A beginner’s guide
They’re not just for health nuts and yoga addicts, you know. Siobhan Downes walks us through what counts as a wellness holiday and what one can do for you.
Let’s play a word association game. I say ‘‘wellness’’, you think kale smoothies, getting up at sparrow fart to salute the sun, and putting your body through punishing (and potentially mortifying) treatments.
I say ‘‘holiday’’? The exact opposite of the above likely comes to mind.
‘‘Having green juices and daily colonics is not my idea of a holiday, either,’’ laughs Samantha Lippiatt, a wellness travel expert based in Australia.
But you can expect to be seeing those two words side-by-side a lot more often (wellness holiday that is, not daily colonics).
In 2017, wellness tourism was estimated to be a $639 billion global market, growing more than twice as fast as general tourism, according to the US-based Global Wellness Institute (GWI).
The coronavirus pandemic is expected to fuel this travel trend – which GWI defines as ‘‘travel associated with the pursuit of maintaining or enhancing one’s personal wellbeing’’.
‘‘Now more than ever, we’re all really aware of our health, and taking care of it,’’ says Lippiatt.
But how can a wellness holiday benefit you, and how do you find the right one for you?
Helping people figure that out has been Lippiatt’s job since 2014, when she co-founded Australia’s first dedicated wellness travel company, Health and Fitness Travel.
A former travel agent, qualified personal trainer and masseuse, initially Lippiatt wanted to set up her own retreat.
But when she was looking into it, she realised while there were already plenty of wellness holiday offerings out there, there was no platform bringing them all together for travellers.
‘‘I thought, there’s an opportunity here. I could be the trusted adviser for the people who are looking for these retreats, instead of trying to add myself into the mix.’’
The first thing to know about wellness travel, Lippiatt says, is that it’s very broad. It’s not necessarily limited to heading to a retreat for a week of clean eating and downward dogs.
If you’ve ever visited a spa or a hot spring, used a hotel gym, taken a surf lesson, or even just gone for a walk in nature while on holiday, then you’ve already dabbled in the wellness world.
But if you’re struggling with specific health issues or fitness goals, or have just been through a major life event – a break-up, the loss of a loved one, a career change, or perhaps even a milestone birthday – a dedicated retreat could be just what the doctor ordered, Lippiatt says.
‘‘Wellness is about what you need – and asking yourself those questions. And then having a look to see what the options are.’’
With borders still closed, making travel to wellness hotspots like Bali and Thailand out of the question, what are your options at present?
Lippiatt says there are countless wellness offerings in New Zealand, but few explicitly market themselves as such.
‘‘I think it’s because a lot of the things that would be sold [as wellness] internationally – things like hiking, watersports and skiing – are just iconic New Zealand activities.’’
But a handful of retreats have put New Zealand firmly on the global wellness tourism map.
One is Resolution Retreats in Waikato, which was named New Zealand’s best wellness retreat in the 2020 World Spa Awards.
The women-only retreat was started by former chartered accountant Joelene Ranby in 2012, who identified a gap in the market for a live-in retreat specialising in women’s health. ‘‘I had been through some health challenges of my own,’’ Ranby says.
‘‘I was coming out the other side and I wanted to take my mum and my sisters somewhere we could have this time and space to relearn some of the things we needed to relearn.
‘‘I looked around New Zealand, and there was nothing. We would have had to go much further afield to enable us to have an experience like this.’’
Ranby, who had trained as a group fitness instructor with Les Mills, started taking retreats on her weekends. They were so popular she had to bring in a team to help run them, and eventually gave up her corporate career to focus on Resolution Retreats full-time.
Women can choose from programmes ranging from three days to three weeks, staying at the resort property at Lake Kara¯ piro, near Cambridge.
The retreat starts from $250 a day (for the daystay package, which excludes accommodation), and includes healthy meals, daily fitness, yoga and meditation sessions, health workshops, cooking classes, and spa treatments.
While around half of guests arrive with the number on the scales on their mind, Ranby insists it’s not just a ‘‘weight-loss retreat’’. The focus is on ‘‘progress, not perfection’’, taking a holistic approach to health.
