Wellness used to be as one-dimensional as a spin class and a smoothie. Diet and exercise are of course still fundamental, but we’ve finally started to embrace a more holistic approach to achieving better health. This means focusing on long neglected areas like a solid sex life, socializing, rest and recovery, and emotional and mental wellbeing. Feeling good now trumps looking good and healthspan—the quality of our years—has become just as important as lifespan. Longevity, the concept of living a longer and healthier life, will be the biggest buzzword of 2024, with wellness clinics as well as sybaritic beach retreats offering the latest biohacks (cryotherapy, infrared light treatments, poolside vitamin IV drips) to optimize our performance. Tantra gurus and sex therapists will be the new must-have in-house expert and artificial-intelligence empowered smart beds are fast becoming an expected amenity.
Wellness tourism is expected to hit $1.3 trillion by 2025. Anticipating that the next generation will continue to fuel that growth, acclaimed adults-only retreats are finally opening up to kids and teens and even offering multi-generational spa retreats. With health-conscious offerings infiltrating every type of travel—family vacations, couples getaways, fly-and-flop beach escapes—it’s easier than ever to be well on your next trip. Here are the wellness travel trends and destinations, resorts, and retreats that promise to boost your health in 2024.
Sexual Wellness
According to research from the World Health Organization, boosting your sexual wellbeing is key to improving overall mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual health. Yet, for years, experts have touted the importance of honing a mind-body connection without mentioning the word sex. Forward-thinking wellness retreats are helping shatter the taboo with new programs focused on exploring intimacy and desire. Tantra sessions are primed to be the new couples massages with properties like Hotel Wailea in Maui introducing tantra classes rooted in themes such as exploring sacred sensuality. Hotels like Shou Sugi Ban House in New York have started hosting sexual and emotional intimacy retreats led by tantric experts and clinical sexologists. At Miraval resort in Arizona, workshops on sex and desire and one-on-one sessions on embracing pleasure address topics like low libido and the female orgasm. Earlier this year, SHA Wellness Clinic in Alicante, Spain, launched a sexual health unit staffed with gynecologists, hormonal experts, and urologists. SHA Mexico, which debuts this January in the Yucatán Peninsula, will also have a dedicated sexual health unit offering similar therapies and diagnostic testing capabilities. In October 2024, private island wellness resort Aerial BVI will host its first Elevate Love Summit, a four-day retreat rooted in love-language mastery and rekindling physical and emotional intimacy.
Biohacking Beach Vacations
Islands you once escaped to for sybaritic pleasures are now attracting a health-conscious crowd in search of more than vitamin D and salt air. Beach vacations now deliver the latest biohacks to boost longevity (or at least help you recalibrate after a full moon party). Guests at 1 Hotels Hanalei Bay in Kauai are welcomed with a vitamin B 12 shot rather than a traditional mai tai and an exclusive collection of Within Wellness rooms and suites are equipped with recovery tools like infrared PEMF mats that stimulate cell regeneration. ONDA, the just-opened spa at Susurros Del Corazón, Auberge Resorts Collection in Punta Mita, Mexico has a "wellness library" stocked with loaner Theragun massagers and compression technologies to improve circulation, and guests will soon be able to request in-room IV infusions that aim to strengthen immunity.
Katikies Kirini in Santorini has supplemented its spa with an outpost of a ZOE Bio Regenerative Wellness Clinic where guests can get live blood analysis or book hyperbaric oxygen chamber sessions. Six Senses Ibiza recently teamed up with biotech company RoseBar to offer guests full diagnostic testing that can inform biohacking treatments like localized cryotherapy and Soneva Soul wellness centers at Soneva Jani and Soneva Fushi in the Maldives will soon be offering stem cell therapy. Through a partnership with Next/Health longevity center, Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea has launched a multi-day Longevity Protocol package that includes everything from stem cell therapy to NAD+ (aka the fountain of youth) IV drips.
Multi-Gen Wellness Getaways
Wellness has long been an individual pursuit with adults-only health retreats forcing parents to leave the kids at home and focus on self-care. Now, wellness vacations are becoming a family affair. At the 2023 Global Wellness Summit Krip Rojanastien, CEO of Chiva-Som International Health Resorts, noted it’s “crucial that wellness knowledge and understanding be built into early education” and as knowledgeable professionals we are “well-placed to provide guidance on physical and mental health at all ages.” To that end, Zulal Wellness Resort by Chiva-Som in Qatar has introduced family bonding retreats aimed at fostering healthy eating and exercise habits as well as intergenerational retreats for grandparents and grandkids that involve healthy cooking classes, family fitness activities, and intergen spa time. Health retreat pioneers, Miraval and Canyon Ranch, will both welcome guests of all ages for the first time in 2024. Miraval Berkshires resort in Massachusetts will host a Spring Break family week and in July, Canyon Ranch Lenox, also in Massachusetts, will run a week-long family summer camp complete with kid-friendly spa treatments and outdoor family adventures.
