A full contingent of EverydayYoga.com yogis headed up to Wanderlust Squaw Valley in late July to experience our first Wanderlust Festival.

Photo Credit: Neil Gandhi/Wanderlust
 

Wanderlust is one of the most popular yoga festivals in the country with events across the U.S and Canada. As organizers were telling us, it all started in Squaw with the first one, so the festival in Tahoe is one of the most popular of the year – and feels a bit like “home” for many of the regulars.

The popularity of yoga retreats, festivals, cleanses – whatever you choose as your getaway – has definitely boomed over the last few years with the growth of yoga participation in the U.S.

What a festival like Wanderlust offers you is not only the chance to attend classes, but an immersive experience in other elements of yoga that play an important part in the practice: sharing experiences and interacting with others, meditation, being in touch with nature and the beauty of your surroundings, as well as other forms of exercise.

One of the coolest things the festival offered was the chance to try different forms of yoga that have come about recently. While some traditionalists may wince at the newer versions that have cropped up, yoga is all about exploration and it's true that the different types of yoga allow you to do that.

Several of our participants tried the hottest new yoga style: stand-up paddleboard yoga or SUP Yoga. This entails basic yoga poses done on top of a paddleboard attached to a buoy in the lake. The sensation of keeping your balance with the ripples of the water beneath you, the breeze on your face and the sun from above is really something very unique. It's worth a try if you have the chance.

Photo Credit: Wanderlust
 

Another newer style of yoga that has popped up in the past few years is suspension yoga. OmGym, a pioneer in this area for the past decade, was on-hand to demonstrate how this type of yoga can work to improve spinal decompression and health.

Photo Credit: Ali Kaukas/Wanderlust

Then there was an acro-yoga class. The one we attended in particular focused on doing yoga together with partners in poses that you might not otherwise be able to do.

Photo Credit: Neil Gandhi/Wanderlust

And beyond the alternative types of yoga that we tried out, there were all sorts of other traditional yoga classes to choose from, as well as sunset hikes, trail runs, farm-to-table dinners, meditation, workshops – even a few festival dance parties.

In the end, an event like this brings together a community of people that cares, shares and nurtures. It's something this world on the whole could probably use a little more of!

Photo Credit: Amy Hart/Wanderlust