From £1,250 for four weeks
(+61 39593 9598; www.ghanadrumschool.com)

For a full-on immersion in a fascinating culture in one of Africa’s safest countries, Australia-based Kusun Study Tours runs an annual four week intensive trip to Ghana each autumn where you can learn traditional drumming, dance and song. This amazing experience is based at the traditional fishing village of Nungua, part of the beautiful Greater Accra area on the South Atlantic Ocean and a 15 minute drive from Ghana’s capital Accra.

Led by traditional musicians and dancers from West Africa, workshops are held in a specially laid out area near the beach and run for four hours a day, five days a week. In a group tailored to suit your level of experience, you’ll learn everything from simple chants to complex percussion, as well as the social context of Ghana’s art forms. Private sessions can also be arranged. Outside the workshops, there are village performances, ceremonies and festivals and a final show in which you can take part. You’ll be based at the Kusun Centre, a specially built guesthouse with simple single or double rooms with showers and toilets. Three delicious Ghanaian meals a day are prepared by village women. The trip takes a maximum of 20 students and attracts people of all ages, life stages and from all over the globe.

Taialofa’s yoga adventures

Various islands, Samoa

from £700 per person per week
(+ 685 796400; www.rawshakti.com)

The postcard-perfect islands of the Pacific Ocean are tranquil, beautiful and remote places to recharge. For something very special, head to tropical Samoa in the South Pacific, where Robert Louis Stevenson found his paradise isle on Western Somoa and chose to live out his days. You can visit his house and get into the Samoan culture on a yoga adventure with Taialofa, an American who was born on the island of Upolu and has been practicing yoga since she was 13 years old - her mother is a yoga teacher, and she grow up living and breathing the yogic lifestyle.

A trained sivananda yoga teacher, Taialofa has studied practically every form there is and her classes are a blend of all her knowledge, but based on vinyasa flow. Come for a week or two, and join a group or arrange a private itinerary. You’ll have daily yoga and guided meditation on beaches, beside waterfalls and in village fales (houses), and visit islands such as Namua, where there’s no electricity and you sleep in open beach fales next to a lagoon. Your trip will have you dining with villagers, learning the local language, swimming and snorkeling in clean cool waters, visiting local cultural sites and caves. Taialofa’s holidays attract everyone from yoga devotees to urban professionals looking to de-stress.

Red Spokes Adventure Tour, Laos

from £695 per person for 14 days

(+ 44 (0) 207 502 7252; www.redspokes.co.uk)

The tiny Buddhist country of Laos only opened its doors to the outside world in 1990s. Land-locked between Thailand and Vietnam, it’s increasing in popularity with each passing year, but remains a mellow slice of South East Asia with friendly people, little traffic and gorgeous scenery. Most people get about by bicycle, and the 14-day Red Spokes Spokes Adventure Tour is an appropriately active way to see this lovely country. Massages to soothe tired limbs can be had enroute from local therapists, and there are trips to Buddhist sites and temples.

Company founder and tour leader Dermot MacWard works hard to build relationships with local communities, and his trips are a treat for those who want to explore another culture and take time out from their own. You’ll stay in local houses, and clock up about 50 miles a day, beginning in Northern Thailand and ending in the capital Vientiane. The trip includes a trip to Ban Faen village, where Red Spokes has ploughed some of its profits to help the local community, when you’ll have a chance to take part in a village animist festival.

Caroline Sylge is the author of Body & Soul Escapes (footprintbooks.com)