Ayahuasca tourism means travelling, usually from outside the Amazon, to drink ayahuasca at a retreat or with a healer. The anthropologist Bernd Brabec de Mori writes that most such sessions are held for non-Indigenous people, run by neo-shamans who either trained with Amazonian practitioners or created their own eclectic styles (Brabec de Mori, 2021).
Safety standards are uneven. When researchers interviewed 49 organizations advertising psychedelic retreats in English, all collected medical histories, 36 (73.5%) excluded people with certain health conditions, and the authors found “substantial variability”, saying some practices may increase risk (McGuire et al., 2026). Canada’s travel advice for Peru, last updated 15 October 2026, says ceremonies have led to serious illness, injury, assault and the death of several tourists, often far from medical care, and advises Canadians to avoid them (Government of Canada).
There is a cultural critique too. The anthropologist Fotiou, from fieldwork around Iquitos, argues that Western engagement often rests on romanticized ideas of Indigenous shamanism, and that this hides injustices Indigenous people face, including the commercialization of their spirituality (Fotiou, 2016). Heavy harvesting of the ayahuasca vine is another documented pressure (Coe and Gaoue, 2023). Drug interactions with the brew’s MAO-blocking alkaloids remain a known danger wherever it is drunk.
Sources
- McGuire et al., 2026, JAMA Network Open: safety practices of psychedelic retreats
- Government of Canada: travel advice for Peru
- Fotiou, 2016, Anthropology of Consciousness: globalization of ayahuasca shamanism
- Brabec de Mori, 2021, Frontiers in Psychology: social attribution and ayahuasca healing
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