These 11 Trips Are Redefining the Modern Idea of Wellness

by Leslie K. Hughes
Last updated: 7:00 AM ET, Sat September 5, 2026

A wellness trip can (but doesn’t have to) look like spa itineraries, biohacking protocols, breathwork at sunrise. There’s a time and a place for all of that, and I am a huge proponent.

But more travelers are coming home from experiences — a week sailing the Adriatic, an afternoon learning Kintsugi in Kyoto, a sunrise horseback ride through the Sonoran Desert — and describing them as the most restorative trips of their lives.

None of these experiences would call themselves “wellness,” but maybe they should. The resulting presence, a quieter mind, and a sense of peace are the same. The paths there just look a little different.

Here are eleven experiences redefining wellness travel.

Kyushu, Japan

Mirukashi Salon

If you told someone you were going to rural Japan to forage watercress and cook with local artisans for five days, they might not call it a wellness trip. But Mirukashi Salon (named to TIME’s World’s Greatest Places 2025 and an Oprah O-Award winner) is exactly that, even if it never uses the word “wellness.”

Founder Prairie Stuart-Wolff hosts just seven guests at a time in Kyushu’s countryside, building each program entirely around Japan’s 72 micro-seasons.

One visit you’re foraging from a local stream; the next, visiting a pottery studio or sharing a private meal with a local chef.

It’s slow, specific, and the trip you come home from truly changed.

Ubud, Bali

Buahan, A Banyan Tree Escape

Buahan is the kind of place that makes you realize how rarely you slow down enough to just stop.

Set in the Balinese jungle above Ubud with literally no walls and no doors, the resort is built around Tri Hita Karana — the Balinese philosophy of harmony between people, nature, and spirit.

The resort's Art of Loloh workshop is worth the trip on its own. Guests forage medicinal herbs and spices with local healers to make traditional Balinese tonics used as preventive medicine for generations.

In the evening, the Sandikala Walk happens at twilight, when fireflies come out, and the jungle goes quiet in an indescribable way. Enjoy 16 open-air pool villas, Toja Spa, and jungle hikes to complete the experience.

Croatia, South Pacific, Caribbean

Nautilus Sailing

What may be the best thing about sailing is that you actually can’t check your phone when you’re trimming sails in a 20-knot wind.

Nautilus Sailing runs week-long live-aboard courses in Croatia, Sardinia, Mexico, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and French Polynesia — small groups of 5-12 people and professional instructors, where everyone is sleeping on the boat and cooking together in the galley.

Co-founder Heather Perry is a National Geographic photographer and marine biologist, which says a lot about the caliber of people designing these experiences.

Students almost universally describe the week as more restorative than any retreat they’ve booked.

Val D’Orcia, Tuscany

Castiglion del Bosco

Wellness here means a 900-year-old Rosewood estate in Tuscany's UNESCO-listed Val d'Orcia, with a cooking school called La Canonica housed in a former priest's residence.

You start in the organic kitchen garden picking ingredients, then move into the kitchen to make fresh pasta, sauces, and whatever the season calls for.

There’s something so grounding about the concentration required to get pasta right. You stop thinking about everything else, which is exactly the point.

Eating what you made in that setting, surrounded by cypress trees and rolling hills, is something you'll remember for a long time.

South Iceland

Hotel Ranga

Hotel Ranga’s Live Like an Icelander package starts with a bang via a shot of cod liver oil.

From there, a local guide takes you through Iceland's South Coast of historic turf houses, a legendary well said to promote long life, meditation in moss near waterfalls, and lunch inside a hidden cave.

The entire experience is rooted in traditions that have kept Iceland among the world's happiest and longest-lived countries for years.

Back at the property, you can cold plunge in the Ranga River and warm up in a geothermal hot tub—contrast therapy Icelanders have been doing long before it was cool, or even had a name.

Kyoto, Japan

ROKU KYOTO

ROKU KYOTO sits within a former artist community founded by Koetsu Honami, one of Japan’s most celebrated Renaissance figures. The cultural programming here wasn’t a modern-day addition — it was already there.

