The houses
The wellness resorts the world has actually heard of
Ananda, Kamalaya, Lanserhof, Clinique La Prairie, Kalari Kovilakom — the houses people have actually heard of, each with what it is genuinely good at, who it suits, and the caveat nobody else prints. Ten of them we cannot book for you, and those say so.
23 houses
Ayurveda hospital
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 usRetreat
Narendra 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 usRetreat
Malsi 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 usAyurveda hospital
Beruwala · 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 usRetreat
Paro, 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 onlyRetreat
Begawan, 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 onlyRetreat
Yomitan, 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 onlyMedical clinic
Lichtentaler 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 onlyThermal cure
The 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 onlyMedical clinic
Böckstein, 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 onlyThermal cure
The 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 onlyMedical clinic
Lans, 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