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Sound baths. Silent retreats. Cryotherapy. When it comes to wellness, there’s an encyclopedia’s worth of experiences, treatments, and rituals to dip your toe into. But where on earth to start? This week, Lale is joined by three experts—Lydia Bell, Traveller UK’s senior features editor, Yariella Coello, the blogger behind The Beauty Backpacker, and Jen Murphy, a writer who reports regularly on wellness tourism—to demystify the jargon and find out how to start planning your own trip.
Lale Arikoglu: Hi there. I'm Lale Arikoglu, and with me on Women Who Travel today are three women who are talking about wellness. They're Lydia Bell, senior features editor at Condé Nast Traveler, blogger Yariella Coello, who writes The Beauty Backpacker and is based in Hackney in London, and journalist Jen Murphy, regular Traveler contributor, and often a reporter on wellness tourism.
So today we're going to talk about all things retreats, sanctuaries, spa resorts, sweat lodges. But first, I need to admit that I don't really come to wellness very naturally. The thought of knowing that I have to leave the beach at a set time and go for a massage and then be trapped in some sort of hotel spa and follow various rules, or at least this is how I perceive it, seems more stressful than relaxing to me, but I have a feeling that I am casting a broad stroke on the wellness industry. Having a vacation, to me, feels good enough, but I think I'm wrong.
I mean, you've all written about so many transformative places. Could each of you just introduce yourself and give an example of somewhere that's really stuck with you from a wellness standpoint? And sorry, Lydia, as the staffer at Condé Nast Traveler, I'm going to put you on the spot and make you go first.
Lydia Bell: Okay. Hello. So I am the senior features editor at Condé Nast Traveler UK, and I also edit the Wellness and Spa Guide, which we publish every year. So in terms of spa or wellness experiences, the one that stands out in my mind as being most memorable would be in the Italian Tyrol. So you're in Italy, but to all intents and purposes you are in Austria. There's a spa which is very Austrian. It's called Preidlhof. It's essentially a place for Austrians and Germans to go on holiday, go hiking, go walking, but there's also this incredible spa there, which is run by an Italian woman called Patrizia Bortolin, and she has completely different sensibilities. And it's in this incredibly beautiful valley, which almost has a sort of microclimate, which is quite Mediterranean. And she pieces together these amazing holistic practitioners.
LA: What was the holistic itinerary for you?
LB: So it was a combination of shiatsu, different holistic facials, Ayurvedic rituals. And then there's a practitioner there called Stefano Battaglia, who's an energy healer. And I went to see him, and that was a very out-of-body experience.
LA: Wait, what did that entail? You say energy healer, and I'm like ... Is that rocks and gemstones?
LB: Well, not really. So I've had those kinds of rocks and gemstones experiences in the past, and I've seen quite a few different energy healers. And most of them just aren't very good, to be honest with you. You go out feeling quite similar to how you came in. But this guy is a completely different kettle of fish. So I went in all perky and chatty, laid down on this very normal-looking massage bed, and he started to massage my midriff, my internal organs. And it just got more and more painful, until it was actually unbearably painful, and I started to just yell. And then I started sobbing, and it felt like someone was literally pulling something out of me. And it ended about 20 minutes later, where I just had no idea what happened with me, but it felt like an enormous weight had lifted off me. And when I spoke to everybody else who'd been there, they said, "Oh, that happened to me too." And I actually have no idea what he does. I think he started treating soldiers with PTSD, and he just found he had this incredible gift.
LA: And Yariella, I'm going to make you do it now.
Yariella Coello: All right.
LA: Fire away. What place changed you?
YC: So my pick is Kinosaki in Japan. I did a solo trip there for about a month. Actually, it was my first ever solo trip. And it's an onsen town.
LA: And when you say onsen, because I've been to some of those towns, you mean like hot springs, right? It's all natural hot springs that come out the earth.
