America’s Top 10 Yoga Towns

What’s the recipe for a great city for yogis?  Start with renowned teachers and studios,  mix in a supportive community and healthful amenities, and then sprinkle in some fun, innovative events.  These 10 are blue-ribbon winners.

Author:: Kelly Mickle
Publish date:: Sep 21, 2015

What’s the recipe for a great city for yogis? Start with renowned teachers and studios, mix in a supportive community and healthful amenities, and then sprinkle in some fun, innovative events. These 10 are blue-ribbon winners.

presented by MINDBODY Connect

Seattle, standing at attention pose, samisthiti

No longer a fringe fad reserved for gurus and hippies, yoga has moved to the mainstream, with more than 21 million Americans now hitting the mat. As a result, yogis are gravitating toward other like-minded folks, living and vacationing in towns that support their practice and ethos, and in the process, creating yoga hotspots around the country. We teamed up with our friends at Yoga Alliance (YA) to uncover the most thriving of these meccas using data on the cities with the highest number of YA-registered teachers and yoga schools.

“All of these communities where yoga is booming represent cities and towns that have fully accepted yoga into the zeitgeist and where the majority of people view it as something healthy and worthwhile,” says Andrew Tanner, YA spokesman. “Yogis flock to these places not just for the yoga but for the consciousness infrastructure that builds around yoga communities, such as juice bars, community-supported agriculture, food co-ops, and music and art scenes.”

We couldn’t help but be inspired by how these cities are embracing the practice with their own local flair, so we dug a little deeper to learn what makes each yoga community so special. Find out if your hometown made the cut, gather ideas to help your own yoga community thrive, and discover new vacation destinations to get your Om on—plus learn where to eat, stay, and play during your visit.