Visitors are now able to access Esalen as well as other businesses and trails in northern Big Sur via twice-daily convoys on Highway 1 operated by Caltrans.
Convoys run only at 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. each day. These are the only opportunities to travel into and out of Big Sur, so visitors must plan accordingly.
Life can present a series of unexpected and expected transitions. What if you could spend time savoring, growing, and transforming during the in-between times — those welcomed and unwelcome pauses?
Society is shifting. We all can experience feelings of “stuckness.” The collective restlessness, the ache for meaningful change and conscious awareness is real. Esalen calls on the unique part of us that yearns to grow. When we embrace our growth potential, the Esalen way is to ask: Why not try something new? Why not try something a little different?
When personal and professional know-how is holistically fostered, we can go onward to our next opportunity with new experience, marketable skills, and a greater connection with self, knowing that we took risks and explored our vulnerabilities.
What if we leveraged our lived experiences as caring leaders, and applied those best practices out into the world?
Esalen is reimagining how we function on campus. We have a progressive vision for addressing the inefficiencies, the environmental and humanistic damage that our current societal systems perpetuate. As pioneers of the human potential movement, we are passionate and ambitious. Esalen is creating a blueprint for a sustainable educational kitchen and hospitality model. REEP, a work/live/learn cohort system, revolutionizes current paradigms through transformational experiences and educational opportunities that are embedded into a weekly schedule.
In recognizing and respecting the roles each person plays within the Esalen ecosystem — from gardener and dishwasher to housekeeper and steward — we are working toward producing creative solutions around waste and nutrition using a local, regenerative approach, and cultivating the art of cleaning and clearing spaces with mindfulness and love. The goal? A professional working model where people and the environment are harmoniously productive.
September 21 – December 13, 2025
December 14, 2025 – March 7, 2026
March 8 – May 30, 2026
THE SERVICE COMPONENT
A three month on-site work program, REEP is designed to help you reset and reimagine, heal and explore, and learn about yourself — all while working in service to the community. Explore new ways of thinking and being while being paid to work at Esalen.
REEP participants are assigned to either Kitchen or Cabins/Housekeeping with opportunities to experience the Farm & Garden.
You'll spend 36 hours per week working in one of the departments, and have four hours per week dedicated to human potential curriculum and training.
Shared accommodations and three meals per day are provided at a reasonable cost.
THE STUDY COMPONENT
Under the guidance of our skilled, compassionate faculty and surrounded by a cohort of fellow students, you will be challenged to expand your personal growth edges and open up to greater discoveries of self and community through these cyclical monthly themes:
Place and Presence: Nurture a sense of place and relationship with Esalen’s foundational elements, including the land, its thought leaders, and vision for human potentialities.
Meditation and Mindfulness: Experience direct instruction and further cultivation of a personal practice, while building a mindful connection to work and community life.
Embodied Inquiry: Practice somatic experiencing and awareness in service of self-inquiry and expression.
You'll be sharing an ocean-front house with five other students, and sharing a room with one other person of the same self-identified gender. The house comes with a kitchen, living room, shared bathroom, and outside deck.
REEP students are paid $16.50 per hour. The residential fee is $200 per pay period and includes accommodations, utilities, and three meals per day.
Esalen is located in a very rural, rugged environment on the central California coast with no nearby shopping or services. The closest major town is Monterey, which is approximately one hour away by car.
Esalen Institute
55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920
US: 1-831-667-3000
info@esalen.org