YC: Yes. Exactly. And they dress you up in the traditional attire. It's a yukata, and then you wear the clogs. And they give you just a little sticker or whatever, and then you walk around the town and just try all the onsen. And I loved it, I think partially because it's a whole wellness experience, but I think also because it felt really local. I had no idea what I was doing. It was the first time that I'd properly been to an onsen. And the locals were so helpful, just helping me dress and undress and find my way around. It was just such a cool wellness experience, but also cultural experience. So by far, sticks out the most in my mind.
LA: When I went to one of these onsen towns ... Because everything's in Japanese. If you don't speak the language, it can be a little daunting. And I was kind of wandering around and went into this onsen. And for people who aren't aware, you're butt naked in an onsen. That's the only way that you can be in there. You cannot be in a swimsuit. Anyway, it's totally empty, have a lovely time, feel very replenished. And as I walk out, I realize that there's a bloke walking in, and I've just been splashing around in the men's for the past hour by myself, thankfully undisturbed, but it haunts me forever more.
YC: Yeah, you really have no idea what you're getting into. You hope for the best. Yeah, it was really cool.
LA: And Jen, what's yours? And you are speaking to us from Taos, and you're skiing, which in itself feels like a-
Jen Murphy: I am.
LA: ... A case for wellbeing, but interested to know what you have.
JM: I'm not a woo-woo person usually, but I will say, everyone says there's a special energy in Taos, and you certainly can't deny that. It's unlike anywhere I've ever been in the US. I live part-time in Colorado, and then spend a few months a year in Maui, which are both wellness hubs in the US.
And I like to start every year, which sounds silly, but ... Cabo used to be known for its party scene, Cabo San Lucas in Mexico. It has changed, and I would argue it is one of the biggest wellness destinations in the world now. And I start every year, usually the second week of January, going down so I can surf, hike in the mountains, you can go up to these beautiful natural springs that are almost like manmade waterfalls. And I think for me, nature plays a big role in wellness. So what I love about being in Baja, Mexico is you could be on your paddleboard and see whales. And it sounds silly, but being on the water and seeing a whale breach a few hundred feet away from you, to me, that's just such an incredible, special experience. It just centers me in some special way.
LA: So the three of you have shared some pretty contrasting experiences. We've got onsens in Japan, we've got whales breaching in Cabo, we have an energy healer pulling at your organs. I think I'm more overwhelmed with the options of what wellness can be and what it looks like than I was. So how do you advise someone who's coming in and they're starting this year and they're like, "I want to take care of myself more, I want to do it through the means of travel, but I don't know where to start"?
JM: I would say start by identifying what you want to get out of the trip, what you personally need, because sometimes you just want some downtime away from your screen, away from your kids, away from work. And it's very easy in these experiential travel times to go to these retreats and book yourself nonstop. So I found every hour for four straight days, I was running to a different class or a different workshop. And in four days, I didn't even step foot on this beautiful beach that was literally outside the hotel door. So yeah, I would start by saying really think about what you personally want to get out of that trip.
LA: Yariella, what about you? What would you advise?
YC: I actually would say ... I think Jen touched on this a little bit earlier, just start with nature. Then you're not convinced by it all, shall we say? I think I am. I like the woo-woo stuff. But if you don't, I honestly think if you love travel for new experiences and exploring new cultures, if you tap into the nature of where you want to go, I think wellness can come off the back of that. I mean, I think of ... If you go hiking in Iceland, you probably could come across hot springs, or if you're traveling through Thailand, there's no chance you won't bump into a spa that offers a really interesting Thai massage. So pick where you want to go, and then whatever the connection to nature is there, I think there's something wellness-y that will fall out of that, and it's just dipping your toes in while also doing something you think you just enjoy on holiday.
LB: I think if you are new to wellness, a good place to start is possibly group travel because it's slightly less threatening and there's lots of different options. You are more likely to find, if you're interested in learning more about tantric consciousness or Zen Samurai, or you want to join a grief group, or you want to join a men's group, or you're really into singing and you want to do a retreat that combines singing and therapy, or you're into surfing, or you want to look at addiction but you don't want to go for a massive addiction program somewhere at a clinic. Whatever the focus is, you can probably find a retreat that will address that. So it's a slightly less threatening way than the solitary self-care route.
