The world’s great wellness
places — and which one is
right for you.
Ayurveda in Kerala, Mayr clinics in the Tyrol, onsen in Japan. We have stayed in every house we sell, and a clinical desk tells you which one fits, how long you need and when to come.
How it works
A travel agency, not a directory
- 1Tell us what is wrong
A free half-hour with our clinical desk, not a salesperson. Sleep, burnout, a back that hurts — or simply that you are tired.
- 2We tell you where, and how long
Which house fits, how many nights it genuinely takes, and which month. One enquiry in six is answered with something shorter or cheaper.
- 3We book the whole journey
The programme, the room, the transfers — and the days either side if you want them. One invoice, one number to call.
Start here
What are you trying to fix?
15 concerns, each answered with what genuinely helps, how long it takes, and where the evidence stops.
- SleepI fall asleep fine and then I am awake at three.
- Burnout & exhaustionI am not depressed. I am just completely empty.
- Stress & anxietyMy shoulders are somewhere near my ears and they have been for a year.
- Digestion & the gutSomething has been wrong with my stomach for years and nobody can tell me what.
- Weight & metabolic healthI have lost the same eight kilos four times.
- Back, neck & jointsMy lower back has been a background noise for a decade.
- Chronic & rheumatic painI have a diagnosis. I am looking for something that is not another drug.
- Detox & the annual resetI want to properly clean myself out once a year.
- Menopause & perimenopauseI am not sleeping, I am not myself, and I am tired of being told it is normal.
- Fertility & preconceptionWe are trying, and I want to give my body the best possible chance.
Where it is done properly
The destinations
Only places famous enough that a wellness traveller already recognises the name — and where the practice belongs to the place rather than to a spa menu.
India
Kerala
The one place on earth where Ayurveda is at once a licensed medical system, a 120-year-old pharmaceutical industry and a tourism product.
India
Rishikesh
Where modern transnational yoga was institutionalised — and then, in 1968, handed global celebrity.
Sri Lanka
The Ayurveda coast
The sixty kilometres of coconut coast that effectively invented the European Ayurveda holiday.
Bhutan
Bhutan
Famous for a policy rather than a treatment — and one of the very few states that dispenses a traditional medicine free, alongside biomedicine.
Indonesia
Ubud
The most recognised retreat town on earth, and the one whose global fame is traceable to a single book.
Thailand
Koh Samui
The island where the Western detox holiday was productised — and where the season is the most misunderstood in Thai travel.
Japan
Beppu
The largest hot-spring town on earth by volume — and the reference site for Japanese balneology.
Japan
Okinawa
One of the five original Blue Zones — and the one where the honest story is that the island is selling a past it no longer has.
Germany
Baden-Baden
The archetype of the nineteenth-century European spa, and one of eleven towns UNESCO inscribed together in 2021.
Czechia
Karlovy Vary
The most complete surviving example of the drinking cure — a whole town organised around a porcelain cup rather than a bath.
Austria
Bad Gastein
The only place in Europe where the primary therapy is a train ride two kilometres into a mountain.
France
Quiberon
Where modern thalassotherapy was invented as a commercial category — by a cyclist, in 1964.
Switzerland
Montreux
The origin point of the entire European longevity-clinic category — and the most expensive week on this atlas.
Austria
Tyrol
Where the Mayr cure became a medical category — and where “going to Austria for your gut” came from.
Costa Rica
The Nicoya peninsula
The Blue Zone with real published demography behind it — and the one whose discoverer published its disappearance in 2023.
The houses
The names you already half-know
Ananda, Kamalaya, Lanserhof, Chiva-Som, SHA. We profile the world-famous houses honestly — including the ones we cannot book for you, which are marked as such.
Chowara, near Kovalam · India
Somatheeram Ayurveda Village
The property describes itself as the world’s first Ayurveda hospital run in a resort setting — a claim we attribute rather than assert, since Barberyn in Sri Lanka makes a parallel one — and it is unquestionably among the earliest.
FromUS$1,530Bookable with usAyurveda hospital
Kollengode, Palakkad district · India
Kalari Kovilakom
A NABH-accredited Ayurvedic hospital inside a restored 200-year-old Vengunad palace — nineteen rooms, twelve treatment rooms, and nothing shorter than a fortnight on sale.
FromUS$3,010Bookable with usAyurveda hospital
Mararikulam, Marari beach · India
Carnoustie Ayurveda & Wellness Resort
A large beachfront Ayurvedic resort on the Alappuzha coast, recognised as much for its environmental design as for its treatment.