Grief-Related Wellness
The last few years have been heavy, and many people have struggled to cope with the overwhelming weight of the world. Experiencing fleeting feelings of sorrow is normal, but when grief lingers it can have serious physical and emotional repercussions such as depression, anxiety, and chronic stress. Talk therapy sessions are no longer the only option to move past the loss of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or a traumatic event. New grief-focused retreats prescribe everything from surfing to chakra realignment. The grief recovery program at New Life Portugal, a wellness center in Serra da Estrela Natural Park, incorporates meditation and yoga and workshops on topics like transitions and wonder and awe. In the UK, the Grief Space taps into the healing powers of nature during its five-day Grief Alchemy retreat on the bucolic grounds of Erth Barton manor in Cornwall. Wave riding is the foundation of trauma resolution retreats hosted by surf therapy company, Resurface. Week-long trips in Sri Lanka and Morocco include daily surf lessons as well as mindfulness practices and group therapy sessions.
For those hesitant to share their feelings in a group setting, Carillon Miami Wellness Resort’s resident hypnotherapist taps into the subconscious to help guests manage grief and release emotional blockages. Hotel Las Torres in Chilean Patagonia recently introduced grief-relieving massages designed to release oxytocin (the mood-boosting hormone) and L’Auberge de Sedona’s customizable Pursuit of Peace experience taps into aromatherapy, reiki, sound healing, and chakra reboot sessions to help guests find closure—no talking required.
Blue Zones Retreats are the New Bootcamp
Netflix’s hit series Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones reignited our obsession with discovering the fountain of youth. This fascination with longevity will likely bring a boom in tourism to the five Blue Zones: Okinawa, Japan, Sardinia, Italy, the Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, Icaria, Greece, and Loma Linda, California. Italian tour company Tourissimo has already designed a Blue Zone Diet, chef-led cycling itinerary in Sardinia. This summer, Andaz Costa Rica Resort at Peninsula Papagayo will host a six-day Blue Zones retreat that explores the secrets of regional centenarians. And pioneering wellness sanctuary Kamalaya in Thailand has developed a Blue Zones group retreat rooted in plant-slanted meals inspired by these regions’ traditional diets, natural movement, and other Blue Zones Power of 9 lifestyle habits.
Sleep Is Still in the Spotlight
The quest for improved sleep hygiene has become such a top priority that resorts are designing dedicated suites and retreats to help insomniacs embrace better habits. And they’re enlisting the help of artificial intelligence-powered smart bed companies to ensure guests get a solid night’s rest. Select rooms at California’s Mission Pacific Hotel now have Eight Sleep smart beds which leverage AI to dynamically cool and heat the body to keep guests snoozing and the Malibu Beach Inn’s new sleep suites feature Sleep Number smart beds and heated eye masks equipped with biometric sensors that calm the heart rate to induce a state of relaxation. Carillon Miami Wellness Resort recently partnered with high-tech mattress company Bryte to launch a four-night Sleep Well Retreat that includes a luxury apartment with a Bryte Balance Smart Bed, plus a Sleep Well Circuit of treatments such as quantum harmonic sound therapy table sessions and vibroacoustic, electromagnetic, and infrared therapies.
Innovative light and sound therapies are hallmarks of the latest sleep aids. The new six-plus hour Dream Like Relaxation treatment at the spa at The Logan Hotel in Philadelphia takes place in a room with specialized lighting to mimic the night sky. In January, Swiss wellness brand Chenot will introduce an option for guests to enhance their detox program with a Sleep Cycles module focused on increasing time spent in deep sleep. Specially designed sleep suites are equipped with technology that mimics the natural acoustic environment (panels on the ceiling filter sound like a leafy tree canopy), and light sequences mimic a natural sunset and sunrise. And nanobionic bed linens emit far infrared light (the longest wavelength that penetrates deeper into the tissue) for a more restorative sleep. Treatments, such as photobiomodulation, neuro acoustic deep relaxation, and cryotherapy are specifically timed to each guests’ chronotype and circadian rhythm.
Menopause Retreats
By 2025, around 1.1 billion women globally will have experienced menopause. The wellness industry has taken note, catering to this audience with programs designed to help women cope with symptoms like hot flashes and mood swings. 02 Beach Club & Spa in Barbados has an in-house menopause specialist and works with the nearby Bioconnect Medical Centre, one of the few clinics in the world specializing in perimenopause and menopause. Week-long menopause retreats at Preidlhof Wellness Resort in South Tyrol, Italy feature acupuncture and massage as well as holistic coaching sessions. Diet is the focus on perimenopause and menopause retreats at Marine North Berwick in Scotland. The hotel has partnered with nutrition expert Amanda Hamilton to offer detox-style meals focused on metabolic and gut health. When Longfellow Hotel opens in Portland, Maine in the spring of 2024, women’s health, particularly menopause, will be a focus of its programming.