LA: I was going to say, it's funny that you say group trips, because to me that is antithetical to relaxing. So how are you finding the people that you're going to dip your toe into wellness with?
LB: What I would say to that, basically, is that you shouldn't go on a group trip, because if you don't personally like group trips in terms of wellness-
LA: But are you thinking group trips that are with friends, or is it about booking through an operator?
LB: Yeah. I mean, I think if you're interested in, for example, yoga retreats, then there are quite a few around the world that you can look at.
JM: Well, I think when we talk about wellness being viewed more holistically these days, if you look at the principles of the blue zones, the places where people live the longest, healthiest lives, two of those components are community and social network.
LA: When you mentioned finding community and working through some of these really personal things, these retreats and these experiences means you have to make yourself quite vulnerable. It seems like, to a lot of people, it would be quite intimidating to go to a stranger, essentially, and list out, "These are all of my health problems," or, "These are all of the emotional challenges that I've been going through in my life," whether it's grief or it's physical and emotional, like menopause. You have to share a lot with strangers to start to set yourself up for a ... Productive doesn't seem like the right word, but positive experience.
JM: There's a lot of crying. There's a lot of sharing. So you really have to be prepared for that.
LA: Wait, Jen, tell me a little bit more about one of these. I am picturing a White Lotus-style group sitting in a-
JM: It was a little White Lotus style.
LA: Tell me everything.
JM: Okay. I was writing a story about finding purpose, which it is, as you get older and try and do your life transitions. I found it shocking how many people were like, "I feel like I don't have purpose." And I'm like, "Really? You don't have a passion?" So part of our workshop at Sensei in California, rather than have us vocalize things to start, we storyboarded, which I thought it was very grade school. So we had our glue sticks, we had glitter, we had postcards. And it was just ... Put down the colors or images or words that speak to how you're feeling. And I thought that was a good way to help us share without making everyone vocalize things. But again, it was a little woo-woo, but I was like, "When was the last time I used a glue stick?"
LA: So when did the trend of wellness travel begin exactly? And when did it noticeably become this huge, multi-billion-dollar industry? After the break.
Back with Women Who Travel and my conversation with Yariella, Lydia, and Jen. Woo-woo is a word that has come up. I think it conjures these ideas of New Age-iness, and when I was talking about those energy healing rocks and gemstones. And people can be quite dismissive of it, but what do you guys mean when you say, "Woo-woo"? Yariella, you also said it.
YC: I mean, it's hard to define, isn't it? I guess I kind of see it as things that feel slightly disconnected from reality and things that a lot of people wouldn't experiment with. I think, as you said, crystals, Reiki, which I tried and personally loved. But when I've talked to friends who don't have the same interest in this sort of thing, they've been very put off and unconvinced that it actually works or makes any difference. But I think people seem to be very binary. You're either up for it or you're not, in terms of whether or not you're going to go there.
LB: I think there's a sliding scale of woo-woo. So on the one end you've got, I don't know, tarot, astrology. And in the middle, you might have kinesiology and spiritual healing. And then you might have, at the other end, past life regression, rebirthing, that kind of thing. So some people might be willing to dip into a bit of tarot, but they're not going to do the past life regression therapy. I've also had a penchant for visiting shamans and those kinds of people as well.
LA: Okay. So I feel like we keep talking about wellness as though it's quite new, which obviously it isn't. We all know that. People have been sitting in saunas and all these sorts of wellness spaces since Roman times. So how much are we just repackaging or revisiting things that humans have always done and always looked for? We've always hiked. We've always wanted to be in nature. We've always wanted to immerse ourselves in water or slather ourselves in mud, looking for some way to heal ourselves. Are we doing it better, do you think?
