you. Fourteen guests. Nine bedrooms. One private estate. No one else.
Ishq is an exclusive-use property — which means no other guests, no shared spaces, no compromises on privacy. For five nights, the estate is entirely yours: the land, the staff, the kitchen, the fire.
Set at 2,000 metres in the mountains above Lake Naivasha, Ishq sits at the centre of one of East Africa’s most rewarding game-viewing regions. Nakuru National Park is thirty minutes away. Hell’s Gate, Soy Sambu Conservancy and Crescent Island are closer still. The Maasai Mara is three hours south.
The altitude keeps temperatures mild year-round — cool mornings, clear afternoons, no humidity. This is the Kenya that visitors who know the country well choose for themselves.
The estate. Nine bedrooms sleeping up to fourteen guests. A 130-square-metre open-air shala built for groups. Mountain bikes, trails through acacia forest, a trampoline, yard games and a bonfire pit. A private chef and full kitchen staff in residence for the duration. Fast satellite internet if you need it. The property sits on the Malewa River in Nakuru County. The forest along the banks holds vervet monkeys and fish eagles. At night, the Rift Valley sky is unobstructed.
The food. The kitchen has been trained in Lebanese and international cooking — mezze, slow-cooked meats, fresh-baked bread, grilled proteins. Every meal is made from scratch; dietary requirements handled individually. Food built for long tables and unhurried evenings.
Adventures and Day Trips
Ishq is well known for its activities and we help facilitate adventures for our guests. Optional Safari Add-ons are available. The estate itself is the still point — the land, the shala, the river, the long table. The adventures are what’s around it. Every retreat can be paired with one or more of the following, structured around your group’s pace and rhythm.
Hell’s Gate National Park
One of only two national parks in Kenya where visitors cycle and walk freely among wildlife. Zebra and gazelle graze along the bike path; rock climbers work the gorge walls. After cycling, the route descends into a narrow canyon with geothermal springs at the bottom — you can swim in the pools.
Crescent Island
A walking safari with no fences and no vehicles. Giraffe, wildebeest, waterbuck and zebra share the island with visitors on foot. Guides from the Maasai community lead the walks. Lunch at Carnelley’s on the lakeshore after.
Nakuru National Park
Thirty minutes from the estate. One of Kenya’s most wildlife-dense parks: black and white rhino, lion, leopard, buffalo and the endangered Rothschild giraffe. The alkaline lake draws tens of thousands of flamingos when conditions are right. Morning and afternoon game drives.
Soy Sambu Conservancy
A private conservancy on the Rift Valley floor, directly adjacent to Nakuru. No entrance queues, no tourist vehicles. Open grassland connecting to the wider wildlife corridor — zebra, gazelle, eland and resident predators on a drive that belongs entirely to your group.
Crater Lake
A volcanic crater lake set within forest on the escarpment above Naivasha. A short steep walk to the rim, and a view across the full floor of the Rift Valley. Lunch at a working ranch nearby.
How Adventures Are Arranged
Most groups choose two or three adventures across a retreat — typically one half-day, one full-day, and one shorter excursion. We coordinate the logistics: vehicles, guides, park fees, picnic provisions from the kitchen. The estate becomes the base camp; the country becomes the day’s work.
For longer retreats, the Maasai Mara is three hours south and we can arrange one- to four-night extensions for groups who want to see the great migration country before flying out.
Private Rental
The full property is available for private rental. Exclusive use. Full staff on hand. No program.
For individuals and couples who need real time away. For families wanting a private week in the Rift Valley. For small groups of friends. For facilitators in residence working on their own material. For writers, artists, and anyone for whom a Naivasha retreat without an agenda is exactly the offering.
Day Use from Nairobi
For Nairobi-based teams, retreat groups, and gatherings, Ishq is available for day use on weekdays.
Drive up in the morning. Spend the day in the shala, on the grounds, around the table. Drive back to Nairobi in the evening — or stay the night if a half-day extension makes sense. For a corporate offsite from Nairobi, a workshop, a board retreat, or a gathering that needs the right room and the right land but not necessarily an overnight, day use is the offering.
This is one of the most accessible retreat experiences near Nairobi available in Kenya. Ninety minutes each way. Same land. Same hosts. Same staff. Compressed into a day.
Optional Add-Ons
Co-facilitation by Heath and Jana
In-house massage and bodywork
Day safari to Lake Naivasha and Hell’s Gate National Park
Overnight Maasai Mara extension (one to four nights)
Custom program design and pre-retreat consultation
Full adventure programming