Interested in taking a healthy vacation but not sure what that means? You’re certainly not alone. That’s because the term “health resort” is applied to just about everything these days, from getting a massage to starting a brand new life. We’ll help you cut through the confusion and find the best health vacation for you.
In the U.S., we’ve come a long way from the days in the 1960s when, as Jennifer Conlin of The New York Times recently wrote, fitness resorts were where “women padded around in slippers and pink robes, eating low-calorie meals from vegetables grown in the backyard and engaging in calisthenics and leg lifts.”
Today’s health resorts, numbering in the hundreds nationwide, feature an extraordinary variety of experiences. A few still focus on robes, pampering, and (in a nod to 21st century buzz terms) services like “mindfulness massages.”
But lately there has been a growing demand for a much broader range of services. You can now find resorts featuring yoga, acupuncture, aromatherapy, meditation, or food fasts, to name just a few.
Also emerging are more spas and resorts teaching healthy living skills, and a growing shift away from pure pampering to wellness education for individuals of all ages and abilities. For example, many people, particularly baby boomers, are now seeking out exercise programs based on functional fitness (how to keep doing all the things you want to do, from grocery shopping to skiing the Rockies, for as long as possible).
Other popular trends among health resorts include highly personalized nutrition consultations, physical therapy treatments, and physician consults geared toward healthy habits and disease prevention.
To help you get started on your quest for the perfect health vacation, read The Definitive Guide to Investing In a Health Resort Experience.