LB: I think we've always ... Wellness is timeless. And as you say, it's always been with us. But now because of the way we live, because of modern life being quite abnormal, really, in terms of us as a species, I'm not sure we're supposed to be going into the office every day and living in this late capitalist reality. So that's why we've had to create these spaces consciously, as part of our modern reality where people can go and switch off and disconnect.
LA: This is a question for the whole group. A lot of the examples we've been citing, whether it's going halfway across the world to go to Japan or it's booking yourself into some sort of retreat, it's all pretty expensive. Do you think it can be accessible? Is there a way to find these experiences that aren't going to break the bank?
JM: I don't think we've ever seen wellness retreats priced at the level they're priced right now, and people are paying. It's really outrageous, some of the price tags on some of these retreats.
LB: Yeah. It's a huge industry, isn't it? It's a global wellness economy.
JM: Apparently.
LB: Since COVID, the growth has been exponential. And it's really been since COVID that things have exploded in that way.
JM: Absolutely.
LB: Because people are more concerned about their health. And with all the cutting edge diagnostics and research, I think all the medical spas are jumping on top of that as well. It's quite mind-boggling, actually. It's difficult to pick all the different treatments and things that you can do.
LA: Back to the basics. Wellness, really in its purest, rawest form, yoga on the beach. A big trend in the UK is cold water swimming, which you really just need a swimsuit and I guess a relatively hardy constitution to embark upon. What's your advice for finding those sorts of moments of wellness that isn't checking yourself into the retreat? And would you go cold water swimming?
LB: In the UK?
LA: Yes.
LB: So I spent New Years in the west of Ireland. And in Ireland, people swim in the sea all the time. I mean, they kind of invented cold water swimming. They do it a lot more than we do in the UK. I think in the UK, we kind of adopted it much later. But yeah, I would recommend going to Ireland, just watching them and being inspired.
LA: Jen, have you spotted anything that feels really just back to basics?
JM: I feel like in the cold, people tend to stay indoors. And I did a winter wellness retreat with a company called Eleven, outside of Crested Butte, Colorado. And it was so lovely. We bundled up, we put snow shoes on, and we did just a silent meditative walk through the woods in the snow, and it was just so calming and so beautiful.
LA: It must've been so quiet as well. And silence feels like such a valuable and rare thing.
JM: 100%. You can weave elements that you learn from these retreats or poach from these retreats at home. At one of the retreats, they had us do a dry brush every day in the shower, and they said it helped with circulation, and that's a habit I've taken home with me. I spray some eucalyptus mist in the shower and do a little dry brush. And do I do it every day? No, but it's something I took from one of the retreats I was at.
LA: I have a little eucalyptus branch in my shower, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't do anything, but it does make my routine feel a little bit more ... I don't know. A little something. And I think so much about taking care of yourself and feeling like you have those beauty rituals also is so intertwined with wellness. And Yariella, I know that's something that you talk about and write about a lot. I think I'm always feeling more well when I look in the mirror and I don't think that I look tired or I don't think that I look hungover or I don't have a breakout on my chin, like I currently do. How does beauty intersect with wellness for you?
YC: Yeah. I think they're completely interlinked. When you actually travel a lot and look at beauty around the world and the rituals and the traditions, even styles of makeup or what they prioritize in terms of beauty, it's incredibly rich and different. So I was really fascinated in what are the little rituals that you can pick up from different pockets of the world and take back home. Like shea butter, for example, would be big in Africa. And yes, it is in a lot of beauty products in the Western world, but I like these things in their purest form. And it's cool to try that everywhere you go.
LA: Yariella, I think you make such a good point about acknowledging where these rituals or these ingredients have come from. And I think the wellness industry is guilty of appropriating quite a few traditions and building a very profitable industry off them. How, as a traveler, can you be thoughtful and mindful of that and actually go to the root of the ritual and find out where it's from and educate yourself?
LB: I would just say go to the source. So if you want to experience Ayurveda, go to India or go to Sri Lanka.
