Loved it and can wait to return! Great hosts, location and experience. The Best Panama Yoga Retreat !

This place is such a gem! Within a 2 hour drive from busy Panama City I find myself at a nature resort. Beautiful spacious cabins, very very tasty healthy food and a lovely family Davis to welcome you! Playa grande at a 7 minute walk, sandy beach and far from crowded! I have been here several times and it was a treat to myself every time again. Recommended for each one who needs some rest, finally read that book or have a beach walk on your own, even one night is worth it!

Wonderful stay at this beautiful place. Very peaceful and serene. Short walk to black sand beaches. Family owned and operated and they are such pleasant people! The yoga offered was great too. Highly recommend staying here

This is our own experience at Itmos, a week in December. It's a nice place with a lot of trees, birds and sometimes you can see iguanas. The bungalows got a terrace, two big beds with good mattresses and a shower room. Sean welcomed us at the parking lot. We won't see his wife. We rent with kitchen option, which is a former bangalow next to our unit. It's practical since the food delivery option didn't fit our taste. WiFi was very good. Sean was kind enough to lend us his own kettle and a little bottle of wine was waiting for us in the kitchen. But there are some flaws indeed. This nice business lacks of maintenance and a real good cleaning. Especially in the shower room and kitchen. The paths as well need to be improved with more gravels and less dead leaves. The decoration of the room isn't very exiting, a new paint (with colors) would be ideal, everywhere. To get hot water (not everytime) you have to wait for 3 mn, it's a lot of water spoiled. Also we had some disturbances with four days of brush cutter. But the worst has been the barking dogs from the neighbour. And that wasn't good to get rest. However the owners' dogs are quiet and adorable. Plugs are only US kind and no adaptor for the rest of the world, don't forget yours. The day before our check-out we didn't have hot water and nobody was there... Except the gardener who worked with his noisy and polluting machine for three hours. And for the last night a dog barked until midnight. Unfortunately for us, too much for people looking for relaxation...

I operate a small sea kayaking and cultural tour outfit that does trips in Guna Yala (aka San Blas Islands) on the Caribbean of Panama. I discovered Istmo on the Pacific coast and created my dream itinerary of combining a 4-day stay and yoga retreat at Istmo with a 4-day sea kayaking, snorkeling, and cultural adventure in Guna Yala. Both coasts! Along with my co-leader (the yoga instructor @yogacurrents), and our group we had a GREAT time at Istmo. It's a wonderful place for a yoga retreat:) Way before our trip started, Ayesha was professional, straight-forward and prompt with her emails. She answered hundreds of questions for us and made sure that we were taken care of. She arranged an airport pick-up for us and everything went really smoothly. The grounds are beautiful, peaceful and inspiring. Birds, flowers and trees everywhere. I love the hammock pavilion with a view! It was very easy to slip into "yoga vacation" mode, which is exactly what I wanted my guests to feel. I am happy that we chose to do Istmo before the San Blas portion. We were greeted with ice cold hibiscus tea and shown our lovely accommodations in very clean cabanas, tucked into the trees. The yoga studio is a great space, that makes you feel like you are in nature. It's a great benefit that they offer mats, blocks, straps, and blankets. Istmo is a short walk to the beach, which we took advantage of to watch the sunset each evening and go swimming. The add-on activities that Istmo arranges are wonderful additions to the trip. Some of us enjoyed stand-up-paddling, while others had a great time on the El Valle tour, which included a trip to a zoo and canopy zip lining. We had a 12-year old with our group, who raved about this tour! One of the highlights of Istmo is the quality of the food. I had read many reviews that said this as well. Sean (co-owner) is a fabulous chef. The meals were perfect portions, delicious and nutritious. It was so great to have fresh fruit and fresh juice waiting for us after our morning yoga session. They were also very accommodating to offer us a packed lunch on the day that we left to go to San Blas. The smoothies for sale are also amazing! Sean, Ayesha, and their two kids, are super friendly and made us feel very welcome. We really enjoyed spending time with them during down-time at the retreat. We are already planning our Jan 2019 Yoga/Kayak/SUP/Snorkel Retreat and are very excited to use Istmo (hopefully) again and again. I recommend Istmo for a retreat!

We stayed with our 2 young kids (2,5yo & 6mo) at Istmo and had an absolute fantastic time! Sean and Ayesha were great hosts, going the extra mile for each and anyone of their guests. We really appreciated their hospitality, local knowledge and efforts to make our vacation as comfortable as possible! What an amazing setting, we enjoyed the view of humming birds and other beautiful birds while having breakfast or a drink so much! The food is delicious, with a focus on local, fresh food. The rooms are spacious, with comfortable beds ( where we tend to be very picky about), a nice balcony, enough privacy. We were impressed by the housekeeping as we found our room clean & crisp every single day! I really enjoyed the yoga classes as an absolute beginner... it must be the nicest setting possible for a studio... In the middle of a jungle with sounds of nature surrounding you! The beautiful beach is another asset, the black and white sand make it so unique. Istmo is a real gem where we really felt at home during our stay. If there's anything to mention on the downside, it's the lack of a pool on the domain, but really, that shouldn't hold you back to visit!