FromUS$2,220Bookable with usNarendra Nagar, Tehri Garhwal · India
Ananda in the Himalayas
India’s first destination spa, on the Maharaja of Tehri Garhwal’s palace estate above the Ganga valley — and for twenty years the most decorated wellness address in Asia.
FromUS$2,480Bookable with usMalsi Estate, Dehradun · India
Six Senses Vana
The most programme-disciplined retreat in India — it opened in 2014 as Vana with no à la carte menu at all, and was rebranded under Six Senses in 2023.
FromUS$5,750Bookable with usBeruwala · Sri Lanka
Barberyn Reef
One of the first purpose-built Ayurveda resorts anywhere, and the property that opened Ayurvedic tourism to a Western audience.
FromUS$3,020Bookable with usRetreat
The hill country near Kandy · Sri Lanka
Santani Wellness Resort
The contemporary hill-country alternative to the coastal Ayurveda houses — a minimalist property on a former tea estate at altitude.
FromUS$2,380Bookable with usParo, Thimphu, Punakha, Gangtey and Bumthang · Bhutan
Amankora
Bhutan’s first international luxury property, and the originator of the lodge-to-lodge journey that is now how most visitors see the country.
Price on enquiryReference onlyBegawan, Payangan, above the Ayung river · Indonesia
COMO Shambhala Estate
The property that made Bali a serious wellness destination rather than a yoga town — a residential health retreat in jungle above the Ayung.
FromUS$3,700Bookable with usRetreat
Mambal, on the Ayung river · Indonesia
Fivelements Retreat Bali
The property that built itself explicitly around Balinese healing rather than importing a wellness concept — and the one most engaged with the balian tradition.
FromUS$2,070Bookable with usRetreat
Laem Set, the south coast · Thailand
Kamalaya
The anchor property of Asian wellness travel — built around a cave that Buddhist monks used for meditation retreat, and the house most responsible for the modern programme format.
FromUS$5,630Bookable with usRetreat
Choeng Mon, north-east Samui · Thailand
Absolute Sanctuary
The house that made structured detox and yoga affordable — and the reason Samui became shorthand for the detox holiday.
FromUS$1,890Bookable with usThermal cure
Kankaiji, above Beppu bay · Japan
Suginoi Hotel
The best-known onsen hotel in Beppu, and the one whose terraced Tanayu baths looking down over the bay appear in most photographs of the town.
Price on enquiryReference onlyYomitan, west coast of Okinawa Main Island · Japan
Hoshinoya Okinawa
The Hoshino group’s Okinawan house — a walled seafront village built on Ryukyuan forms, and the most considered contemporary reading of Okinawan living.
Price on enquiryReference onlyLichtentaler Allee, the Kurviertel · Germany
Brenners Park-Hotel & Villa Stéphanie
The archetypal European grand spa hotel — Edward VII, Bismarck, Henry Ford — with a genuine medical house, Villa Stéphanie, built alongside it.
Price on enquiryReference onlyThermal cure
Römerplatz, the Kurviertel · Germany
Friedrichsbad
The definitive Roman-Irish bath — a neo-Renaissance temple in the old cure quarter, running a fixed circuit taken to the clock.
Price on enquiryReference onlyThe end of the colonnade promenade · Czechia
Grandhotel Pupp
The grand hotel at the head of the Karlovy Vary promenade — the town’s social centre for two centuries, and its most recognisable building.
Price on enquiryReference onlyBöckstein, in the Radhausberg · Austria
Gasteiner Heilstollen
A former gold-mining gallery two and a half kilometres inside a mountain, run as a licensed medical facility and reimbursed by three countries’ health insurers.
Price on enquiryReference onlyThe Quiberon peninsula · France
Institut Thalassa Quiberon
The first modern thalassotherapy centre in the world, opened by the cyclist Louison Bobet in 1964 — and the reason France has a thalasso industry at all.
Price on enquiryReference onlyLongevity clinic
Clarens, Montreux · Switzerland
Clinique La Prairie
The original celebrity rejuvenation clinic, and the institution that created the idea of going to Switzerland to be made younger.
Price on enquiryReference onlyLans, above Innsbruck · Austria
Lanserhof Lans
The mother house of the Lanserhof group — the property that turned the F. X. Mayr gut cure into a luxury medical category.
FromUS$9,400Bookable with usMedical clinic
Igls, above Innsbruck · Austria
Park Igls
The most clinically serious and least resort-like of the famous Austrian Mayr houses — and consistently the best value among them.
FromUS$4,700Bookable with usRetreat
Playa Guiones, Nosara · Costa Rica
Harmony Hotel
The anchor of Nosara’s twenty-year yoga community, and the most established base on the Blue Zone coast.
Price on enquiryReference only
How a place gets on this site
Four tests. All four have to pass.
