Wellness travel is nothing new. It
stems all the way back to Ancient
Rome and Greece, when people
flocked from afar to dip into the
great baths of the time . Water was thought
to hold curative and therapeutic properties, which
meant that thousands often squashed into one public
bath at a time. In Japan, too, where natural hot springs
are dotted around volcanoes, wellness and
bathing culture dates back to antiquity. Since
the 13th century wellness trends have swept
through Europe, where today spa centres
focus not only on traditional spa treatments,
but also on nutrition, intellectual well-being
and physical activity. In our modern con-
text – often characterised by stressful jobs
and limited holiday time – wellness travel is
bigger than ever. It’s growing twice as fast
as the overall tourism industry and is set to
reach the US$800 billion-plus mark by 2020.
Franki Black looks at some of the trends
in healthy holidays.
THE YOGA RETREAT
While some travellers opt for rejuvenating wellness
holidays at specialist spas and resorts, others are
signing up for multi-day activity holidays dedicated
to yoga.
Yogi Oriane Torode runs regular yoga retreats in
and around Nairobi, Kenya. “Many of my guests are
extremely hard-working professionals who come
on my retreats to disconnect and forget about
their everyday worries,” she explains. “Activity
based holidays allow us to open our minds to new
horizons and challenges while stepping beyond
our daily routines of work-friends-family. It enables
us to focus on what we really want to do with our
lives without the influence of our everyday habits.
It’s about finding meaningful purpose.”
RUNNING HOLIDAYS
Kenya has also seen a rise in travellers heading to
the highlands of Eldoret to participate in dedicated
running holidays. This is where most of Kenya’s
world record-breaking athletes come from and
where they train in communal running camps. The
athletic prowess of the local runners has baffled
scientists for decades. Some put it down to genes,
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