Hi HAPers, I spent a glorious afternoon at what may be the poshest and most design-forward spa in New York: Tierra Santa Healing House at Faena New York. The 17,000-square-foot spa is pure Alan Faena: flamboyant, fantastical, and awash in color, with a five-pool thermal sanctuary, hammam, steam room, and dry and infrared saunas. I went for the 90-minute Therapeutic Recovery Massage, where my therapist worked out every knot with stretching, trigger-point therapy, and deep-tissue techniques. I left revived, relaxed, and ready to return. As someone who loves to hike and will happily make a day-long trek the entire purpose of a trip, another form of wellness that speaks to me is biophilic wellness: the idea that connecting with nature can be restorative in its own right.
Beckons, a collection of nine luxury lodges in some of the world's most spectacular landscapes, takes that idea well beyond a walk in the woods. Here, the natural surroundings aren't simply a pretty backdrop. They're an integral part of the wellness experience. At Huka Lodge in New Zealand, guests stay amid 17 acres of gardens along the turquoise Waikato River, and the spa draws on the country's natural bounty with mānuka honey, thermal mud, greenstone, and locally sourced botanicals. Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge on Vancouver Island takes immersion even further. Its 25 safari tents sit amid 600 acres of Canadian wilderness, where you can get a massage outdoors, practice yoga by the water, soak in cedar hot and cold tubs, take a glacial plunge in the Bedwell River, or meditate among old-growth cedar and western hemlock trees. At Silky Oaks Lodge in Australia's Daintree Rainforest, treehouse-style accommodations sit beneath the forest canopy near the Mossman River. Wellness can mean forest bathing, river immersions, walks along the Mossman, or hydrotherapy-inspired treatments at the Healing Waters Spa. And at Tierra Patagonia in Chile, the hotel hugs the shore of Lake Sarmiento overlooking Torres del Paine. Its low-slung architecture incorporates lenga wood and raw stone, while enormous windows keep the Patagonian landscape front and center. Different continents, different landscapes, but the same idea: sometimes the best wellness treatment isn't a treatment at all.
|
From Other HAPers Christina Valhouli visited the 23,000-square-foot spa at Salamander Resort in Virginia horse country. The equestrian-inspired retreat has just 14 treatment rooms, leaving plenty of room for a hot-and-cold water circuit and an outdoor area with a private pool and cabanas exclusively for spa guests. Christina tried the Espresso Detox Body Polish, complete with warm coffee-and-salt-infused mud, a scalp massage, and a CBD massage. Much farther afield, Wendy Helfenbaum visited Wai Ariki Hot Springs & Spa in Rotorua, New Zealand. Rooted in Māori healing traditions and the region's geothermal waters, the 48,000-square-foot spa is an experience unto itself. Wendy embarked on its two-hour Restorative Journey, moving through seven stages that included hot-and-cold therapies, mineral-rich geothermal pools, saunas, a geothermal mud lounge, and a steam cave. Now, over to my co-contributor Lauren Harano for this month's biggest wellness buzz.
|
