Diving into wellness resorts

What does it mean to visit a wellness resort? These days, it can mean a lot. 

Modern wellness resorts have evolved to run a wide gamut, with properties offering everything from yoga, meditation and spiritual shamanic healing to more medical- and tech-forward programming involving biometric assessments, IV drips and even stem cell therapies. 

What counts as a wellness experience has also evolved dramatically. What were once simply hikes, horseback riding and surfing have been rebranded in contemporary wellness as forest bathing, equine therapy and oceanic mindfulness, respectively. 

And while some resorts offer structure, enabling guests to reset by way of a strict regimen, others take a more laissez-faire approach, offering leeway to craft a personal take on well-being. 

There’s also considerable range in cost. Recent wellness resort expansion has weighed heavily at the high-end, frequently commanding an eye-popping premium, but accessible and often more rustic options are also growing. 

While the wellness world may be more complex and crowded than ever, Beth McGroarty, vice president of research and forecasting at the Global Wellness Institute, said that today’s offerings can generally be sorted into one of two categories: hard and soft. 

“‘Hard care’ refers to the new, hypermedical, high-tech, super-complex, even more expensive wellness market,” McGroarty said during a wellness trends event in January. “‘Soft care’ refers to a low-pressure, simpler, less expensive, less relentlessly self-optimizing wellness, where emotional and social well-being matter the most.”

That’s not to say the two are mutually exclusive. Demand remains high for both hard and soft care, and the pair often coexist within a single wellness resort ecosystem. 

McGroarty predicts, however, that wellness is likely to diverge further in the future, growing both “harder” and “softer” as the segment is increasingly “defined by dramatically different and even contradictory mindsets.”

“There’s no longer one wellness narrative, one unifying trend, one market,” she said. 

Here, three Travel Weekly editors delve into the diversity of today’s wellness landscape, sharing their experiences at three wellness properties with very different takes on philosophy, price point and hard care versus soft care mix. 

—Christina Jelski

Catching waves and cultivating mindfulness at Surf Synergy

By Johanna Jainchill

JACO, Costa Rica — Coming in from the afternoon heat, sunburned and smiling, Spencer, a guest from Seattle, settled in for lunch with the satisfying exhaustion of a morning spent on the waves. 

Over an organic Buddha bowl at Surf Synergy’s communal table, he explained what he thinks is the secret to the success of the resort he was visiting for the second time that year. “I could replicate the rooms and the property,” he said, “but it’s the culture and the people that make the difference.”

For Spencer, Surf Synergy had been transformative. His experience put into perspective for me the idea of surfing as wellness. Formerly a “workaholic control freak,” he told me he learned to let go on the waves. 

The Surf Synergy ethos is that anyone can learn to surf. The property launched here in 2022 and offers seven-day packages that include yoga, massage, breath work and ice bath therapy along with all meals and one excursion. But the main focus is the almost daily, one-on-one surf or stand-up paddleboarding instruction. 

The approach is holistic, with everything from breath to massage tailored to surfing or paddleboarding recovery and performance. The food, healthful and organic, is meant to provide the energy needed for the waves. Even the resort’s sunblock blend, made with cacao and beeswax, protects the skin while keeping harmful chemicals out of the ocean that provides the waves. 

I arrived with few expectations, other than that my son would advance the surf skills he’d gained from a few lessons the summer before. But surfing isn’t something I’d ever imagined doing, and my plan was to work on paddleboarding. That changed quickly. 

David, my coach for the week and Surf Synergy’s head instructor, spent a morning paddleboarding with me in a beautiful ocean cove. During our session, he said I might enjoy surfing and should maybe try it once. His encouragement, and the smiles and excitement from the surf group that day, convinced me. I gave it a try — and never looked back. 

David’s technique, bestowed upon all the instructors, enabled everyone to stand on their boards on Day 1. A few people who had tried surfing elsewhere said they advanced much more quickly here. David has been teaching for decades and carefully selects instructors, many of whom compete internationally: One was ranked No. 47 in the world by the World Surf League, another is the 2018 Costa Rica paddleboarding national champion and is on Costa Rica’s national surf team. 

Aside from the expertise, every session is followed by video analysis. I found it very helpful to see myself surfing and understand what to change the next day. It can be odd at first that those photographers and videographers show up at everything from surf to yoga, but at the end of each day, everyone loved getting their photos and videos.

The instructors seemed as happy as the guests when their students caught a buena ola, or good wave, their fists pumping along with their students’ at the accomplishment. Quite a few guests were riding waves they’d never thought possible after just a few lessons. As for me, I was happy to just ride my board straight to the beach, and always looked forward to the sliced mango and watermelon awaiting us at the end of sessions. 

The surfing was fun and exhilarating, but I quickly understood how it fits into wellness, with balance, focus and breath key to being able to ride. 

