By Melisse Gelula and Alexia Brue of Well+GoodNYC

India is the promised land of yoga retreats. And a trip with a top teacher is almost a rite of passage for American yogis serious about their practice or curious about the culture. There are lots of ways to do yoga in India: spiritual pilgrimages and do-gooder excursions to yoga-sprinkled sightseeing tours. Because all of them require some planning in advance, we’ve given you a head start. Here are five of the most interesting yoga retreats in India in early 2012, at  Well+GoodNYC

Melisse Gelula is co-founder of Well+Good. She is the former editor-in-chief of SpaFinderLifestyle.com, spa beauty editor at Luxury SpaFinder Magazine, and travel editor at Fodor’s Travel Publications. She has an MA in English Literature from the University of Toronto and has completed six years of training as a psychoanalyst. Melisse has written for such publications as Departures, Martha Stewart Living, Organic Spa, and Budget Travel and has been featured as an industry expert in the New York Times and on CNN.com, the Travel Channel, E! News, and more.

Alexia Brue is co-founder of Well+Good. She was a contributing editor at Luxury SpaFinder and Spa magazines and is the author of Cathedrals of the Flesh: My Search for the Perfect Bath (Bloomsbury). She has an MA in arts & culture journalism from the Columbia School of Journalism and has written for the New York Times Magazine, Vogue, and Conde Nast Traveler among others. Alexia has appeared on the Travel Channel, NPR’s All Things Considered, BBC Radio, and more.