We say no far more often than yes, and the reasons are always these four.
- 01The practice is local
It belongs to the place and predates the tourism. A discipline imported to fill a spa menu is not a destination, however good the treatment room.
- 02Somebody licenses it
A registration, a syllabus, a professional body — or a state that pays for it. Where a discipline is unregulated we say so on its page.
- 03Locals still use it
If the waiting room is entirely foreign, the practice has become a product. We look for places that treat the town on a Tuesday morning.
- 04They will say no
We ask every house what it refuses to sell. One with no answer will sell a five-night Panchakarma to a diabetic, and does.
Signature programmes
What you would actually book
Both occupancies, every season, and who each one is wrong for — before you enquire.
Flagship
Somatheeram Ayurveda Village · 21 nights
Classical Panchakarma
The full five-action sequence with a proper two-week rebuild behind it, at the house that invented the format.
US$3,430demandingAnanda in the Himalayas · 14 nights
Ayurvedic rejuvenation
Rebuilding rather than purifying, on a palace estate above the Ganga — the gentlest serious programme in the Himalaya.
US$5,220gentleKamalaya · 10 nights
Burnout & sleep
The programme this house is genuinely best at — and the one we recommend instead of its detox.
US$5,630gentle
The part nobody tells you
The season matrix
Wellness travel is sold on the weather and practised on the season, and the two disagree more often than they agree. Kerala's best fortnight of the year falls in the monsoon — cool air, high humidity, open pores — and costs a great deal less than the January everybody photographs.
| Destination | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KeralaIndia | Jan: perfectly good | Feb: perfectly good | Mar: we would talk you out of it | Apr: we would talk you out of it | May: we would talk you out of it | Jun: book this | Jul: book this | Aug: book this | Sep: book this | Oct: perfectly good | Nov: perfectly good | Dec: perfectly good |
| RishikeshIndia | Jan: perfectly good | Feb: book this | Mar: book this | Apr: book this | May: we would talk you out of it | Jun: we would talk you out of it | Jul: we would talk you out of it | Aug: we would talk you out of it | Sep: book this | Oct: book this | Nov: book this | Dec: perfectly good |
| The Ayurveda coastSri Lanka | Jan: book this | Feb: book this | Mar: book this | Apr: book this | May: we would talk you out of it | Jun: we would talk you out of it | Jul: we would talk you out of it | Aug: we would talk you out of it | Sep: we would talk you out of it | Oct: we would talk you out of it | Nov: perfectly good | Dec: book this |
| BhutanBhutan | Jan: perfectly good | Feb: perfectly good | Mar: book this | Apr: book this | May: book this | Jun: we would talk you out of it | Jul: we would talk you out of it | Aug: we would talk you out of it | Sep: book this | Oct: book this | Nov: book this | Dec: perfectly good |
| UbudIndonesia | Jan: we would talk you out of it | Feb: we would talk you out of it | Mar: perfectly good | Apr: book this | May: book this | Jun: book this | Jul: book this | Aug: book this | Sep: book this | Oct: perfectly good | Nov: perfectly good | Dec: we would talk you out of it |
| Koh SamuiThailand | Jan: perfectly good | Feb: book this | Mar: book this | Apr: book this | May: perfectly good | Jun: book this | Jul: book this | Aug: book this | Sep: perfectly good | Oct: we would talk you out of it | Nov: we would talk you out of it | Dec: we would talk you out of it |
| BeppuJapan | Jan: perfectly good | Feb: perfectly good | Mar: book this | Apr: book this | May: perfectly good | Jun: we would talk you out of it | Jul: we would talk you out of it | Aug: we would talk you out of it | Sep: perfectly good | Oct: book this | Nov: book this | Dec: book this |
| OkinawaJapan | Jan: perfectly good | Feb: perfectly good | Mar: book this | Apr: book this | May: we would talk you out of it | Jun: we would talk you out of it | Jul: perfectly good | Aug: we would talk you out of it | Sep: we would talk you out of it | Oct: book this | Nov: book this | Dec: perfectly good |
Why book through us
Three things a booking site cannot do
You could find these houses on your own. What a search result cannot give you is somebody who has slept in the room, an opinion nobody paid for, and a price with nothing hidden behind it.
A house goes on this site after somebody from Heal & Rest has stayed, eaten the food, taken the treatment and sat with the physician. Where we have not yet been, the page says so and says what the record rests on instead.
No property can pay to appear on this site, to rank higher, or to be called a flagship. There is no advertising anywhere on it, and the honest caveat on every house was written without asking them.
Every programme carries what it includes, what it excludes, and both occupancies in every season — before you enquire, not after. Nothing here costs more for booking it through us than booking it direct.