Who we are and what do we do

Free Spirit Travel is a small family firm, created by Jilly Batchelar over fourteen years ago. In that time we have become the premier yoga holiday agency in the UK, and probably in Europe, with the biggest selection of yoga styles, locations and teachers.

We specialise mainly in the yoga holiday market and create relaxing holidays in beautiful locations combined with daily yoga sessions. There is a large choice of a wide variety of yoga styles and yoga venues - do phone us to chat about what you personally require, five minutes on the phone can save you a lot of time and if we don't have want you want and know somebody who does we will give you their details.

A holiday with yoga has become a major lifestyle choice for many. We work with the yoga community and have a rebooking rate many times the industry average, a tribute to the commitment to quality that we share with all our holiday centres and our teachers.

For all our holidays our aim is to provide the best selection of relaxing and exclusive holidays in beautiful locations, away from the main stream. We are the market leaders in yoga holidays, and our holidays range from yoga venues and eco retreats to a small number of additional holidays structured with activities such as swimming with dolphins, arts and crafts, cycling and walking, family breaks and barge holidays for the seriously laid back. They are all designed especially for people seeking something out of the ordinary.

In addition to the wide range of yoga holidays that we put together ourselves, we represent a variety of small independent holiday companies, teachers and course leaders. They provide a range of activity holidays, typically in out-of-the-way, unspoilt destinations. Most of the centres are personally known to us, we visit regularly and many of the owners and operators have become good friends, so we can give you detailed advice on our holidays.

Perfect for singles and vegetarian friendly

On any holiday the main part of the group will be composed of people travelling on their own. The rest of the group will be those travelling with a friend or partner. Some of our holidays are particularly suited to taking a non-yoga friend/partner with you. If this is something you would like to do then ask us for advice on what has worked well before - generally yoga hotels work extremely well for this.

We are committed to the highest quality from end to end, our holidays are vegetarian friendly serving vegetarian food and we support organic and ecologically sound practices.

We do very little advertising, preferring that our reputation spreads by recommendation and are lucky to have had many articles written about us in both glossy magazines and journals - recently including Harpers and Queen, You magazine, Health and Fitness magazine and the Mail on Sunday. 

When to travel

Our holidays cover a vast range of yoga styles, from the calm to the more strenuous, and include many of the best yoga teachers in Britain.

During the summer we concentrate on European venues and sunshine. All venues will either be close to the beach and/or have a swimming pool. There are both holidays and retreats to choose from - as a rule of thumb a holiday is just that, optional daily yoga classes and time to do whatever you want, be with the group or go off on your own as you choose.

Retreats are more intensive with long yoga sessions and often include helping with the running of the venue (washing up etc). There are also study sessions and quite a limited amount of free time.

Jilly and Graham outside the office

Winter is a time for getting away into the sun, check out the Winter index for an excellent of selection of places to go - the majority of them are yoga holidays and some are as hot as you could wish for. The Blue Beach Hotel in Dahab is one of our prime venues, we organise a selection of excellent yoga teachers there, and it is superb value. We work closely with the hotel and we have courses running throughout the season, from November to May. You can also travel to India, Morocco, Gambia, Sri Lanka, Lamu Island in Kenya and Thailand.

We have recently included some options for families, wherever possible providing optional baby-sitting for a small local fee. Alternatively we can find accommodation as an add-on to a yoga holiday, allowing one parent to participate in the holiday and at the end of the week for the family to arrive and go off together on a non-yoga holiday nearby. See the Family section for ideas and phone us if we don't have what you want on the website..

Non-yoga holidays

The Activity range of non-yoga holidays includes retreat centres with a variety of different programmes, also arts and crafts, walking, cycling, pottery and even swimming with dolphins to tempt you. Finally the Barge menu has two different luxury barges for that really special holiday. Not all of these are available all of the time - but again phone us, if we don't have it we can often put you in touch with somebody who does.

Personal Service

We pride ourselves on our personal service and we now have many customers who have travelled with us more than once, some many times. In fact the record is 6 in one year! (We should all be that lucky....)

As we have been to most of the places we use, we can usually give you advice based on our own personal experience, and find you something that will really suit your mood and your budget. 

Jilly, Linda and Graham have all qualified as yoga teachers and we all practise yoga so we can talk with authority. We want to be certain that you are getting a great holiday with a yoga teacher who will know how to look after you no matter what standard you have attained so always phone us and ask questions.

We look forward to looking after you this year.

Kind regards

Jilly Batchelar

Debbie Kennard

Linda Garrick

Graham Tuthill

Isabella & Claud (office cats, general muddier of documents and insatiably curious beings)

Tony Batchelar (web master and tech support)