‘‘I think they’re expecting us to drill into them, ‘nutrition and exercise, nutrition and exercise’, but what about happiness? What about sleep? If you’re not sleeping well, whatever we tell you to do in terms of your exercise and nutrition will be hard to do on a sustainable basis if you’re absolutely exhausted,’’ she says.
‘‘There are so many other facets of health that need to be considered, and in some cases, prioritised, to be able to dig your way out of a hole.’’
For many Kiwi women, the idea of going on a retreat is totally foreign, Ranby says. ‘‘Spending money on improving your health and happiness has not traditionally been a priority. But once they experience it, they’re convinced. They’re like, ‘Oh my goodness, why didn’t I do this five years ago?’’’
When searching for wellness retreats in New Zealand, Aro Ha¯ is another name that often comes up.
Since opening in 2014, the Glenorchy health resort has established itself as one of the world’s top wellness retreats, picking up a swag of international awards and earning gushing writeups in glossy magazines (‘‘a full physical and emotional overhaul’’ was how Vogue described it).
With five-night retreats starting from $5575, it’s positioned firmly at the luxury end of the market. And the experience is wellness with a capital W. A typical day involves being woken by the chimes of a Tibetan bowl, taking part in sunrise yoga before breakfast, and a subalpine hike before lunch.
You’ll recover with a therapeutic massage, before taking part in a functional strength training session and nutrition workshop, followed by more yoga and mindfulness practice, then dinner and some journalling or spa time before bed.
It’s not for the faint-hearted. Guests are asked to refrain from caffeine, cigarettes and alcohol in the week leading up to their retreat (it goes without saying you won’t find any of those vices on site, either).
You can’t bring in any of your own snacks or drinks, and you’re not allowed to use digital devices in public spaces (but there is wi-fi in the rooms).
But if you’re worried about sticking out like a sore thumb in a group of health nuts and enlightened yogis, you would be mistaken.
‘‘Every week we have someone who is doing this for the first time,’’ says Chris Wille, Aro Ha¯ ’s programme co-ordinator.
A retreat like Aro Ha¯ can offer novices ‘‘different doorways’’ into the concept of wellness, Wille says.
‘‘I always recommend that people see what they latch onto. There will be certain things that land really well and there will be other things that are like, ‘That was cool, but it wasn’t really my thing.’
‘‘Then you can take what you really latch onto and see where you can integrate that back into your life, because that’s where the real change happens.’’
At this point you might be thinking, that all sounds fair enough. But why might one book a wellness holiday instead of, say, a ‘‘flop and drop’’ holiday in a lovely resort, where cocktails and chocolate bars aren’t considered contraband?
‘‘What’s unique about a wellness holiday is that you have the potential to come back feeling a lot better than you did when you went on the holiday.’’
All three wellness advocates interviewed for this article challenge you to think about how you felt the last time you went on a holiday.
‘‘You can have a holiday where you sit by the beach, and it’s all booze and gluttony, and you’ll come back maybe feeling a little bit worse than when you left,’’ Wille says.
‘‘What’s unique about a wellness holiday is that you have the potential to come back feeling a lot better than you did when you went on the holiday.
‘‘It’s still fun – you’re still having a good time, with good people. But if you can take away one or two little tools, six months later you can still be feeling better. There’s this real potential to create small but meaningful shifts.’’
Lippiatt agrees. ‘‘A lot of the time we go on holiday and we’re so busy doing everything – trying to organise it all, get to all the sites, eat all the food and drink all the drinks – we come back and we’re like, ‘That was good, but I’m exhausted. I don’t feel better for taking that break.’’’
After the year from hell that was 2020 – and with 2021 not off to much of a better start – Ranby believes more people will be wanting to push the reset button.
‘‘I think everybody was getting to the end of last year and went, ‘Thank goodness it’s over. We’re going to have a great holiday and 2021 is going to be a new dawn, a new day.’
‘‘Then all of us got to the end of our holiday and went, ‘Oh crap, perhaps I was overestimating how good I was going to feel, and how great 2021 is going to be.’
‘‘For a lot of people who are in that place, they do just need to escape. And that’s what retreats are – a complete escape.’’