LA: Jen, what do you think?
JM: I 100% agree with Lydia. And just ask questions. If you are at a hotel, really ask where they're sourcing the ingredients, who is training their practitioners. And I think also that brings up the point ... You want to be cognizant of the time commitment you're giving yourself. If you want to see change, it's not a quick fix. But I do think sometimes we go on these retreats, we fly halfway around the world, especially for Americans, we might only have four or five days. And then the jet lag on the way back kind of cancels out all the benefits of the retreat you've just had. So being mindful of the time commitment to really see the change you want is important when you are thinking about taking these trips.
LA: How to participate in local traditions, coming up.
I'm back with blogger YC, Condé Nast Traveler senior editor, LB, and our frequent wellness reporter, JM. What do you get out the experience of going local? When we were talking about going to India, somewhere that I just was for two weeks, although I have to say I did no wellness treatments. I was eating and drinking and lying on the beach in Goa, for the most part. But how do you get the most out of the experiences? Jen, I'm going to make you go.
JM: You have to be very open-minded. So I tend to be game for anything. And I will never forget, I was in Ecuador. There is something called Olympia. It is a cleansing ceremony performed I think throughout Latin America. But they essentially take an egg, rub it on you, and then in my instance, rubbed a dead guinea pig on me. And it was quite alarming. The woman came and performed it in my hotel room. I was just like, "What is happening?" My Spanish wasn't that great. Her English wasn't that great.
Apparently, she'd been performing these ceremonies for decades in the community she was from. And traditionally, she said she did it for women after they had babies or women who were trying to get pregnant. But really, it's supposed to cleanse the body, block negative energy.
And I had been told at that point in my life that I might not be able to have kids, and I had stopped having my period. And I tell you, two days later, I had my period for the first time. This might be too much information. And who knows? It could have just been happenstance, it could have been from the cleansing ceremony, but I was just in such shock.
So you really have to be open-minded to have these types of experiences that are hyper local, very traditional. And they don't all have to be that wacky. I don't think I want a dead guinea pig rubbed on me again. But yeah, being open-minded and asking the locals to take you, if there's a local shaman in the community or, in this instance, a healer.
LA: Jen, if you don't mind me asking, because that wasn't oversharing. I would say on this podcast, there's never oversharing. But what was it like, processing that experience after? I mean, you referred to it as wacky, but clearly it had a huge impact on you.
JM: So it reminded me of Lydia's experience a little bit. I kind of laughed at it. Gosh, now I'm remembering. She also whacked me with thickets. It was a big branch of thickets. It really hurt.
LA: And I'm assuming you didn't know any of this was coming. The way you're describing it, I don't think you knew the guinea pig was going to get produced.
JM: No. I did not know that the guinea pig was going to be produced. It was the most bizarre. But the woman was so kind. She could sense what I needed. And after that experience, I was much more open-minded.
LA: You were describing this experience with this woman who had been doing this particular ceremony for decades. Wellness, as an industry, I think often gets associated with women a lot. It gears itself towards women. Just thinking more broadly, are there traditional therapies that are led by women or have been shared by women? Which kind of spaces are for women, perhaps?
LB: I mean, a lot of retreats are full of women, but I think that's just because they choose to go, rather than they're being specifically for women.
LA: So Yariella, I would ask what you've noticed from a backpacking perspective.
YC: I mean, I don't know. As Lydia was speaking, I guess my thought was, for me, wellness is so interlinked with self exploration. And women are willing to go there in a way that men might hesitate. So something like a group retreat where you can address toxic masculinity and vulnerability in a very open and safe space, I guess, would probably encourage men to do it more.
LA: We have talked about many different experiences, many different parts of the world. There are some that I've definitely been more drawn to than others. If you were to each recommend one wellness experience that also isn't super flashy, everyone's budgeting this time of year, one thing that someone could kick off the year with, what would you recommend or suggest? I'll start with Jen.
