Wellness hits differently depending on where in the world you choose to experience it. And pairing a spa vacation with a dreamy, bucket-list destination might be just what your body and soul need to kick off a new year in the right headspace.
Follow our lead to some of the best outposts for a winter wellness escape everywhere from the Teton Mountains, Arctic Sweden and Mexico’s Maya Riviera to one of the most sublime spots on earth well worth the journey all the way to South Africa.
Arctic Bath
There’s no wellness quite like Nordic wellness. Brace yourself for a contrast-bathing experience (hot sauna followed by polar plunge) when you stay at Arctic Bath, a hotel and spa in Swedish Lapland where you’ll literally get immersed in the elements. The wellness circuit here includes two dry saunas, a steam sauna, an outdoor hot tub and an open-air cold river pool within a wellness complex and hotel that floats in the Lule River. During dark nights in the polar north, from August through March, you might look above and see the Aurora Borealis curtaining down as you soak your bones.
Four Seasons Jackson Hole
For a winter spa reverie stateside, set your sights on the exquisite Four Seasons Jackson Hole. With an enviable ski-in/ski-out location at the base of the mountain valley, its onsite wellness facility focuses on the rest and restoration sporty bodies crave after a day of recreation in the surrounding Teton mountain range. Treatments incorporate the locally-sourced skincare line Alpyn Beauty, made with hand-cultivated ingredients like calendula and native sagebrush. The spa’s Turquoise Sage Body Ritual is particularly indulgent, incorporating a willow bark-steeped wrap, fossilized salt scrub, Swiss shower and hydrating massage for 100 minutes of pure bliss.
Mayakoba, Riviera Maya
You’re utterly spoiled for wellness choices when you stay at one of the four hotels –Andaz, Banyan Tree, Fairmont and Rosewood properties – that make up this incredible Riviera Maya destination in Mexico. Will you choose a Mayan-inspired treatment overlooking the lagoons at Andaz’s Naum Wellness & Spa or opt to try a Mayan Temazcal (sweat lodge) ceremony at Fairmont’s Willow Stream Spa, which gazes out over the treetops of a mangrove forest. Sense, A Rosewood Spa, uses Ayurvedic amenities made from ingredients from Mayakoba’s onsite gardens. Banyan Tree Spa offers the best of Eastern and Western techniques, with Mexico’s best Balinese and Thai massages. Deciding which spa to indulge in might be your tallest order here –perhaps order a round at each.
Sterrekopje
In the foothills of the Franschhoek Mountains, about an hour’s drive east of Cape Town, an incredible 11-room wellness resort and biodiverse farm spread across 125 acres awaits intrepid travelers who journey to South Africa. A stay at Sterrekopje is the ultimate transporting retreat, especially when you visit during Florida’s winter and the Southern Hemisphere’s summer. Regenerative rest, inner healing and connectivity are the pillars of the spa’s range of body and energy treatments that include ritual cleansing in the hammam, private hypnotherapy and yoga classes and intuitive massage in addition to group activities like stargazing, hiking, sound baths and bonfires.
Visit on your own or as part of a Wise Women Retreat planned for each season. The summer retreat (January 20-26, 2024) includes guided shamanic and medicine sessions drawn from Andean and African learnings and focuses on the third eye and solar plexus. Similar retreats are planned for fall, winter and spring. Whenever you visit, you’ll leave this place feeling nothing less than reborn–and ready to put your best foot forward in the New Year.
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