Surfing was the first way Surf Synergy took me out of my comfort zone. I had no intention of actually doing the ice bath — I planned to just observe with journalistic intent — but ended up being the first in my family to take the plunge, lasting three minutes. I’ve done cold plunge pools and arctic leaps, but this ice bath was a ritual. Our instructor, Fernando, started with a lesson in paced breathing to bring the nervous system to a meditative state, and soothing music and his continued breathing tips helped those long minutes go by. 

It’s worth getting Marcel Oliveira’s explanation of ice bath benefits, a lesson in inflammatory proteins, lactic acid and mitochondria and how it all circles back to surfing and mindfulness. 

Oliveira is the resort co-founder and program director (and a champion paddleboarder), and his program is brought to life by a staff that quickly makes guests feel part of a big family. That’s made easier with such a small guest contingent, who quickly got to know each other by doing yoga, surf or paddleboard together and sharing all meals in the Shaka House. The communal nature of the experience adds to the fun, and in a nice touch, at least one staffer joins the group at every meal — it could be a surf coach, the activities coordinator or Oliveira. 

Although wine and beer are available upon request, nobody opted for them, and everyone seemed happy to enjoy the variety of freshly squeezed juices at every meal. Organic tea and high-altitude-grown Costa Rican coffee are available all day. 

My favorite beverage was the cold coconut water served in its shell every time we returned from the beach. I’d often take it back to the hammock in front of our bungalow, looking out at the Pacific Ocean and lush hills around us. I don’t know if it made me a more mindful person, but in those moments, Surf Synergy certainly made me a happier one.

Rates are $3,150 per person for seven-nights, based on double occupancy, all-inclusive.

Spoiled for choice at the Miraval Berkshires Resort & Spa

By Christina Jelski

As far as wellness getaways go, my first day at the Miraval Berkshires Resort & Spa in Lenox, Mass., was fairly standard.

I enjoyed sound bathing in the property’s “vibrational sound chamber,” where I laid on a rug, surrounded by the soothing hum of hammered-metal singing bowls. I then opted for a traditional deep-tissue massage at the property’s Life in Balance Spa, followed by a hearty — but still healthful — dinner of farro risotto at the all-day, farm-to-table Harvest Moon Restaurant.

By the second day, however, my wellness journey took a decidedly more unconventional turn. That afternoon, I found myself with my hands firmly planted on the chest of a 2,200-pound draft horse named Elf, pushing him backward as part of an exercise in learning how to assert boundaries. 

As someone with extremely limited experience with horses, it also proved an exercise in overcoming fear. Fortunately I was expertly guided through this particular workshop, called Heart of the Herd, by an equine specialist and life coach named Beth Timlege.

“Horses require us to bring it down and really be present,” Timlege told me, while encouraging me to slow my breath, relax my body and enter a mental state reminiscent of yoga’s most restful pose, savasana. 

After my lesson on equine behavior, I returned to the Life in Balance Spa for a Vasudhara massage, which involved donning ankle and neck floats and drifting in a small, warm pool as a massage therapist stretched my limbs. Other unexpected sensory elements came into play, with music piped in from underwater speakers and a heavily padded eye mask, which left me in the pitch-dark and feeling like I was floating in space. 

Post-massage, a Miraval shuttle dropped me at the property’s art studio for a group class called the Beauty of Imperfection. Here, each attendee was gifted a small ceramic bowl, which we wrapped in a dish towel and smashed to pieces with a small hammer. 

Drawing inspiration from the Japanese art of kintsugi, in which broken pottery is repaired with gold, we reconstructed our broken bowls using super glue. Once mended, we used gold paint to embellish the bowl’s cracks, embracing its flaws. 

It made for contemplative work, with many epiphanies — applicable not only to ceramic repair but also to life — along the way. (For example, when fragments of ceramic were too tiny to bother with, it became a lesson in not sweating the small stuff.)

Even after doing my best to sample a broad array of wellness offerings during my hosted two-night stay at the Miraval, I left feeling that I had barely scratched the surface. This is largely because the Miraval brand — launched in Tucson, Ariz., in 1995 and acquired by Hyatt Hotels Corp. in 2017 — has long been synonymous with choice, known for a dizzying number of wellness treatments and expert-led workshops and experiences. 

Though the Berkshires resort is a recent addition, opened as Miraval’s third outpost in 2020, the property stays true to that ethos. At check-in, I was handed an Experiences Menu with just over 440 activities to choose from, some complimentary with each stay and others offered at an upcharge.

And while Miraval offers a variety of suggested “journeys,” customization is not only an option here, it’s encouraged. 

Culinary programming at the property is similarly all about options. Healthy offerings are certainly bountiful, but carbs, cookies and other indulgences, including coffee and wine, were also served, completely sans judgement. 

