Intermittent fasting. Cryotherapy. Pleasure-dampening GLP-1 drugs. Silent retreats. Dark retreats. But in our obsessive, high-tech pursuit of longevity, we’re also craving a bit of lo-fi, sensory-igniting fun, especially on holiday. Wellness tourism is one of the fastest-growing segments of travel, predicted to reach over $1.4 trillion by 2027. Longevity clinics and biohack clubs aren’t going away. In fact, they’ll be more ubiquitous than ever, but next year they’ll be the mainstay of business or bleisure travellers looking to maintain their health goals on the road and combat jet-lag. The leisure traveller is tired of optimising every inch of their life and just wants to let loose a little. Wellness-minded hotels and retreats have taken note and are offering more opportunities to dance to DJ beats, star gaze under dark skies, sweat to sauna performances, and most of all, socialise.
We’re going back-to-basics, looking to centuries-old healing practices and tapping into a bit of mysticism with modalities like sound baths and astrology. Star gazing will be the preferred way to meditate and desert landscapes are where we’ll go to find our zen. Cultivating purpose is key to longevity and we’ll hone new passions and seek out a new breed of wellness adventures. And at the gym, we’ll skip burpees in favour of brain exercises. This will be the year of women’s health, but also family-focused wellness, with more spas offering multi-gen retreats.
Prioritising your health on holiday has never been easier. Bring the kids. Go solo. Socialise with strangers in the sauna. Have a glass of green juice, or champagne. Wellness your way is the new mantra. Here are the trends, resorts, retreats, and destinations that promise to make wellness travel less like a doctor’s visit, and more like a vacation in 2026.
Wellness seekers want to be social
We are social beings and amidst a global loneliness epidemic, travellers are craving connection. In response, spas and hotels are creating more communal spaces and ways for travellers to engage. Earlier this year, the Retreat, a veteran spa hotel in Costa Rica, unveiled Santosha Wellness Club. Set just below the main hotel, the new open-air clubhouse includes 10 luxury lofts, a gym and yoga studio, plus a chic lounge area with an infinity pool, tapas bar, and a restaurant steered by a Michelin-decorated chef. Famed Mykonos beach club Scorpios blurs the lines between spa and nightclub at its new line of hotels. At its first outpost, Scorpios Bodrum in Türkiye, guests attend group sound baths and yoga sessions by day and at night, they dance to DJ beats. The same formula will roll out at forthcoming properties in Dubai and Aspen. Ahãma Living, another newcomer on the Turkish coast, is also a mish mash of spa offerings and nightlife. And longevity clubs are the new social club, with the hottest memberships being at spots like Remedy Place in NYC, LA, and Boston and the forthcoming Six Senses Place London and the Estate in LA.
Saunas will double as entertainment venues
Saunas have long been social hubs in Nordic countries – gathering places where friends and strangers would sweat it out and reconnect. The concept has swept across North America and Europe, but now we’re catching on to a wacky sauna group ritual known as aufguss. Meaning “infusion” in German, these 15-minute performances are hosted by a trained Aufgussmeister in a large communal sauna. The sauna master prances around the room to a soundtrack of music smashing ice balls infused with essential oils on hot rocks and using towels and fans to waft aromatic steam over half-naked bathers. Priedlhof, a resort in Naturno Italy, has an entire team of Aufgussmeisters who put on theatrical performances in its four-story sauna tower. An aufguss show is included in your entry fee to BASIN Glacial Waters, a new modern-day bathhouse at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise in Canada. Bathhouse Flatiron in New York hosts aufguss ceremonies and Othership, a spa with locations in Toronto and New York, takes a fresh approach with sauna parties featuring breath work, live music, and dancing for up to 90 people.
Women’s needs (menopause + more) are a top priority
After years of neglect, the health industry is finally waking up to the unique needs of women through their full life cycles. A group of doctors known as the “MenoPosse” are the latest stars on mainstream podcasts, speaking openly about once taboo topics, like vaginal dryness and hot flashes. Everyone from Naomi Watts to Michelle Obama have shared menopause experiences and celebrities like Kate Hudson and Halle Berry are talking about testosterone. After seeing an explosion of well-received menopause-focused retreats, spas are now taking a more 360-degree approach to what women need at various stages of their life. At Shou Sugi Ban House in the Hamptons, women can sign up for female-specific nutritional counselling to improve hormone health and support menstruation and fertility. Mothers-to-be can sign up for solo babymoon trips with Mom’z, a retreat group supported by a network of expert doulas, midwives, and wellness professionals. Four-night itineraries around Spain and Portugal include daily prenatal movement, journaling and visualisation, and loads of pampering. Canyon Ranch, the OG of American wellness destinations, is making a statement with its next location in Lake Plato, Texas, just outside of Austin. When the resort debuts in September 2026 it will have a dedicated Women’s Collective that will address the needs of women in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s and beyond.
Wellness trips will be a family affair
With childhood obesity and screen time on the rise, more parents are trying to instil healthy habits in their kids from an early age. Spas, once largely adults-only spaces, are tapping into this young market and creating programming aimed at young ones, teens, and multi-gen travellers. Joali Being in the Maldives has a dedicated B’Kidadult Zone with health-minded activities for kids (memory games and animal flow yoga) and teens (DJ fit night and beach boot camp) as well as a young adult-specific spa menu. Six Senses Kanuhura Resort in the Maldives has developed complimentary fitness programming for parents and kids. While parents work their core, kids can join breathwork sessions and brain building activities. Even babies can get involved. Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita recently introduced its Babies for All Seasons Programs, designed for families with newborn to 18 months old. Offerings range from Baby Yoga Classes to Baby and Me Reflexology.
