There’s nothing more uplifting than experiencing a spa culture in its home country. An ayurvedic massage in a maharajah’s palace near Rishikesh, the birthplace of yoga, it’s just that bit more special. Likewise, a hammam scented with frankincense in Oman is unforgettably elevated, while St Lucia’s tropical scenery makes for epic exercise, swimming in turquoise waters and hiking its famous Pitons mountains.
Here we list 17 spas worth a long-haul flight, whether you’re after pampering among the palm trees, an exacting body MOT or an Eat, Pray, Love transformational retreat.
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Asia
1. Ananda in the Himalayas, India
Within the 100-acre estate of a 19th-century maharajah’s palace and with views over the Himalayas, the Ganges and Rishikesh, the city known as the birthplace of yoga, this is the perfect spot for a soulful reset. The spa turned 25 this year and although the excellent yoga and meditation that have attracted high-profile fans such as Kate Winslet and Oprah Winfrey remain at the core of its approach, Ananda has broadened its remit beyond ayurvedic principles to include traditional Chinese medicine, advanced diagnostics, physiotherapy and psychology. So these days expect body-composition analysis as well as dosha identification — your ayurvedic body type: vata (wind), pitta (fire) or kapha (water). Other experiences include ultrasound therapy and whitewater rafting, as well as detoxifying massages and mantra chanting.
Spa treatments from £40
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has seven nights’ full board from £5,399pp, including a Holistic Detox programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to Dehradun via Delhi
2. Absolute Sanctuary, Thailand
If you want to be supple and stretched, you can’t beat this pretty-in-pink, compact resort climbing the jungle hillside at the northeastern tip of Koh Samui, with views over the Gulf of Thailand. Just ten minutes from the airport, this hotel is far from the flashiest spa on the island, with neither beachfront nor luxury rooms. But it’s a powerhouse of Pilates (20 reformer machines say as much), while Jana Braeuer’s multidisciplinary yoga classes are world-class. The vibe is unfussy, the food natural, local and clever, and the value is exceptional at this temple to toning, tension release and total body reset.
Spa treatments from £65 | Family friendly
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has seven nights’ full board from £1,399pp, including a detox massage programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to Koh Samui via Bangkok
3. Chiva-Som Wellness Resort Hua Hin, Thailand
Chiva-Som was a daring wellness pioneer when the Rojanastien family launched the 54-room resort 30 years ago. Three decades is a long time in the spa world and while its traditional Thai architecture, with pavilions tucked in between tropical landscaping and ornamental ponds, is showing signs of age, its software remains indisputably impressive. Its 85-strong army of top-class doctors, therapists, trainers and physiotherapists get results and service fuses Swiss-like efficiency with the famous Thai smile. It draws the spa’s legion of loyal fans back to Hua Hin, Bangkok’s Brighton, year after year for an emotional reset or fitness kick-start.
Spa treatments from £49 | Accessible
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has seven nights’ full board from £4,599pp, including A Taste of Chiva-Som programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to Bangkok
4. Dharana at Shillim, India
www.alvi.to
This luxurious all-villa wellness resort is for people who want to detox without the feeling that it’s some sort of punishment. Operating broadly on ayurvedic principles, it’s perfect if you are someone who wants a solo break and a proper reset for your brain as well as your body — or indeed to lose some weight. The food is so delicious — curries, dals, occasionally chocolate — that you might forget that you are here to cleanse your system. A three-hour drive from Mumbai airport, Dharana’s setting is the spectacular and lush Shillim Valley, which the owners have spent more than three decades returning to its ecological glory using regenerative and rewilding practices that has seen wildlife in the area multiply and return. So there’s fabulous hiking as well as yoga, meditation and temple visits.
Spa treatments from £17 | Family friendly | Accessible
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has seven nights’ full board from £2,999pp, including an Art of Detox programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to Mumbai
5. Kamalaya, Thailand
They promise to help guests to “feel life’s potential” at this comprehensive wellness retreat, a 40-minute drive from Koh Samui’s airport on the island’s south coast, providing both the space and support to do just that. The setting alone talks to your soul. Built on a steep beachfront hillside around an ancient meditation cave, the sprawling hotel unfolds through the rainforest in a series of pavilions, villas, gardens and hidden nooks. A team of experts create personalised programmes tackling everything from fitness to sleep enhancement, supported by exquisite food, some of which is designed to help you to lose weight or detox.
