Our Owner + Chief Zen Officer, Anna Egleston, spent a dozen years in the corporate world coordinating large-scale events and high-end hospitality for executives and professional athletes. This paved the path for her ability to guide guests through curated journeys with an eye for the details that count (which, according to her, is all of them). She (and all our retreat leaders) strive to make your retreat experience seamless, awe-inspiring and memorable.
Anna has been teaching yoga since 2015 and has completed more than 600 total training + education hours in yoga. She took her 200 hr YTT in Charlotte, NC and her 300 hr YTT in Chicago, IL. She also has a Master's in Business Administration from Marquette University with a focus on International Business.
After several years of living in Milwaukee, WI; Anna has returned to her home state and currently lives in Raleigh, NC with her husband and their rescue Jack Russell Terrier. She teaches at Bliss Body Yoga in west Raleigh when she's not on retreat!
You are in the best hands.
We are thrilled that increasing demand for Above Yoga Retreats means that we've expanded our team! AYR will always remain a small, woman-owned business, operating less than 10 retreats a year to maintain our impeccable standard of customer service. However you'll begin to see some new faces and names as retreat leaders.
All our retreat leaders have traveled extensively and been on AY Retreats in the past so they are well-versed in your destination and the way we expect retreats to be run. You can see who is leading each retreat on that trip's page. In some cases, our retreat leaders also sometimes serve as one of the several yoga teachers on-site to lead you through optional movement classes.
Above Yoga was first born in 2015 as an Instagram account from our founder as she completed her first yoga teacher training. The seed for the first retreat was planted in 2016 as Anna went to a destination wedding in Mexico and had her first site check with a potential retreat venue.
For the next few years, Anna ran one retreat annually (and also scouted another location each year)... and in the process routinely used up all her corporate job vacation to run this "side hustle." After a particularly inspirational scouting trip to Croatia in October 2019 (with 38 Australian travel agents - it's a long story); Anna was compelled to quit her corporate job and make Above Yoga Retreats her full-time career.
As you might imagine, 2020 was an incredibly tough year to try to run an international group travel company, but after a long pause and lots of precautions set in place, we've pushed through and began again in earnest in fall of 2021.
Since 2017, we have held more than 20 amazing retreats across the globe, with many more on the horizon. This is possible given the dozens of loyal customers who return for their 2nd, 3rd, 4th and sometimes even 5th journeys with us! We hope you'll be one of those loyal customers soon.