Come Home to Love
Experience Ishq, a retreat center in Naivasha, Kenya
Ishq is our home and we invite you to make it yours. Located in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, this land holds a power for healing and connection
The Land
On a hill in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, at the convergence of two rivers on an ancient lakeshore, our common ancestors first began to gather in cooperative communities. The power of this land still resonates with our deep longing for connection and union.
There is something special about this land, we felt it the first time we put our feet in the soil and knew this place would be our home and a home for many. This land holds memory, of the many who have been here before.
Archaeologists working near the property have recorded some of the earliest evidence of common ancestors beginning to organize in cooperative communities. During a climate crisis at the end of the last ice age, our ancestors were forced by necessity to adapt and band together for survival. We still bear that imprint and importance of others in our lives. Knowing that community began here is part of our story, a legacy we want to continue at Ishq.
The land holds a deep memory. As you arrive you will feel — a familiar knowing, something calling you back to yourself, to others, and to the land that holds us all.
What Ishq is
Ishq is held by Heath and Jana, it is our home. When we say we invite you to come home to love, it is with the belief that this land is a place where many can find home and in connection to the land and others, discover deeper parts of themselves.
At Ishq we both run our own retreats and host other groups but all with a shared purpose, allowing ourselves to first be loved, accepted, and validated — and then to step into our leadership and purpose. It is a place to heal old wounds, find clarity to life’s questions, and learn to lead from a deeper place.
This requires a particular kind of container. It requires beauty. It requires safety. It requires people around you who understand the territory from the inside, who have done their own work and continue to do it. And it requires a land that holds.
We offer Ishq to retreat leaders and facilitators, both from Kenya and International, to feel home in a place they feel is their own. To organizations whose teams need more than a standard offsite. To individuals, couples, and families who need time away from the world to find themselves again. And to those who come for the retreats we run ourselves — deep inner work using the Avalon methodology, all on land we believe has held many before us.
A Retreat Near Nairobi, Far Enough to Change Everything
Ishq is ninety minutes from Nairobi by road. Close enough that a Nairobi-based corporate team can drive up for a day of meetings. Far enough that the city does not follow you here.
For international groups, Jomo Kenyatta International Airport is the entry point. We coordinate the transport from the airport to the property.
This is what makes Ishq one of the most accessible retreat centers in Kenya for international and Nairobi-based groups alike — a Naivasha retreat venue that is genuinely close to the city, on land that is genuinely apart from it.
What We Offer
We are a full-service Kenya retreat center. The offerings are inquiry-based, fully customized to your needs — what works for you depends on who you are and what you are trying to create. The shape of it usually becomes clear after a short conversation.
The kinds of work that happen here:
Yoga retreats — teachers from Kenya and abroad bring groups to the shala for week-long immersions across all styles and traditions.
Healing and wellness retreats — somatic work, trauma-informed practice, breath work, and integration in a container built for serious inner work.
Leadership retreats — for founders, executives, and teams who want their development to go deeper than a standard offsite.
Corporate retreats — full off-sites for teams of eight to thirty, with optional facilitation by Heath and Jana.
Family and friends safari retreats — exclusive-use of the estate for families and friend groups travelling together, paired with safaris in the Rift Valley.
The retreats we run ourselves — deep group process using the Avalon methodology, for participants ready to go deeper.
Private rental — exclusive use of the property with no programme, for those who know what they need.
Day use from Nairobi — for groups based in the city who need a day away.
Every retreat at Ishq can be paired with our adventure programme — cycling and walking safaris in Hell’s Gate, game drives in Nakuru and Soy Sambu, the walking safari on Crescent Island, and the volcanic crater lake on the escarpment above Naivasha.