Spa treatments from £50 | Family friendly
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has eight nights’ full board from £2,999pp, including a Relax & Renew programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to Koh Samui via Bangkok
6. Layan Life at Anantara Layan Phuket, Thailand
Adam Bruzzone
Top-to-toe traditional treatments have long been on offer at Anantara Phuket’s spa. Now the contemporary resort on Thailand’s northwest coast, which spills gracefully down the hillside to the Andaman Sea, has added a slick standalone wellness centre combining the best of Thai traditional medicine with cutting-edge equipment. You can book a total reset in personalised programmes of three to ten days or dip in and out of treatments on a resort holiday. The hotel, 25 minutes from Phuket’s airport, offers capacious rooms, good food in a handful of restaurants and activities such as ziplining and rock climbing to improve fitness and expand horizons. While this is very much a family resort, with a kids’ club and plenty of activities, no under-16s are allowed in the Layan Life spa.
Spa treatments from £139 | Family friendly
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has five nights’ full board from £4,299pp, including a Traditional Thai Medicine for Life programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to Phuket
7. Ozen Reserve Bolifushi, Maldives
You arrive at the white sand beaches and aquamarine waters of the all-inclusive Ozen Reserve Bolifushi by way of a sleek catamaran — it’s a 30-minute transfer from Male airport. A hot-towel foot ritual and a cold lemongrass hand towel is part of the welcome, and the right way to ease off a long flight. Villas have private pools and amazing access for snorkelling: the hotel has its own reef teeming with tropical fish plus rays, turtles and sharks. The spa is a highlight for its treatments inspired by the location, and its quiet corners for relaxation. Here, and in fact everywhere you wander, you will hear the lap of gentle waves and notice the gorgeous smell of frangipani. The vibe is glitzy with grand villas, live music and dance performances — premium champagne included — and manicured gardens with orchids, white bougainvillea and repurposed coconut shells.
Spa treatments from £112 | Family friendly | Accessible
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Ozen Reserve Bolifushi (theozencollection.com) and Destinology have seven nights’ all-inclusive from £4,779pp, including flights and luxury speedboat transfers (destinology.co.uk)
8. RAKxa Integrative Wellness, Thailand
Best medi-spa
Since its launch in 2022 this 85-acre adults-only contemporary retreat on a wilderness island on Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River, a 50-minute drive from the city centre, has taken the spa scene by storm. It has three vast and beautifully designed wellbeing complexes. One is devoted to traditional holistic practices and another houses a gym worthy of Olympians. But it is its medi-spa, which can call on top doctors from the capital’s renowned Bumrungrad International Hospital, that elevates RAKxa’s wellness to unbeatable. Sixty stealth-wealth suites and impressive fine dining are the icing on the cake (yup, guests even get to eat cake here).
Spa treatments from £115 | Accessible
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has five nights’ full board from £4,799pp, including a Detox programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to Bangkok
9. Six Senses Vana, India
This fabulous £45 million wellness retreat in Dehradun went straight to the top of the stylish spa aficionado’s wish list when it opened in 2014 and has stayed there ever since. It puts a minimalist spin on the maharajah’s palace, with a series of whitewashed pavilions dotted across a 21-acre estate and is one of few places in the world with therapists trained in authentic Tibetan therapies by the Dalai Lama’s Men-Tsee-Khang Institute. There are also ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, naturopathy and biohacking options to put a spring in your step. Also boosting your mood are chic, understated bedrooms, a fabulous rooftop infinity pool, two glamorous restaurants and a custom-built yoga shala, cantilevered over the fairytale forest that fringes the property.