Guests can practice Kintsugi (repairing broken pottery with gold, as much a philosophy as it is a craft), learn Washi paper-making, weave silk with a fourth-generation studio owner, or print a bespoke postcard using the 1,300-year-old art of Kyo-Karakami.

These are hours spent making something by hand, in complete focus, in one of the world’s most beautiful cities. When you’re done, the outdoor onsen thermal pool (fed by Kyoto’s only natural hot spring) is waiting.

Suffolk, England

Wilderness Reserve

Wilderness Reserve is 5,000 acres of woodland, lakes, and rolling Suffolk countryside, with a collection of secluded country houses and off-grid boltholes (think cozy hideaways built for disconnection) scattered across the estate.

It’s less a hotel than a long-term conservation project that happens to welcome guests, and the activities intentionally slow the pace of life: wild swimming, falconry, birdwatching with the estate ecologist, spoon carving, paddleboarding.

The beekeeping experience is a must. You suit up, visit working hives of about 30,000 honeybees, learn how the colony supports the surrounding ecosystem, and taste honey straight from the frame.

No spa, no treatment menu, no programming. Just 5,000 acres, and attention to and appreciation for the natural world.

North Male Atoll, Maldives

Conrad Maldives Rangali Island

The Maldives is full of overwater bungalows and spa menus — and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, this resort has some of the best!

But Conrad Maldives Rangali Island also offers something different through its marine programming.

Guests can plant their own coral frame in the resort’s underwater nursery alongside resident marine biologists, and get updates on how it’s growing long after they’ve left.

The whale shark excursions are another level entirely — imagine swimming alongside the world's largest fish in the open ocean.

Awe, it turns out, is just as restorative as relaxation. (Sometimes more so.)

British Virgin Islands

Necker Island

Necker Island is Richard Branson’s private island in the BVI, and staying there is an event itself.

But the most interesting thing happening on the property right now is the Mangrove Conservation Tour. It’s a guided kayak or paddleboard expedition through the island’s recovering ecosystem, where guests actively replant the mangroves that Hurricane Irma wiped out in 2017. 90% of the territory’s mangrove population was wiped out in a single storm.

The project runs in partnership with Unite BVI, and paddling through what’s slowly coming back — new growth, returning wildlife — is an experience you don’t typically see on a resort amenity list.

Most guests don’t expect it to be part of the trip they talk about most, but it usually is.

Tucson, Arizona

Tanque Verde Ranch

Horses are prey animals, meaning their nervous systems are wired to detect threat, and they respond instantly to human energy.

You can't fake calm around a 1,200-pound animal that can feel your heart rate change. Learning to regulate yourself well enough to earn a horse's trust is one of the most effective nervous system resets around. And that's what makes Tanque Verde Ranch's horseback program worth experiencing.

This working ranch in the Sonoran Desert has guided guests since 1928, with sunrise rides across 60,000 acres of open range, saguaro cactus, and wide desert sky.

A lot of guests show up thinking it’s about the ride, and most leave realizing it was about the horse, and how much quieter their mind got once they stopped trying to manage it.

Los Cabos, Mexico

Acre Resort

Acre's own slow-living tagline — "Wear your white linen. Put your hands in the dirt. Walk barefoot all day. Slow it down. Tell time by the sun. Stare at the stars. Order the cream sauce." — tells you everything you need to know.

The resort sits on 25 acres of organic farmland and jungle above San Jose del Cabo, with treehouse accommodations, a Michelin Green Star restaurant, and an Acre Academy running workshops in pottery, Huichol art, jewelry making, and natural soap making.

The organic farm supplies the resort's kitchen, while rescued donkeys, goats, peacocks, and the famously adoptable AcreDogs wander the property freely. When you need some sound healing, head to the mango orchard.

This place is impossible to categorize, which is why it works so well as a wellness experience — nothing here is labeled as such, yet everything is.

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