How do you feel about the concept of ‘new year, new you’? If that old adage sounds more mocking than mantra, consider that while, yes, real change requires commitment and drive, a trip to a luxury spa can really get it going. We’ve picked out the hotels with spas that have honed in on wellness with purpose, treatments that form the foundation of better habits, and scientific approaches that bring that abstract ‘new you’ into sharper focus.
FOR WILD, WINDY WELLNESS: SALTMOORE
Staying between the heather-furred moors and untamed Whitby coast, you’re at Mother Nature’s mercy at Yorkshire stay Saltmoore. But even when her moods are mercurial, she’ll keep you in equilibrium; boosting your serotonin as you stomp around the 80-acre estate’s fields, lake, landscaped gardens and woodland, and muddied hiking trails beyond. Or as you cannonball into the enlivening chill of the North Sea, off Sandsend Beach.
Complementing your organic mood-boost are Wildsmith’s botanical treatments. Potions packed with flowers and herbs are combined with myofascial release, lymphatic drainage and muscle-soothing stretches for deliciously scented decompressing.
Plan of (in)action Book a radical botany facial, which includes acupressure and breathwork; then clear your head with a brisk three minutes in the cryotherapy chamber before heading out to bathe in the surrounding greenery.
Top-up treat Perk up pit stops on your rambles with a gourmet picnic packed by the talented kitchen team.
FOR COSMECEUTICAL EXPLORATIONS: ESTELLE MANOR
Estelle Manor’s Eynsham Baths spa takes a cue from Roman-style decadence, right down to the columns and marble. When you’re not working your way from frigidarium (10°C) to caldarium (40°C), self-regulating in the pool reserved just for breathwork, bracing yourself for a spritz from the ‘Scottish bucket’ or inhaling the sweet, country scent of the hay sauna, you can find a more serious fix with its NAD+ programme.
NAD+ — the snappier name for the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide coenzyme — ups your mitochondrial activity (essentially an elbow jab to your cells) and enlivens proteins that can help you to live longer. Eynsham Baths offers NAD+ via various IVs, each troubleshooting a different life woe, from jetlag to inflammation to fatigue.
Plan of (in)action Ironically little effort is required to boost your energy here; just lie back on a comfy bed and let the IV do its thing. With the bespoke option, you don’t even have to make a choice. Now that you’ll be living longer, do a little housekeeping: a sculptural-face-lift massage, skin-renewal exfoliation, a little micro-blading. And take a philosophical spa journey with round-the-world massages: Tibetan, Indian, Thai…
Top-up treat Add to all the goodness going into you with a vitamin D3 or B12 booster shot.
FOR MEDICINAL MUSHROOMS: 42 ACRES
Fungi are becoming ever more prominent in wellness, from cordyceps powders and lion’s mane shots to psilocybin retreats. But caring-to-the-core Somerset retreat 42 Acres has recognised the mightiness of mushrooms’ healthful properties since its inception. The stay was established as ‘a home for personal, social and environmental change’, and their frequent ‘medicinal mushroom’ workshops go hard on the first, as you craft remedies from the wild surrounds.
This is a weekend of cautious foraging, the imparting of health-boosting wisdom you’ll turn to long after check-out, and shared reflection. You’ll be nourished by wild teas and vegetarian, ‘soil-to-gut’ dinners (a tastier concept than it sounds); and by the fire you’ll meet visiting experts (such as Tasha Stevens-Vallecillo of Land, Food, Medicine). The kind of perspective-shifting experience that’ll make you look at the land in a new light.
Plan of (in)action When you’re not getting your hands dirty and readying tinctures, there’s meditation and qi gong, wild walks and swims, and sauna sessions in the embrace of the woods.
Top-up treat The surroundings keep giving if you add on a garden tasting tour, but there’s also the option to give back and help with the hotel’s rewilding project, planting and caring for the land.
FOR FORAYS INTO NATUROPATHY: HECKFIELD PLACE
The pursuit of mindfulness requires a clear head and Heckfield Place in the New Forest is happy to oblige. Its Georgian-inspired Bothy spa lets you appreciate the beauty of the 438-acre grounds at leisure. It’s tech-free, allows only a limited guestlist and has been curated with Wildsmith Skin, whose treatments are designed to get your circadian rhythms back in step. Even the soundtrack swaps plinky-plonky music for field recordings from the grounds.
Ground yourself with a spin through the sauna, steam room and hydro options, then dig in with Jennifer Harper-Deacon’s ‘naturopathy and bioenergetics’ programme combining gentle, lifestyle-changing practices derived from folk medicine with science-based know-how. Each herbal remedy and homotoxicology assessment is tightly tailored to each guest.