Where the Miraval Berkshires Resort & Spa does take a relatively hard stance, however, is on the digital front. The property declares itself a largely digital-free zone and requires guests to sign a document acknowledging the resort’s cellphone and digital device policy and committing to Miraval Mode: keeping digital devices on silent at all times and only talking and texting in guestrooms and dedicated “digital device areas.”

This proved to be the toughest challenge during the earlier half of my stay, and I admit I was guilty of slipping out of Miraval Mode a few times, absentmindedly shooting off an errant text or two before realizing my mistake. 

By the latter part of my stay, however, I had fully embraced the digital detox. Instead of scrolling through social media during a solo dinner on my last night, I cracked open a book I’d been meaning to start for months. 

Reading a book with a meal may not sound like the most transformative or revolutionary wellness experience. But if my time at Miraval taught me anything, it’s that even the simplest acts of mindfulness can lead to profound shifts in well-being. 

Current rates start at around $600 per person, per night, inclusive of meals, nonalcoholic beverages and select activities.

Taking golf to the next level at the Sensei Porcupine Creek

By Robert Silk

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — At the secluded Sensei Porcupine Creek resort here, now in its second full year of operation, the ultraluxury wellness experience comes with highly trained practitioners, health-tracking technology and ultraprivacy. 

And for those so inclined, wellness extends to the golf course.

Located on a 230-acre estate that was formerly a private residence and retreat for Oracle founder and Sensei co-owner Larry Ellison, the resort has just 22 rooms spread between what was Ellison’s estate house and a collection of large villas and casitas. The villa I stayed in during a two-day visit in November had four living quarters of about 800 square feet each surrounding a well-appointed common living space.

But even those numbers fail to offer a true sense of how private Porcupine Creek feels. The lushly landscaped property, featuring waterfalls flowing among palm trees, cactuses and a seemingly unending array of bright-pink bougainvilleas, adds an extra layer of solitude. In fact, during those two days I often felt like me and my three travel companions were living in our own private garden. Sightings of other guests were rare enough to be a topic of conversation.

The Sensei Porcupine, like the original Sensei property on the Hawaiian island of Lanai, offers a broad menu of wellness offerings guided by highly trained staff. For example, on my second morning, I had a private nutritional consultation with Brooke Damerel, a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in public health.

Other offerings range from yoga and Pilates to mindfulness training geared toward improving sleep, managing stress and enhancing gratitude. 

Sensei guests can also choose structured wellness packages such as the Optimal Wellbeing Program, which begins weeks before arrival. Guests receive a bracelet that tracks their activity, sleep, heart rate and breathing, data that informs the work of exercise physiologists, nutritionists and mindfulness coaches once they arrive. 

During my hosted stay at the Sensei Porcupine, golf was my primary focus. And like the other resort offerings, the golf experience was both holistic and uncommonly exclusive.

Sensei Porcupine Creek is maintained by a 42-person greenkeeping staff. Meanwhile, on the day I played, my group accounted for four of six golfers on the tee shot. On average during the high season, head pro Richard Ruddy informed me, the course has 10 players.

No maintenance team could examine every blade of grass, but Porcupine Creek was in as pristine condition as any course I’ve ever played. There aren’t many divots or ball marks when the ratio of ground crew to player is about 4-to-1.

The golf course wends its way through a sort of desert Shangri-La in the foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains. Bright-blue skies, lush green grass and the pink of the ever-present bougainvilleas contrasted with glimmering ponds, sharply defined sand traps, cabbage palms and barrel and branching cactuses. The signature hole, the par-3 15th, offers golfers an expansive view of the Coachella Valley and a dramatic 220-foot drop to the green. During a leisurely lunch — with no need to rush since there were no other golfers to worry about — we were excited to spot a bobcat walking along a nearby cart path.

I also took part in elements of the holistic program. My day started with a pre-round stretching class geared toward functional golf movement. The instructor, Austin Walker, has the highest-level certification that is bestowed by the Titleist Performance Institute, which trains conditioning specialists to assess a golfer’s physical attributes, then correlate that assessment with the player’s swing.

I used the opportunity to consult with Walker on steps I might take to ease the burden on my arthritic right knee in a way that doesn’t negatively impact my swing.

After our round, my golf day continued with a private swing lesson from Ruddy. Guests with the Golf Optimal Wellness Package receive even more coaching, including on-course sessions focusing on mindset, strategy and pre-shot routines. 

I ended the day with a therapeutic sports recovery session with Resaleen Maurer, advanced practitioner of the myofascial release therapy technique, which focuses on relieving tension in the body’s connective tissue network. For 90 minutes, Maurer alternately massaged and stretched me while assessing my flexibility. She taught me new stretches to both help my golf swing rotation and my general ability to manage my knee problems.

It was a day unlike any I’ve had before, one that left me with numerous lessons I’ve since applied on the practice range and golf course, in the gym and elsewhere.

Room rates for two people start at $1,600 and $3,100 for Golf Optimal Wellness Packages.