The locations, hotels, and retreats that will help you reenergize your body and mind in 2023
We used to use vacation as an excuse to skip our regular fitness and diet plans. Nowadays, we design vacations with relaxation, self-improvement, and welfare, in mind. Wellness travel is one of the fastest-growing parts of the industry, and hotels and resorts are paying attention: No longer are diagnostics and medical-grade treatments only found in med spas. At the newly opened Aman New York, for example, you can get a cognitive health scan during the day and eat great Italian food and see a show at the hotel's jazz club at night.
The last location most travelers want to go to is a closed-off interior refuge after being forced into prolonged seclusion during the pandemic: Physical exercise is in high demand, and more people are looking for well-being in nature: Travelers are getting their fill of mindful movement on recently opened hiking paths, pickleball courts, and even on skis and paddleboards. Plus, after all that physical work, there are recovery rooms to make sure you don't get sore muscles. Not the adventurous type? To stimulate the mind and keep us away from our screens, resorts are now providing everything from pottery to weaving and painting.
Never before have there been so many reasons to remain healthy while traveling. In 2023, the following wellness travel trends, locations, resorts, and retreats will tempt you to rejuvenate your mind and body.
Diagnostics will determine your schedule.
Don't be shocked if your spa check-in feels more comprehensive than a doctor's appointment since preventative is the new spa buzzword. Spas are now able to tailor visits with therapies that target anything from mental wellness to bone strength thanks to cutting-edge scientific technologies and diagnostic techniques. At the foot of the Swiss Alps on Lake Lucerne, Switzerland's new flagship spa for the Swiss wellness brand Chenot features an in-house molecular lab that employs mRNA-based testing to analyze genes linked to aging and recommend therapies appropriately. The Biostation at Carillon Miami Wellness Resort offers diagnostic testing on more than 100 biomarkers, including cholesterol and serum glucose, and uses the data to design a long-term strategy.
The new Aman New York has hospital-quality sophisticated diagnostic equipment, such as Optimisation Analysis by SCANME, which evaluates the condition of your musculoskeletal system, cardiovascular health, and other important health indicators, and Brain Gauge Pro, a screener for cognitive health. From a 90-minute session to a 12-week program that can include a cryotherapy chamber and LED/Infrared Detox Pod, everything is customized using this data. The second branch of Sensei, the longevity retreat brand created by Dr. David Agus and tech tycoon Larry Ellison, has just opened on the 230-acre Rancho Mirage estate. For staff to create custom itineraries, guests of Sensei Porcupine Creek are provided a WHOOP 4.0 wearable strap to collect data on sleep, recuperation, and fitness before arrival. Additionally, Six Senses will introduce MyCircadianDay, a new initiative in collaboration with the time-shifting app TimeShifter, at all of its sites early in 2019. Advanced algorithms will provide suggestions for when to drink, eat, sleep, and move around based on your chronotype, or the time your body naturally wants to sleep.
Pro-ageing (vs. anti-aging)
According to Anna Bjurstam, founding board member of the Global Wellness Summit and wellness pioneer at Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas, "Calling anything anti-aging is becoming politically inappropriate." You'll hear the words "pro-aging" and "longevity practices" more frequently.
She cites platelet-rich plasma (PRP), stem cells, and peptides as the most recent cutting-edge treatments that support young skin. The recently opened Villa Belle Plage at Hotel Belle Plage in Cannes, France, offers cutting-edge technology including HydraFacial, which reduces the appearance of dark spots and wrinkles, and Helight Pro, a gadget that produces red light diodes to rejuvenate cells. At its new spa at The Woodward, an Oetker Collection Hotel in Geneva, Swiss skincare expert Guerlain is utilizing cutting-edge technologies like photobiomodulation, a type of light treatment that regenerates collagen and elastin. The UK's first MLX i3Dome, a cutting-edge three-in-one chamber that detoxifies the body and encourages cellular healing, is featured in Claridge's first-ever spa in London.
The new way to socialize is to soak and steam.
Scandinavians contend that socializing while perspiring helps stress melt away more quickly. Building complexes with restaurants, bars, and even live music for hydrotherapy and sauna is becoming more and more popular throughout the rest of the world. The third phase of Alaska's Alyeska Resort's Nordic Spa, which will be finished this winter, includes a pool circuit with 103-degree pools and polar plunges, a Himalayan rock salt sauna, Russian banyas, cedar soaking tubs, and barrel saunas. It is open until 9 p.m. and has a bar and restaurant on-site, making it the hottest après-ski scene this winter. Six saunas, two steam rooms, many hot tubs, and cold plunges are available at Therma Spa Village, which recently opened two hours outside of Toronto. A Biergarten, cocktail lounge and farm-to-table restaurant are also there. You may enjoy live music performances at the recently remodeled Durango Hot Springs Resort + Spa in Colorado's San Juan Mountains while exploring the outdoor complex's 41 soaking and plunge pools and eight Ofuro soaking tubs with Japanese design.
Do not enjoy meditation. Make some crafts.