Plan of (in)action Sessions also involve acupuncture, bio-energetic screenings and nutritional evaluations, reaching those spots where Wildsmith massages and facials can’t quite touch (although we recommend those too — ‘Wildsmith Time’ is a holistic, head-to-toe affair). Gather more of nature’s goodness on a one-to-one walk with an eco-psychologist or make your sauna medicinal, with therapists holding beneficially scented bouquets for you to inhale. And exhale.
Top-up treat The hotel’s out-in-the-green workshops give you the chance to get hands-on. Try weaving willows into a birdfeeder, honing your landscape-photography skills or flower-arranging (available seasonally) using blooms from the biodynamic Market Garden.
FOR AYURVEDIC ALLEVIATION: LIME WOOD
New Forest stay Lime Wood might be far from India where Ayurveda originated, but the discipline’s healing principles have translated well to this green and pleasant place (and practitioner Sheena Chandran who studied at Kerala’s Amala Ayurvedic Hospital Research Centre ensures you get the real deal).
Treatments are gentle, all-natural wake-up calls for your body, activating energy centres using herbal pastes and richly scented oils. Expect light tapping and strong, stimulating massage strokes; combine with a reiki session to really reconnect with your body, or perhaps a boot camp in the forest for harder-graft holism.
Plan of (in)action Find your ‘on’ switch as therapists activate your ‘Marma points’ and encourage your circulation during an Abhyanga massage. Kativasti focuses on lower-back pain, using heat and herbs; and during Shirodhara sessions, your third eye is awakened as warm oil is rhythmically dripped over your forehead. Finish with an always-euphoric Indian head massage.
Top-up treat Pampering could go on for days at the three-storey spa, flitting from custom Bamford facials and mud-slinging sessions to zoning out in the heated outdoor pool or roof garden. Book one of the many workshops held throughout the year (they range from book clubs to sonic freediving), and try the bright, flavourful salads at Raw & Cured.
FOR ELEMENTAL HEALING: GRANTLEY HALL
The Yorkshire Dales might be tamer than their home-of-Wuthering-Heights counterpart, the Moors, but between those dainty rows of dry-stone walls, nature’s still a powerful force. This is keenly felt in stately stay Grantley Hall’s Three Graces Spa, where the wild is within: a snow room and garden-set ice bath shock your immune system into being more productive, and sessions in a Rasul mud chamber impart vitamins in a fun, messy way.
Facials infused with pure oxygen breathe new life into sluggish skin; and while this far north in England the Celsius is stubbornly unpredictable, there’s guaranteed warmth to be found in the alfresco hot tub, sauna, steam room and under the massage jets of the hydrotherapy pool.
Plan of (in)action The ‘bespoke mud experience’ is book-ended by a Himalayan salt scrub and massage with soothing oils, so you’ll emerge thoroughly burnished. Run hot and cold in the thermal circuit, then toss all those worries to the wind, with an O2-infused ‘de-stress’ massage.
Top-up treat Surely the spa café’s fruit-heavy cocktails count towards your five a day? Virgin versions are available too.
FOR A HAIRCARE MOT: NOBU HOTEL LONDON PORTMAN SQUARE
A well-groomed central London locale, polished rooms, luscious dining: Nobu Hotel London Portman Square is one of the brand’s crowning glories for sure — but you might not know that part of its wellness offering is a hair-growth clinic helmed by renowned trichologist Hannah Gaboardi. While others sculpt their bodies, you’ll be taking it from the top and achieving follicular glory through scalp scans and DNA and blood testing.
Gaboardi has rescued the glossy manes of many an A-lister, so whether you’ve just overdone the heat-styling, you’re postpartum or iron deficient, she’ll have you swinging your locks like you’re in a shampoo ad.
Plan of (in)action Treatments such as plasma or stem-cell exosome injections, iron infusions, auricular acupuncture and polynucleotide boosters are serious stuff, but they’re carried out in very soothing, Japanese-minimalist surrounds. If a little more lustre is your aim, go for the ‘hair-vitamin injectable’ or take the full assessment for a lifelong mane maintenance plan.
Top-up treat The Pilates studio here is one of the best in London, with reformer and jumpboard classes; or you could juice up in less heart-pumping fashion with a Reviv IV drip.
Start the new year right with a spell at our luxury spa hotels in London, Paris and throughout Europe; perhaps with a spot of skiing, too, or with a furry friend in tow