The Luxury Wellness Destinations We're Shortlisting This Spring, Summer
A Well Edit Luxury Guide by Max Ball, Founder of Anchor & Atlas, the independent luxury travel consultancy specialising in personalised journeys across the world. Known for his instinctive, detail-driven approach, Max curates everything from wellness retreats and safaris to multi-stop itineraries and private escapes, each one shaped entirely around the person taking it.
Some trips are for switching off, whereas others are for coming back sharper, softer, clearer in places you didn’t realise felt noisy. We’re not looking to ‘escape’ the hustle and bustle, but more take a step away from it in a way that means we’re able to return in an optimal way.
This is the season where travel becomes more intentional. Not restrictive or over-scheduled, but calm and ‘loosely planned’. Mornings should feel different and not require an alarm but still wake naturally, early and feeling refreshed. Where your body clock resets without you forcing it and lunch tastes better because you’re not eating it between meetings and therefore, actually hungry for it.
This is your Well Edit luxury guide, from those who know the industry best to where to go now, depending on what you’re actually craving.
Spain: Sun, Sea, and a Slightly Smarter Approach to Feeling Good
Spain does a brilliant job or making wellness feel like it’s always been there.
Long lunches that don’t spike your blood sugar. Movement that happens naturally because you’re outside all day rather than forcing yourself into a high intensity class. Not to mention the light that gets into your system properly because our skin is directly exposed to it.
And then, layered into that, some of the most advanced wellness clinics in Europe.
Ibiza, but slightly pulled back. Less of the nightlife chaos and more coastline calm.
Set above Cala Xarraca, Six Senses stretches across cliffs and sea, designed in a way that makes you exhale without thinking about it. The RoseBar sits at the centre, offering longevity diagnostics and treatments that lean into functional medicine, but without feeling forced.
You can start your morning with breathwork, spend the afternoon in the water, and end with a dinner that feels indulgent but somehow still light. No rolling back to bed here.
And for those not quite ready to leave London behind, the brand’s recent opening in the city brings a quieter version of that same philosophy closer to home.
There’s a reason this is the second time SHA has been featured in a travel edit. It’s not here to relax you, but recalibrate you.
Everything is measured, tested and adjusted. You arrive with one version of your health and leave with a much clearer understanding of it.
Set above the Costa Blanca, the clinic blends macrobiotic nutrition, Eastern medicine, and modern diagnostics into something that feels precise meets elevated pampering. Your days are structured. Your meals are intentional whilst your body is listened to in a way most of us don’t give it time for in our day to day.
If SHA is structured, Finca is soft. An Andalusian estate where everything is slightly slower, slightly more spacious. The spa is expansive, with hydrotherapy circuits and quiet corners, this is a space where schedules can be left at the door. Or, on the flip side you can have everything scheduled to the minute for days to stretch out. Golf, long lunches, a swim that turns into an afternoon. Dinner that’s genuinely worth getting ready for.
Italy: Where Wellness Feels Like It’s Been Done For Centuries
Italy doesn’t try too hard and quite frankly, it doesn’t need to. The foundations have remained the same, and you know what they say about something that works (don’t change it). Thermal waters, fresh seasonal food and rituals built around slowing down and paying attention.
The only thing that’s changed, is the level of refinement.
Lefay Resort & Spa, Lake Garda
They say that there is no better place to immerse yourself in nature than the Dolomites. Perched above Lake Garda, Lefay feels expansive in a way that’s hard to describe until you’re in it. Air that feels cleaner (no air purifier required). Set amongst views that pull you out of your head sits the spa that blends Traditional Chinese Medicine with Western research without making a big deal about it.
Everything is designed to bring your system back into balance gently, consistently and without any intensity. You leave feeling different, but not depleted.
Also tucked into the Dolomites, Cyprianerhof feels like wellness at altitude, the imagery speaks for itself and truly looks like the definition of Green Time Before Screen Time. Clean air, dramatic peaks, and that immediate shift you get when your surroundings do most of the work for you.
Days here are built around movement. Guided hikes through the mountains, climbing, skiing in winter, or simply long walks that turn into something more meditative than expected. The spa leans into contrast, with saunas, outdoor pools, and spaces designed to bring the body back into rhythm after time in the elements.
Food follows the same suit. Seasonal, local, and grounding without feeling restrictive, really and truly bringing you in touch with nature.
Set in the hills outside Rome, and known as Oprah Winfrey’s favourite wellness destination, Palazzo Fiuggi blends classical European spa culture with modern medical insight. Its programmes span longevity, metabolic health, detoxification and regeneration, allowing guests to choose a pathway that aligns with their goals rather than a one-size-fits-all reset.
