With wellness a growing trend, there’s no shortage of hotels and resorts that offer a comprehensive range of spa and fitness facilities, as well as restaurants serving fresh and healthy cuisine. Holidaying is becoming less about hedonism and more about health, with people trading sun loungers for yoga mats, and decadence for detoxing. Here, we take a look at where to go when wellness facilities are at the forefront of your holiday wish list.
Spas In Great Places
Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort, Saint Lucia
Welcome to the jungle...
Thatched-roof treehouses high up on stilts, in amongst the untamed foliage and melodic sounds of the jungle, comprise the spa at Sugar Beach, A Viceroy Resort. At The Rainforest Spa, you can tune into the natural brook that flows between the treehouses, and the harmonies of tropical birds as you relax into a bamboo massage, hot rock therapy or chocolate scrub. Further unwind post treatment by dipping into a waterfall-fed natural plunge pool. Treatments are free from chemicals, applying beauty secrets Saint Lucians have sworn by for centuries. Facial treatments utilise products by multi-award-winning skincare brand, Natura Bisse, which was recently named the very first Official Skincare Brand of the discerning Forbes Travel Guide.
7 nights from €2,439 per person sharing a Superior Luxury Sugar Mill Room on Room Only.
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Zemi Beach House Hotel & Spa, Anguilla
Centuries-old splendour...
A 300-year-old Thai house is the setting for the awardwinning spa at Zemi Beach. Painstakingly transported over from Thailand a few decades ago, today, the building acts as the soothing setting for calm-inducing and healing rituals and treatments. The spa complex itself comprises 15,000 feet, and influences from the East are woven throughout, including an oriental meditation garden lined with orchids. The Caribbean’s ancient Taino people have also had an influence, and guests are encouraged to visit for a treatment and linger for the whole day in order to experience the purifying Taino bathing ritual where herbs and ointments are applied to the body before guests relax in the sun on the Bohique Mud Deck, dry off and then wash everything away.
7 nights from €2,699 per person sharing a Superior Room including breakfast.
OFFER: Stay 7 Pay 5
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Mindful Dining
BodyHoliday, Saint Lucia
Eating for inner balance...
BodyHoliday offers the most comprehensive wellness centre in the Caribbean and its status as a beacon of health and vitality is clear. An extensive programme of fitness classes, sports and activities, along with daily spa treatments and experts on hand to help you towards achieving your goals, all come as standard as part of the broad all-inclusive plan. It should be stressed though that despite being a world-leading wellness resort, BodyHoliday is all about balance and choice, not restraint and restriction. There are five excellent restaurants, including pan-Asian fine dining, a casual Italian grill, fresh juice bar and tempting sushi and sashimi station. One day, you could be learning about organic gardening, picking your own herbs and creating a vegan feast with the Rastafarian chef at I-tal, and the next, clay-oven-fresh pizza washed down with white wine at the Pavilion Grill. If you’d like, you can even receive a fully-personalised meal plan before arrival by submitting your goals and any dietary restrictions through the online portal. Chefs will then tailor each meal for you individually.
7 nights from €2,699 per person sharing a Luxury Room on All-Inclusive.
OFFER: Save up to 40%
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Yoga Beyond The Usual
Domes of Elounda, Crete, Greece
Aqua yoga
While some variations on yoga are slightly too off-piste for most of us (anyone for a spot of ‘doga’? Remember to bring your dog), one style we’d definitely recommend to hesitant yoga traditionalists is aqua yoga. Head to Domes of Elounda in Crete and you can practise your asanas in a low-impact way. It’s especially good for those who find traditional practise difficult because of joint or mobility problems. Once you’ve finished, you can relax with a treatment at the spa, with complimentary areas including a sauna, hammam, steam bath and Jacuzzi.
7 nights from €1,249 per person sharing a Premium One Bedroom Garden View Suite with Outdoor Jacuzzi on Half Board.
OFFER: Save up to 25%
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Curtain Bluff, Antigua
Yoga and tennis
Yoga is good for both body and mind, but have you considered pairing a yoga holiday with another sport, such as tennis? At Curtain Bluff this November, British tennis star Annabel Croft will be combining her love of yoga, Pilates and tennis with a week of wellness at Curtain Bluff Resort in Antigua. Guests will be able to join her for tennis training and drills, yoga, Pilates and, of course, all the fabulous facilities of one of the most exclusive all inclusives in the Caribbean. During downtime, go snorkelling, relax on one of two fully-serviced beaches or unwind at the spa. Even if you can’t make it to The Perfect Match week in November, you can enjoy all the resort’s fabulous facilities, including tennis courts and yoga classes, year-round.
7 nights from €3,599 per person sharing a Bluff Room on All-Inclusive.
OFFER: Save 20%.
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Spice Island Beach Resort, Grenada
Swap the yoga studio for a beachside pavilion and let the sounds of the waves and warmth of the sunshine join you as you move through your warrior, downward dog and Chaturanga. On the famous Grand Anse Beach at Spice Island Beach Resort, you can practice a variety of styles including hatha, vinyasa flow and even couples yoga. The resort also offers yoga therapy which focuses on postural alignment, Ayurveda and somatics which is said to reconnect the mind with the body, helping to relieve chronic pain and stiffness.
7 nights from €3,369 per person sharing an Oleander Oceanview Suite on All-Inclusive.
OFFER: Stay 7 Pay 6
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Our Travel Adviser and resident yoga expert Helen knows yoga and luxury travel like no one else:
“I’ve been practising yoga now for well over 20 years and could not imagine life without it. I’ve been on several yoga retreats and have even been to India a few times to practice with some of the best teachers in the world! In my role as Travel Adviser, I’m lucky enough to travel to the most luxurious and exotic locations on the planet, but you can rest assured I always look out for a yoga mat and studio; there’s nothing better than practising yoga outside in natural surroundings to the sound of the ocean.”
If you’d like to find out more, give one of our expert travel advisers a call on 01 431 9700
