Who we are and what do we do

Free Spirit Travel is a small family firm, created by Jilly Batchelar in 1994. Since then 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 what 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.

Jilly Batchelar

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 the  occasional specialised yoga holidays. These are  specially structured with additional activities such as swimming with dolphins, art, cycling or walking. 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.

The Holidays

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 may include Kama Yoga - see Yoga in Finland for an example of this.

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 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 and Linda have both qualified as yoga teachers and we all practise yoga so we can talk with authority. Debbie is an ardent and highly experienced traveller and is always ready to help you find a cheap flight on the internet or to give travel advice.

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 and Debbie Kennard

Other occasional help who might answer the phone

Linda Garrick (Jilly's sister )

Tony Batchelar (Jilly's husband, web master and tech support)

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