Spa treatments from £135 | Family friendly | Accessible
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has seven nights’ full board from £2,499pp, including a personalised wellness programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to Dehradun via Delhi
North Africa and the Middle East
10. Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar Resort, Oman
HERBERT
This resort — high in the Jebel Akhdar (aka the Green Mountain range), 100 miles southwest of Muscat and perched 2,000 metres above sea level on the Saiq Plateau — is where the Middle East’s well-heeled come to relax and escape the heat. The opulent, award-winning spa is a state-of-the-art affair with a hammam you can have to yourself. The glamour is low-key in the best possible way, and if you want the kind of spa break that includes wine and delicious food (European and local fare) as well as rose-oil massages and yoga, this is the place for you. The most extraordinary, edge-of-the-world views of the surrounding canyon may compel you to get your phone out, but the rest of the time you’ll want to switch off and relax.
Spa treatments from £135 | Family friendly | Accessible
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Anantara Al Jabal Al Akhdar Resort (anantara.com) and Kuoni have five nights’ B&B from £2,729, including flights and transfers (kuoni.co.uk)
11. The Capaldi Hotel & Spa, Morocco
Sure, there are grander hotels with poncier spas 40 minutes’ drive away in Marrakesh, but the Capaldi is the steak-frites of wellness — a bijou spa that does the classics with passion and aplomb, in a space that consists of a handful of chic treatment rooms and a hammam. The hotel is off the main road that runs southwest from Marrakesh to the town of Lalla Takerkoust, and walking into it is like entering a romance vortex with wide-angle views of the Atlas Mountains accompanying every swim in the main pool. The spa and hotel rooms are two-storey blocks with traditional Moroccan clay finishes, in ten acres of olive groves. Do not bother bringing the kids — if they’re over 12 they’re welcome, but nonetheless this spa is really for couples. Fans of hotels where everything is inch-of-its-life shiny or technical medi-spas should look elsewhere too. The Capaldi’s warm service, get-your-glow-back facials and luxurious bedrooms reflect the spirit of its independent owners Edward and Tara Lyle.
Spa treatments from £25
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details The Capaldi Hotel (thecapaldi.com) and Kirker Holidays have three nights’ B&B from £886pp, including flights, transfers and one excursion (kirkerholidays.com)
12. Zulal Wellness Resort by Chiva-Som, Qatar
Right on the northern coast of Qatar, an hour’s drive from Doha, is this collection of low-slung, pale- yellow buildings. It’s what you might call a destination spa — which is the polite way of saying there’s absolutely nothing near it. All the better for a detox — but what a destination. It’s an outpost of the Thai wellness giant Chiva-Som, not in the mould of an austere European spa but a relaxed beachfront full-body retreat, with gluten, dairy and sugar-free meals, a full programme of spa and fitness activities and a wellness philosophy that draws on traditional Islamic Arabic medicine. The resort is divided into an adults-only section called Serenity, where the spa and wellness centres are; and a family-friendly half called Discovery that’s home to the main pool and the kids’ area — although the hushed vibe is definitely more suited to adults.
Spa treatments from £72 | Family friendly | Accessible
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has five nights’ full board from £1,799pp, including a Taste Of Zulal programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to Doha
Latin America
13. SHA Mexico
The Caribbean cousin of SHA, the award-winning Spanish temple to wellness, is a striking contemporary resort that lies just beyond Cancun’s party zone and promises personalised health programmes at its swanky six-storey wellbeing clinic. More than 30 experts, specialising in everything from cardiology to psychology, lead a team of therapists, nutritionists and fitness trainers that will create your schedule, which might include ancient practices such as acupuncture or cutting-edge alternatives such as ozone IV drips to reduce inflammation. In between appointments, there are two vast infinity pools, a lap pool and an enviable stretch of upmarket Costa Mujeres’s beachfront. Dining is equally five-star, a fusion of Mediterranean and Asian flavours that elevates healthy cuisine to haute levels.