The path to mindfulness doesn't solely involve solitary meditation sessions. More spa hotels are encouraging their clients to live in the now by stimulating their right brains in novel ways. Visitors may get instruction in ceramics, weaving, beading, and other crafts from top master artisans at the Royal Mansour, a luxurious riad hotel in Marrakech, in the new glass-paneled artist workshop known as Atelier d'Artiste. You may roll your eyes, but the peace of mind you get after a yoga lesson is comparable to the two screen-free hours you spend making necklaces with Berber influences. And at Bishops Lodge, a historic building in Santa Fe that Auberge Resorts just renovated, local artists like Katie Rodgers, whose clients have included Christian Louboutin and Veuve Clicquot, conduct courses both on- and off-property in mediums like chalk pastels and watercolors. Blackberry Mountain, the health-conscious sister property of Tennessee's Blackberry Farm, has expanded its ceramics offerings from wheel-thrown and hand-building to include coil building, tile work, and raku firing, a 16th-century Japanese technique. This expansion is the result of the pandemic-fueled pottery craze. There are two kilns and six potters' wheels at Blackberry's studio. According to Polly Ann Martin, the hotel's art manager, two- to four-hour sessions have a 2:1 student-to-instructor ratio, and many visitors enroll in a class each day.
America's latest wellness hotspot is Upstate New York.
Travelers looking to renew their well-being have long been drawn to the West, especially to California's avant-garde resorts like the Esalen Institute, Cal-a-Vie Health Spa, and Golden Door. However, several high-end spa resorts that are emerging in the Catskills and Hudson Valley are drawing more visitors from west to east. The Ranch at Malibu, a well-known boot camp in California, will open a 25-room outpost on a lake 45 minutes north of Manhattan next summer. The Ranch Hudson Valley will offer condensed three- and four-day itineraries tailored for the time-pressed East Coast clientele while maintaining its no-nonsense, weight-loss-focused approach to programming. You may anticipate vegan meals, workouts in a 2,000-square-foot gym, and endurance treks on the trails of Ringwood and Harriman State Parks. New York City's The Chatwal, a Luxury Collection Hotel, recently debuted the Chatwal Lodge, a 10-suite sister property, on a 38-acre Catskills wilderness preserve. Here, the rhythmic cast of a fly rod on a serene lake and a meander through old-growth forest trails in search of hawks and ospreys serve as moving meditations. The rewilding (the practice of reconnecting people with nature) guests at Wildflower Farms, an Auberge Resort Collection, when it opens in the town of Gardiner next autumn, with particular nature-based therapies including a forest immersion conducted by a reiki master and animal communicator who specializes in connecting energetically with animals and humans. For some traditional R&R, there is also a saltwater pool, a herbal steam room, and hot tubs tucked away in the meadows. Inness, a brand-new golf club and hotel in the town of Accord, offers yoga, pilates, and 60 acres of hiking and running trails. In 2023, it will also open a fully equipped spa. Additionally, there are rumors that SoHo Farmhouse will open a location in Rhinebeck. Not to be outdone, Mohonk Mountain House, an upstate grand dame that hosted her first visitors in 1869, just launched a renovated, 30,000-square-foot spa with a mindfulness-based treatment philosophy.
The spotlight is stolen by recovery.
Elite athletes have long understood that recuperation is more important than double-daily workouts to improve performance. A biohacking recuperation lounge will be available in the spa of the Swiss Six Senses Crans Montana when it opens in February. The Hythe, a Luxury Collection Hotel in Vail, Colorado provides a rehabilitation lounge with oxygen treatment and equipment including compression boots, heaters, and DIY massage machines. With treatments like a hyperbaric oxygen chamber and a lymphatic system-supporting salt room, the restoration and recovery circuit at Springhouse at Stanly Ranch, an Auberge Resort Collection, in Napa Valley can treat everything from sore muscles from a hike to a hangover.
Conscious movement
Many wellness professionals have reexamined the conventional route to mindfulness: and stillness, in light of the contemporary adage "Sitting is the new smoking." The most recent meditation practices have been initiated. From Nimmo Bay in British Columbia, new environmental health retreats include mindful kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding trips to floating docks where you can practice yoga or relax in a hot tub surrounded by old-growth cedar trees. At Deplar Farm in Iceland and Taylor River Lodge in Crested Butte, Colorado, Adventure Collective Eleven Experience has launched Eleven Life getaways that include quiet Nordic ski expeditions and snowshoe woodland bathing sessions.
Even the sound bathing experience is now a walking excursion via a jungle trail that is lined with 12 instruments that produce various vibrations at the opulent health center Joali Being in the Maldives. The epidemic made us rediscover the love of walking, and some of the top hiking locations in the world are establishing opulent new retreats where we may unwind and push our physical limits. The 250-mile Trans-Bhutan Trail was just finished, giving hikers a new must-do excursion. The medieval pilgrimage path, which spans the whole Buddhist kingdom, passes 400 historic and cultural sites framed by snow-capped Himalayan peaks. Punakha River Lodge, a luxurious new base for exploration with choices for day treks to Khamsum Yuelley Namgyal Chorten, a Buddhist temple, and Chimi Lhakhang, or the Divine Madman Temple, will open in the Punakha Valley in September by andBeyond. In May, Shinta Mani Mustang will open in Nepal, another haven for hikers. The Bensley Collection Hotel will provide glamping-style lodging together with guided day walks and multi-day excursions up to the Tibetan border. Last but not least, pickleball has supplanted Peloton as the must-have workout option if you truly want to raise your heart rate. On its six courts, Rancho La Puerta in Mexico provides unique pickleball weeks. The beautifully renovated Boca Raton hotel organizes clinics and nightly pickleball socials. Carmel Valley Ranch in California offers practice sessions and introductory classes.