You’ll embrace your spiritual side with singing bowls + full moon ceremonies
After submitting ourselves to vagus nerve stimulators, red light therapy, and vitamin shots, we’re returning to more spiritual wellness practices that often take place outdoors and with others. Once written off as woo woo, experiences like full moon ceremonies and chakra aligning sessions have emerged as some of the most popular offerings at spa resorts. Guests of 1 Hotels Hanalei Bay in Kauai can harmonise their energy flow with a rainbow chakra mat session. Blackberry Mountain in Tennessee has introduced new somatic sculpt classes, where silent disco meets mindful movement, as well as watercolour reiki, and new and full moon rituals. Celestial wellness is at the heart of the programming at Yubarata, the wellness centre at all-inclusive Cayo Levantado Resort in the Dominican Republic. Each month, guests can take part in a full moon or new moon ceremony based upon the astrological calendar and celestial events, such as the spring equinox and the winter solstice. Ceremonies might include song circles, journaling, and intention setting. When Eha wellness retreat opens next summer on Estonia’s unspoilt Hiiumaa island, its five retreats will be inspired by a local pagan belief system called “earth faith.” Programming will take its cues from nature and the island’s five distinct seasons.
You’ll train your brain
Pioneering retreats including Clinique La Prairie in Switzerland, Lanserhof Tengersee in Germany, and SHA Wellness, which will open in the Emirates in 2026, have devoted entire programs to neuro health. Protocols include state-of-the-art technology like photobiomodulation, a technique that applies LED light to the brain at different wavelengths to boost mitochondrial function. Now, resorts are embracing lo-fi ways guests can train their brains and continue the practice back home. The Cognitive House at Thailand' s Kamalaya Wellness Sanctuary and has introduced neuroactive fitness training that features exercises that stimulate brain activity. Chenot Weggis in Switzerland reminds us that cognitive vitality can be accomplished the old-school way with memory-sharpening games like bridge. The resort tapped renowned bridge teacher Jack Stocken to lead hour-long beginner sessions for beginners.
You’ll seek out mindful hobbies
Blue Zones research underscores that having a passion helps us find purpose, all key to living not just a longer life, but a healthier, happier life. A 2025 study conducted by the Harris Poll and Marriott Bonvoy found 96 per cent of US travellers want to explore personal hobbies while traveling. For years, these were mostly sporty passions like surfing, skiing, tennis, and golf. Now, resorts are developing retreats around low-key hobbies that force us to slow things down. In South Africa, Sterrekopje, a dreamy farm in the foothills of the Franschhoek mountains, offers soil-to-soul gardening retreats. Over four days, the property’s resident landscaper schools guests in regenerative farming, local fynbos, and the art of botany as they pop in and out of nurturing treatments in the Bath House. Mah Jongg, a tile-based game that originated in China in the 19th-century, has invaded the US and is riding on the heels of pickleball in terms of social activities. Rancho La Puerta, a wellness stalwart in Baja California, Mexico, lures newbies with week-long, beginner-focused retreats led by Mah Jongg masters, while Lake Austin Spa Resort has seen a boom in interest in its two- and three-day “Spa Hjong” retreats, which include social play, strategy tips, and culminate in a tournament. And Tennessee’s Blackberry Mountain is seeing more guests combine active pursuits, like hiking and mountain biking, with artistic endeavours, such as trailside painting and sketching classes and ceramics and raku-firing workshops in the on-site artists studio.
Star bathing is the new forest bathing
This celestial riff on shinrin yoku gives you an excuse to stay up late. The Japanese practice of being quiet and present among trees has shown to have grounding and calming effects. Now, new research has shown a greater connection to the night sky can boost mental health and happiness. Rather than search for constellations, the idea is to simply lose yourself to the starry night sky. Cal-a-Vie Health Spa in California calls it galaxy wellness, and has introduced mindful solar hikes as well as astronomer-led stargazing at the property’s state-of-the-art observatory. Four Seasons Resort Lanai hosts meditation under the stars and in the Scottish Highlands, Cairngorm Excursions organises star-bathing parties complemented by a spirits tastings featuring gins and whiskies from a local distillery. And always-on-trend Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas has rolled out mindful star watching at a handful of properties including Six Senses Kanuhura in the Maldives, where moonlight meditations are accompanied by a soundtrack of singing bowls and ocean waves.
Beige is the new blue therapy
For years, researchers have heralded the stress-busting, mood improving benefits of spending time near blue spaces, particularly the sea. Now, people have discovered that desert landscapes also boast unique therapeutic benefits. Quiet, stillness, expansiveness, and dark skies (see above) are just a few of the reasons resorts and retreats are cropping up in arid destinations. "From the Sonoran to the Atacama, desert wellness is about simple rhythms – a cool dawn walk, a shaded midday pause, and reflection by starlight – that quickly turn into rituals," said Tom Marchant, co-founder of Black Tomato. “That clean line of horizon, from sky-to-sand, steadies the nervous system." In Chile’s Atacama Desert, the luxury operator has developed restorative itineraries that combine mineral-rich hot springs, ancient Temazcal ceremonies and Milky Way viewing, while in the Morocco’s Sahara, trips include sunrise camel treks, meditative walks through palm oases, and mindful mint-tea ceremonies. Earlier this year, the 65-room Reset Hotel opened on 180-acres of uninterrupted desert just outside of California’s Joshua Tree National Park, with a roster of relaxing activities including breathwork sessions and yoga classes. Next year, India’s acclaimed luxury brand, Leela, will open its first desert resort and spa in Rajasthan’s fabled desert capital, Jaisalmer.