I wish that I were in a hammock at Istmo right now! I would highly recommend Istmo Yoga and Adventure Retreat. We had a wonderful, relaxing time, from the morning yoga to the afternoons at the beach. The biggest surprise was the food. It was some of the best food I have ever had! I would go there just to eat. Both owners were incredibly accommodating. All of the outings that we went on were fun and it was great to see more of Panama.

This place is something else! friendly hosts, walking distance to the beach! Relaxing, great balcony, away from everything! SUPER ULTRA CLEAN room! Sean & Ashia thank you

Beautiful place located 5min (walking) from the beach. The Cabañas are simple but clean and equipped with an AC. Customer service is nice and friendly, the breakfast was big and delicious! :)

Istmo is a tropical paradise! The design of the retreat center is beautiful with a yoga house and dining area, a hammock hut, a labyrinth and nature trail, not to mention it's a 5 minute walk from the most beautiful beach! We paddle boarded, surfed, hiked and visited an indigenous tribe as some of the activities offered. Ayeasha and Sean were wonderful hosts and their children and dogs, Mia, Luna, and Sunny are lovely. We had delicious vegetarian food every day with the option to add fish or chicken.Smoothies were offered every morning! Additionally, the rooms had air conditioning and were cleaned every day. The whole staff was wonderful! I would definitely go back.

It was an amazing experience at Istmo retreat!! My first time there / Panama but plan on coming back. During my stay I felt so at peace with the surroundings, the area, and the owners were fantastic! Only thing was not enough time there! Great reason to come back. Missing all the wonderful fresh food created by Sean!! Need those recipes. Please ❤️ Missing it and your sweet pups too❤️ Warmly, Lori

I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Istmo Yoga and Adventure Retreat! The property is nestled in the jungle with a beautiful building for yoga, a labyrinth and much more! Don't forget the animals - birds, iguanas, monkeys, etc. Hosts Sean and Ayesha were very welcoming and truly planned ahead for every detail of our stay. Chef Sean created wonderful meals for us using a lot of food that was grown there on the property. If you've never had fresh mango from Panama, you are missing out!! Sean even packed us breakfast to take with us the morning we left for the airport! The bungalows were nicely decorated, very clean, well kept, and the beds were super comfortable! Lastly, Istmo is only a short walk to the beautiful Playa Grande beach. There were hardly any people there and the water was warm. Perfection! You don't have to do yoga to enjoy Istmo. I would love to stay there again and if you are looking for a place in Panama, check out Istmo!!

Thoroughly enjoyed our stay here. We came with friends and had the two cottage bungalows with a kitchen. It was a nice set up to share with friends. There are plenty of places to relax in a hammock or a patio chair and the beach nearby is very nice. Lots of sand, not many people (during the week at least when we went), and plenty of trees for shade. We'll be back. Only note of caution is that the road in from the highway requires you to pay attention. Nothing dangerous, you just need be alert for the bumps and dips.

A great peaceful jungle getaway with a secluded black sand beach less than 10 minutes walk away. The hosts Sean and Ayesha are awesome and were so helpful in helping us find things to do locally. Comfortable beds and clean spaces!

We enjoyed everything about this place, it's beautiful and comfortable. The hosts were super nice and had some great recommendations. We will definitely be back

My wife and I stayed at Istmo for a 24-day yoga teacher training. The training was intense and at times really physically and emotionally demanding. I cannot thank everyone at Istmo for their work to make us feel safe and well taken care of. We had the double room. The beds were very comfortable, AC worked awesome and had a timer (which was perfect to get back to a nice cool room after dinner), clean and comfortable sheets, water pressure was perfect. I heard hot water was slow to arrive, but who needs that in Panama! Seriously. The yoga studio is beautiful and we spent many hours doing yoga and meditating with the sounds of crickets and other wonderful insects. The place is a bit rustic and that was perfect for our experience. Not having wifi reach our room was also very welcome way to disconnect. This is still nature so there are insects and all kinds of sounds, although surprisingly almost no mosquitos. We were there Aug-Sep and there was rain many days, but mostly a lot of grumbling from the sky :) The food as other reviewers say is fantastic. Aisha and Sean are nice to talk to about many topics and it was wonderful to get to know them. I wish you lots of continued success with the retreat <3