Set around Italy’s historic healing waters, this is a place for proper intervention. Diagnostics, therapies, nutrition, movement, all working together with a clear outcome in mind.
Even the food, designed by Heinz Beck, is part of the process. It’s beautiful, but it’s doing something.
Read - I Tried Palazzo Fiuggi, Oprah Winfrey’s Favourite Wellness Retreat
“A place of magnetic energy, ideal for those seeking psycho-physical balance, harmony between mind and body, health and beauty”
Saturnia’s thermal waters have been flowing for centuries, and the experience remains reassuringly unchanged. Soak your body in the uplifting waters, walk through acres of greenery and eat well.
No pressure to optimise anything. Just time spent in mineral-rich water that does what it’s always done.
There’s something deeply regulating about that, and that’s what these trips are meant for.
France: Wellness, But ‘Beau’
France doesn’t separate wellness from pleasure. It folds it in, which is why you won’t find many spaces in France designed for you to have an intense detox session.
Movement, yes. Treatments, of course. But also wine, long lunches, and spaces that make you want to stay a little longer.
Structured programmes if you want them. Personal training, detox, performance-focused plans that give your days a sense of direction. But also beach mornings that melt into long, unhurried lunches paired with the occasional glass of rosé that was always apart of the plan.
What it does so well is hold both. The discipline of the ‘wellness destination’ and the softness of the girls trip. The feeling of taking care of your body, without stepping out of real life to do it.
Because wellness, when you zoom out, isn’t just the sessions booked into your calendar. It’s the nervous system exhale that comes from laughing with friends over lunch. It’s the space to slow down, to be off your phone, to feel present in your body again. And then, later, a massage that deepens that feeling. Not as a one-off indulgence. You move, you rest, you connect. And somewhere in that balance, things start to feel… better.
“This is on my list for May Bank Holiday as my wellness girls trip. A trip we can giggle over rose but enjoy the morning gym plan we always look forward to.”
A former convent, now quietly reworked into a space where time loosens its grip. Roman baths sit beneath cool stone arches. An apothecary well stacked with botanicals. It’s not the kind of place that hands you a programme. There’s no itinerary waiting on the bedside table. Instead, the experience ensures you have the. A morning spent drifting between warm water and stillness. An afternoon that stretches, into conversation or silence and solitude depending on what you need.
What’s striking is how quickly the body responds to that absence of urgency. Without the pressure to optimise or perform wellness. Similarly, there’s no ‘go go go’ mentality and the constant urge to need to check your phone or inbox, something softer takes over. You linger longer in a calm state and notice more. You notice that you’ll finally exhale, properly.
And within that, the rituals land differently. A massage becomes less about fixing, more about feeling. Time alone feels expansive, not empty.
Greece: Where Wellness Is Just… A Part Of Life
Greece never needed to rebrand itself as a wellness destination. It’s always been one.
The sunrise and sunset that anchors your circadian rhythm. Food that’s simple and seasonal. Days that unfold without urgency.
On Antiparos, The Rooster leans fully into that philosophy. Barefoot luxury, space and privacy at a pace that feels almost unfamiliar at first, and then completely natural.
There’s a spa, yes. The House of Healing offers treatments, rituals, moments of pause. But the real shift happens outside of it. In the mornings that start slowly, the meals that come from the land around you, the sense that nothing needs to be rushed.
It’s less about doing wellness. More about feeling it and remembering it.
England: A More Considered Reset, Closer to Home
You don’t always need a flight to feel different.
Just outside London, Heckfield Place is the kind of place that subtly shifts your pace the moment you arrive. It centres around a restored Georgian family home, set within a working estate that feels as important as the house itself.
The estate isn’t for show. The organic Home Farm, biodynamic Market Garden, orchards and dairy all feed directly into the kitchens. At Marle and the open-flame Hearth, led by Eleanor Henson, the food reflects that. Simple, seasonal, and very much tied to what’s growing on site.
The Bothy, the spa, is one of the more considered spaces in the UK. Working with movement, cold water and rest, but without feeling prescriptive. You can engage with it fully, or just dip in where it suits you.
What it does well is balance structure with space. You can have a framework to your day, but there’s no pressure to follow it perfectly. You move, you eat well, you rest, and things start to feel a bit more aligned.
It’s not about switching off from life entirely. More about stepping out briefly, then going back to it feeling a little more grounded.
THE EDIT
Pick based on what your body is actually asking for.
Precision, data, and a proper reset → SHA or Palazzo Fiuggi
Balance, beauty, and just enough structure → Six Senses Ibiza or Lefay
Space, softness, and slower days → The Rooster or Saturnia
A nearby but meaningful country escape → Heckfield
Words by Max Ball for The Well Edit.
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