TL;DR — Why Costa Rica has become one of the main destinations for ayahuasca outside the Amazon: the legal situation, the landscape, the ease of travel, and what to look for in a retreat once you arrive.
Every week, people fly into San José from Toronto, Denver, London and Amsterdam with the same plan: a few days in the mountains, a ceremony or two, and a return home changed. Costa Rica has quietly become one of the most important places in the world for ayahuasca outside of the Amazon itself. This is why, and what it means for someone choosing a retreat here.
The legal ground is clear
Neither the plants used to prepare ayahuasca nor the traditional brew are prohibited in Costa Rica: they do not appear on the list of controlled substances, which covers DMT as an isolated or synthesized substance. There is no law that specifically regulates ceremonies either. Ayahuasca has no sanitary registration here, and the Ministry of Health stated in January 2025 that its therapeutic use is not authorized. Within that space, retreats have operated openly in the country for many years, which is very different from the situation in the United States or most of Europe, and for many of our guests it is the first reason they looked at Costa Rica at all. This is not legal advice; if you have a legal question, ask a lawyer.
The absence of specific regulation cuts both ways. Nobody licenses facilitators or inspects ceremony spaces, so the quality of a retreat depends entirely on the people who run it. We hold our ceremonies as a traditional practice, not as a medical treatment, and we make no therapeutic claims. We have written separately about what to ask before you book. The short version: group size, screening, who is in the room, and what happens the next morning.
A landscape built for this
Our retreat sits in the mountains near San Isidro del General, in the Pérez Zeledón region of the southern Pacific. Cloud forest above, tropical valley below, and at night a sky with more stars than most of our guests have seen in years. The climate is mild, the air is clean, and the sounds are birds, insects and rain.
This is not decoration. A ceremony is a vulnerable night, and the place it happens in shapes it. The same medicine taken in a city apartment and taken on a covered terrace looking over a valley are different experiences. Costa Rica, and especially its mountain regions, offers the kind of setting that lets people settle, which is the first thing that has to happen before anything else can.
Close enough to come, far enough to leave everything behind
From much of North America, San José is a direct flight of three to six hours. From there it is about three and a half to four hours by road to San Isidro del General, where we collect our guests. Compared with the two or three days it can take to reach a center deep in the Peruvian Amazon, Costa Rica makes a four-day retreat possible in a week away from work.
Costa Rica is also, by the standards of the region, safe, stable and easy to move around in. Tourism is a mature industry here; the roads, the airport, the hotels and the healthcare system are all built for visitors. For someone traveling alone to do something they are already nervous about, that matters.
The tradition here
Ayahuasca did not originate in Costa Rica, and we do not pretend otherwise. What Costa Rica does have is its own indigenous heritage, the Bribri, Cabecar and Teribe peoples among them, with their own relationship to plants and to the land. Our family carries that lineage, and it shapes how we hold ceremony: not as a performance of Amazonian tradition, but as work rooted in the place where it happens. The medicine itself we grow and prepare on our own land, which is rare, and which we consider the foundation of everything else.
What to look for once you have chosen the country
Costa Rica has retreats of every kind. Large medically licensed centers with spa facilities and groups of thirty. Small family-run places like ours with a handful of guests. And, unfortunately, people offering ceremonies with no screening and no experience, because nothing stops them. The country gets you to the right region. It does not choose the retreat for you.
Ask how many people will be in the ceremony. Ask what they need to know about your health before they take your money. Ask who leads the night and whether they stay sober and present through all of it. Ask what happens the morning after. Read reviews on more than one site, including the critical ones. Then decide.
If that process brings you to us, you will find a valley, a family, a small group, and a ceremony held with the seriousness it deserves. If it brings you somewhere else that answers those questions well, we are glad you asked them.