In a rugged corner of coastal Spain, there’s a modernist white-on-white retreat where the rooms have floor-to-ceiling picture windows facing the Mediterranean, and the pool cabanas are lined with gauzy fabric that flows in the wind.
But most of the guests are hard at work. They’re here to shed a few pounds, to learn the ins and outs of macrobiotic cooking (Nut butters! Chia! Spirulina!), and to learn how to focus better, with the help of Professor Bruno and his electrode brain tests. Maybe they’ll add a few months to their lives, if they come back again and again.
The resort—Sha Wellness Clinic—is just one of 24 selected to be part of “Zen,” a new program launching on Friday, Oct. 28, from the travel experts at Red Savannah, which promotes healthy getaways. Zen responds not just to consumer demand, but to the idea that travel can play a role in defusing the global health threats of chronic disease and obesity. If you sign up, the program’s “Zen Guru” will help match you with just the right spa destination to address your specific health or stress complaints—think of her as a therapist-slash-travel agent.
As Red Savannah Founder and Chief Executive officer George Morgan-Grenville put it, “Longevity is increasing, health care costs are sky rocketing, stress is omnipresent, and antibiotic immunity is growing. People are beginning to wake up to the health time bomb that lies ahead.”
He maintains that using your time off constructively—to focus on your physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional wellbeing—can help you “cope with whatever the future has in store.” In other words, he believes wellness travel is the key to healthy old age.
Morgan-Grenville isn't alone in his thinking. Wellness travel has become a $678.5 billion-a-year industry filled with trends that come and go—each one quirkier than the next. In many cases, though, driving profits is just as important as driving down health problems, if not more so.
That’s why Morgan-Grenville hired the full-time “Zen Guru” to suss out which retreats are worth the investment—and which are full of fluff. After three months of research and consultations with health and wellness experts, ex-travel consultant Samantha Gee lived out of a suitcase from June to September, checking in and out of the world’s most innovative and raved-about wellness resorts. She whittled down her original list of 60 properties to just 22 standouts, which now comprise the Zen portfolio of wellness retreats. Each one, she said, offered productive and positive experiences that led to long-lasting results.
“It’s not something I would have done independently,” Gee said about the vetting process, which she described as “grueling.” To her point: There were endless diet and time zone changes, medical consultations, and personal training sessions among all the spa appointments. (That’s to make no mention of Professor Bruno and his electrodes.)
From the comfort of her office in Gloucestershire, U.K., Gee will now take the lead on consulting travelers in search of a “travel prescription” that can cure their chronic ailments. Though she’s not a medical professional, she’ll use her first-hand experiences—along with honest conversations—to figure out which programs will best suit each traveler, working backward from their personalities, lifestyles, and health goals, rather than their dream destinations. It's a progressive approach, an industry first.
Have a problem you’d like her to fix? Here are the most common maladies she expects to resolve—and her preferred travel prescription for each.