Reset & Revive
You’ve decided to shake off bad eating habits, ease stress and become a new, healthier, happier you – a wellness getaway is a great place to do all this and more. But which to choose? Belinda Jackson helps you find the right destination for you.
How to find the best wellness holiday to suit your needs
Where can you go to shake off all that stress and power up instead of running down? Wellness retreats are an all-in-one solution, where you can kickstart new routines, offering the chance to trade old habits for healthier ones. Health is a big business, so when you’re shopping for a wellness getaway, it helps to pinpoint your ideal focus: losing kilos or gaining sleep, getting your health back on track or learning to quieten a busy mind in an ocean of noise.
LOCATION, LOCATION
Australian wellness retreats seem to gather in valleys or on mountain tops: the classic break-outs from our major cities are found in NSW’s Hunter Valley, Victoria’s Yarra Valley and the Barossa Valley in South Australia. Queensland is spoilt with its two celebrity hinterlands above the Sunshine Coast and
Gold Coast and the mothership of zen, Byron
Bay, is just two hours south of Brisbane.
Heading abroad, Bali’s favourite hilltown, Ubud, is a magnet for those in search of calm, with a flourishing yoga and vegetarian scene, but for high-end nurturing, Indonesia’s islands are blossoming with ultimate wellness retreats, led by Nihi on Sumba Island, voted the world’s best hotel by US magazine Travel + Leisure’s readers. A pioneer of holistic health, it includes a dose of philanthropy as wellness for the soul.
Thailand’s Koh Samui and Phuket are other longstanding go-tos for healthy food and mindful practices while the ‘new Bali’ is Sri Lanka, a tropical haven with a sophisticated tourism scene (think women-only surf retreats, boutique hotels and easily accessible UNESCO-listed wilderness). Tap into its Ayurvedic medicine and outdoor spas, now a whole lot more accessible with direct flights from Melbourne.
More direct flights from Australia’s eastern seaboard have also boosted Hawaii’s wellness reputation: what’s not to love about relaxing with a lomi lomi massage counterbalanced by a spot of recreational shopping?
THE TIME IS RIGHT
When choosing a location, you need to look at more than just catching the right time of year for the best weather (there’s a good reason tickets to the Pacific Islands cost less in November, when the hurricane season kicks in). Try timing your retreat with the local fun run – or even marathon – or to coincide with an arts festival or day of cultural significance. Bali’s Nyepi Day is a day of silence, when no cars are driven, no shops are open, electric lights are all switched off: the perfect opportunity for a day of quiet yoga or meditation.
Within Australia, mid-week breaks can preserve the piggy bank and, as an extra bonus, retreats are a lot quieter in such key holiday areas as Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula or the NSW South Coast. Start signing up to online newsletters for more focused retreats: most of Australia’s best-known spas bring in motivational speakers and experts in pilates, yoga and diet, perhaps a sleep guru, stress wrangler or over-50s focus for a long-weekend workshop.
NURTURE OR NATURE?
Walking holidays are now giving travellers greater access to amazing natural spots,
with more long-distance paths opening around Australia, such as South Australia’s new Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail. The wellness industry is climbing onboard to create luxury health adventures: Victoria is justly renowned for the Great Ocean Walk and Tasmania’s Maria Island is just one of many of that state’s marked walking routes serviced by companies offering luxury walks, with ‘mindful walking’ the key phrase to type into the internet search bar. And while cycling holidays have been largely hijacked by MAMILs (Middle-Aged Men in Lyra), there is a move in cycling circles to establish more femalefriendly road and mountain bike rides and festivals that teach techniques such as hill climbing and mountain descents: expect to see more in the coming year from such cycling strongholds as Victoria’s Mt Buller and surrounding villages.
If you’re after something a little more blissedout, a little less bootcamp, head to Queensland’s islands for an al fresco spa treatment: think massages in the lagoon, on the beach, or, if in a treatment room, with the windows open to the sounds of nature. Waterbabies note: once the sole preserve of Tonga, you can now swim with whales on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast and out of Exmouth, in Western Australia, with whale-and-wellness getaways a hot ticket. The counterbalance is winter in Australia’s snow villages for Japaneseinspired outdoor hot springs and spa treatments.
EAT IT… OR NOT
Eat lean, green, raw, paleo, organic, vegetarian or simply plentifully. When shopping for the great getaway, it pays to check the menu beforehand. Will you drop the salt, sugar and caffeine, go alcohol free, live on fruit or spend a week imbibing the latest superfood?
To take your wellness journey past turmeric shakes, sign up for a local cooking class for some take-home tricks. They’re common in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia, both in and outside the resorts, and health-conscious cooking schools are now also emerging in Bali’s rice paddies, away from the Seminyak scrum. Back home, be sure to check any local resorts and hotels for their spa menus: a two-day cleansing retreat gets the detox ball rolling, without an international airfare.
CONNECT OR DISCONNECT?
Before you commit, ask yourself: are you looking to connect with a significant other, or to disconnect with a digital detox, banishing likes and emojis from your mind’s patterns. Is your Friday night, red wine wind-down posse the same gang who’ll embrace a 4am rising, non-speaking wilderness weekend? Women-only retreats, encouraging singles, are now easy to find, with a welcome rise in wellness adventure getaways to south-east Asia run by women, for women. There’s a retreat out there just for you.