While we await the collective exhale this year begs to bring, we look to the beacons of wellness. Not just the standout spa concepts—as much as we do love a good spa—but the hotels that approach the mind and body on the omni-level. From purposeful retreats and spacious beach enclaves to an unparalleled city oasis, Design Hotels™ celebrates the hotels that are at the forefront of responsive service and design, and in that, are meeting today’s shifting physical and spiritual needs. www.designhotels.com/go-well-in-the-world
Carved into a Greek cliffside on Santorini, Nature Eco Residences Santorini is a harmonious wonder of wellness. Central both physically and conceptually, an outdoor communal area is a space to foster human connection and hosts, meditation, and conversations around community-centered balance. A short jump to the island of Zakynthos and Olea All Suite Hotel is a tropical modernist escape with water at its conceptual core. Here, Block722architects+ created a sprawling property revolving around a 4,000-square-meter pool. Streams fluidly meander between island-like clusters of cube structures, creating intimate coves under skylights, hidden gardens, and age-old olive trees. On the shores of Switzerland’s Lake Maggiore, Giardino Ascona is a Tuscan-inspired hideaway where nature reigns. Thanks to its abundant terraces, outdoor sitting areas, sublime water features, pool, and verdant gardens, the entire property instills a sense of enveloped calm.
At the 250-acre historic homestead Troutbeck, a hidden sanctuary is set deep in the forests of upstate New York—a place where romantics, naturalists, humanists, and poets once retreated to and very much still do. The call for calm is answered by The Barn, a newly-constructed holistic center with a full range of wellness services including studio classes, yoga and meditation, Kinesoma, and the therapeutic saunas of the Long Barn. A similar mindset on the West Coast means Santa Monica Proper Hotel’s expansive amenities are qualified to support with the foundations of lasting health. At the Surya Spa, a collaboration with internationally acclaimed Ayurvedic doctor, chef, and herbalist Martha Soffer, treatments are guided by age-old Indian wellness principles from leaders of modern Ayurveda. Offerings include therapeutic massage, steam and oil treatments, cooking, yoga, meditation, and Panchakarma. A short trip south, on the same Pacific coastline, and we land on the shores of the Papaya Playa Project, where a communal playground for the creative community invites reconnection to both nature and self, and maybe a DJ set or two. This year, Papaya Playa has partnered with Love Academy to create an immersive yoga program with the expressed goal to root the soul in authenticity and personal growth.