JM: I would say just get outside and go for a hike and leave your phone behind. And if you're scared about getting lost, put it deep down in your backpack so it doesn't distract you. Try to leave your podcast off and just really tune into yourself and nature.
LA: Yariella, what would you say?
YC: One of the best trips I've ever done ... It's hard to choose, but I did a hiking trip in the Dolomites and I stayed in one of these very spa-like places. And it was just the dream wellness trip for me because, really, it was about nature, but then you're drinking fresh water off the mountain and hiking all day. You're not going for these intense alternative therapies. It's just reconnecting to nature, quiet. It was just the best.
LA: I will say, one of the best I've ever felt was on that Japan trip where, for the most part, it was a hiking trip along the Kumano Kodo Trail, which is this thickly-forested 12th century trail that used to be used by monks. And every day, you stay in a different place and you use the onsen and then you hike again. And by the end, it was the best I've ever felt after doing that, mentally and physically.
JM: My boyfriend and I are doing that snowboarding. We're leaving Sunday, but we're going to snowboard back country, stay in an onsen, snowboard. I've never snowboarded in Japan, so I'm really excited.
LA: That is a dream trip. Lydia, would you recommend snowboarding in remote Japan, or have you got something else?
LB: Oh, God. I actually agree with the other two. I think just go for one walk. It could be short, it could be long. And just keep the palette of your day really simple. So make sure that you eat well and that you walk.
LA: I love that. And to completely flip it on its head, what's one super high-tech innovation that's kind of blown your minds and you can't quite believe is kicking around right now?
LB: I think what's really interesting is some of the biohack technologies just developing more and more and more. So it's all sorts of crazy stuff, like binaural, vibroacoustic technology and stuff like that.
LA: Wait, what is that? Is it like sound waves?
LB: It's where you lie in a sound bed and you have different frequencies going into your ear and you've got LED lighting, and it kind of makes you feel more balanced and zen. But some of the more mainstream tech-led treatments you can find now in smaller hotels or even high street gyms, sometimes, some of those can be quite ... The idea that you can go into cryotherapy, that you can get into this absolutely freezing cold, you've got a hammer, and you've got a cryotherapy unit and that kind of thing. I find that pretty wild, actually.
LA: Okay, amazing. Well, I'd like to say that you changed my mind, but I think what you've actually done is made me realize I'm already incorporating wellness in for my life, because I love being outdoors, I love hiking, I love nature, which is strange for a city girl. I thought for a long time that I didn't. And just a few weeks ago, when I was in India, I said there was no wellness, but I did go for one of the most memorable hikes of my life in the Himalayas. And it was a full day on the side of this mountain, where the only people you really saw were monks and the dogs that lived on the mountain, and it was incredibly peaceful. So maybe I'm doing it. And I don't think I'm going to be lying on a sound bed or going in some sort of cryotherapy chamber just yet.
Okay. So just to wrap things up, if people want to follow you on your own wellness adventures and travels, where can they find you? Jen, where can we watch you do this snowboarding trip in Japan?
JM: You can follow my Instagram handle, Jenrunsworld. I used to run all over the world. I run a little less now. But yeah, Jenrunsworld is my Instagram handle.
LA: And Yariella, where can we find your blog and all of your socials?
YC: So the blog is called The Beauty Backpacker, and then all my socials are Beauty Backpacker. So pretty straightforward.
LA: And Lydia, when people aren't reading what you've written on the Condé Nast Traveler websites, where can they find you?
LB: On Instagram, Lydia Elizabeth Bell.
LA: Okay, great. We are done.
JM: Awesome.
LA: Thank you for asking my thousand questions. This was great.
Thank you for listening to Women Who Travel. I'm Lale Arikoglu, and you can find me on Instagram, @lalehannah. Our engineer is Pran Bandi, and special thanks to Jake Lummus for engineering support. Our show is mixed by Amar Lal at Macro Sound. Jude Kampfner is our producer, Stephanie Kariuki, our executive producer, and Chris Bannon is head of Condé Nast Global Audio.