Spa treatments from £204 | Accessible
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has seven nights’ full board from £5,299pp, including a Rebalance & Energise programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to Cancun
14. The Retreat Costa Rica
The American chef and wellness guru Diana Stobo created this 25-room retreat, 30 minutes west of San Jose and 5,000ft above sea level, to showcase her take on the holistic lifestyle (she’s agreeably flexitarian, so expect beef dishes and cocktails). The resort sits atop a crystal quartz mountain, which healers believe increases energy and positivity. It’s certainly had that effect on the charming team. Chefs use the estate’s fresh fruits and vegetables to create nutrient-dense dinners, while therapists transform them into decadent antioxidant-rich potions. Jungle trails, fitness classes, a rooftop pool and glamorous suites overlooking Costa Rica’s rainforests and the Pacific Ocean complete this picture of health.
Spa treatments from £56
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Healing Holidays has seven nights’ full board from £3,399pp, including a Luxury Spa Healing & Beautifying programme and transfers (020 7135 2436; healingholidays.com/sundaytimes). Fly to San Jose
North America and the Caribbean
15. Bamford Wellness Spa, 1 Hotel South Beach, US
ERIC LAIGNEL
This vast 18-storey beachfront megahotel at the northern end of Miami’s colourful South Beach is infinitely more bling than barefoot. From the supercars on the forecourt to the sequins on show at Watr, the lively Japanese-influenced rooftop restaurant and bar, there’s a sexy, dressed-up, party vibe. It’s a world away from the bucolic peace of Carole Bamford’s much loved beauty brand, which has its roots in the Cotswolds. The 425 rooms are chic and airy, with white decor and driftwood styling, while the food veers towards the healthy without compromising on flavour. The Aviv restaurant, opened this spring, offers high-end Israeli mezze — including at the lavish buffet breakfast — and creative cocktails. The sprawling 15,000 sq ft gym (one of the largest hotel gyms in the US) offers group classes from yoga and Pilates to those for glutes and “gun show” (arms), while the spacious, serene Bamford Wellness Spa specialises in personalised treatments for holistic healing, using natural, organic and sustainable ingredients.
Spa treatments from £160 | Family friendly | Accessible
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Bamford Wellness Spa, 1 Hotel South Beach (1hotels.com/south-beach) and Kuoni have three nights’ room-only from £1,574pp, including flights (kuoni.co.uk)
16. BodyHoliday, St Lucia
The northwest tip of St Lucia, a luscious island with a hilly green interior, is the exciting location of this health-focused yet informal all-inclusive. A dawn-till-dusk programme of fitness sessions, from spinning and abs workouts to yoga and dance is included along with water sports and a daily treatment in the hillside spa. The treatments and classes aren’t the most on-trend, but that doesn’t detract from the fun, and you are just as welcome to sink on to loungers with a fresh coconut or rum cocktail as to get a sweat on. Around a curve of white sand, elegant buildings contain 155 rooms, numerous restaurants and a beach bar. Devotees return year after year.
Spa treatments from £60
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details BodyHoliday (thebodyholiday.com) and Elegant Resorts have seven nights’ all-inclusive from £4,285pp, including flights, transfers and UK airport lounge access (elegantresorts.co.uk)
17. Wildflower Farms, Auberge Collection, US
This fashionably folksy resort is like Soho Farmhouse with knobs on, given it is literally part of a 140-acre working farm, with a regenerative ethos, fields of crops, chickens you can feed, woolly sheep and, of course, carpets of wildflowers. Just outside the cute town of Gardiner where the Hudson Valley nods at the Catskills, the spa has a philosophy rooted in its breathtaking surroundings, using small-batch oils made from hand-harvested local herbs and scrubs from floral remedies grown on site. You’ll sleep in one of 65 freestanding wooden cabins that are cowboy cool. Some are close to the river that lazily meanders along one boundary, others overlook the soulful Shawangunk Ridge. Dining is on message too, specialising in wholesome farm-to-fork food. You’ll hardly believe you’re just a 90-minute drive from New York’s bright lights.
Spa treatments from £186 | Family friendly | Accessible
Read the spa review in full and book a stay
Details Wildflower Farms, Auberge Collection has room-only doubles from £737 (aubergeresorts.com). Fly to New York
Contributors: Cathy Adams, Gemma Bowes, Lizzie Frainier, Anindita Ghose, Laura Jackson, Jane Knight, Jane Mulkerrins, Lesley Thomas
