Don Draper’s costal retreat getaway in the Mad Men series finale has triggered a massive surge in curiosity around Big Sur’s famed Esalen Institute, the likely inspiration for the tranquil retreat center depicted in the show.
An Esalen representative tells The Hollywood Reporter that the institute’s website and social media platforms have experienced record-breaking spikes since the Mad Men finale aired on May 17. The Esalen representative says, “We normally have around 1,000 sessions per day on the Esalen website, and on Sunday that increased to 2,583.” The likes on posts published on Esalen’s Facebook is up 73 percent over the last week and the “post reach” metric — the number of people reached by each post — is up 3,672 percent. Esalen’s total reach on Facebook is up 835 percent from the week before the finale.
