If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.
Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (EUR517.08), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.
We don’t offer spiritual guidance often – it’s more ‘go to a wine estate, eat all the things’, or some decadent direction. But, hear us out on wellness retreat Yeotown Madeira, the first of its kind on the Portuguese paradise isle. Its owners spent years helping guests hit refresh in Devon, and now run their five-day programme from a 400-year-old farmhouse on a vast ocean-side estate. No diet prison or smug ‘om-from-home’ spot, here days gain a gentle rhythm, moving through volcano hikes, yoga and wild swims, and culminating in massages; so much thought goes into healthy, garden-fresh meals, you’ll forget anything’s cut out from them; and you’ll leave feeling calmer, clearer-headed and re-energised, which is how a holiday should make you feel, no? So, take our advice, and get Yeo-self in gear…
Smith Extra
Get this when you book through us:
One additional spa therapy (depending on the therapist available)
11am, but flexible, subject to availability and on request. Earliest check-in, 5pm.
Prices
Double rooms from £530.98 (€620), including tax at 20 per cent.
More details
Rates include all meals and fresh juices, snacks, a massage on each full day, nutritional talks and a programme of activities (hiking, biking, yoga, fitness training, seasonal water sessions), plus some surprises. Retreats last for five days.
Also
Unfortunately the nature of this retreat and the programmes offered make it unsuitable for guests with mobility issues.
At the hotel
Spa, fitness and yoga studio, medicinal plant garden, vegetable patches and fruit groves, mindful walking path, free laundry service, free WiFi. In rooms: the White Company bathrobes, slippers and flip-flops, herbal teas and a kettle, and Elemental Herbology bath products.
Our favourite rooms
Rooms all share a similar rustic, bohemian look, with pops of colour, raffia and bamboo touches, or the odd surfboard mounted on the wall. Some of the lower category rooms have a shared bathroom, but most suites and lodge rooms have an ensuite, and when it comes to the view, you’ll want to be facing the ocean. If you’re attending as a group, then book out the entire Classic Lodge, which has a kitchen, lounge and hammock-strung porch too.
Poolside
The sizable heated pool (open 7am to 10pm), set outside the main house, is the spot for seasonal watery workouts, but also lazy laps, hammock-swinging and schlumping on a sunlounger.
Spa
A free massage each day (three in total over the five-day retreat), now that’s our idea of wellness… Each guest will have two deep-tissue massages and one Thai, which will help to counteract the exertions of volcano hikes and yoga bending; take yours out on the terrace if you want a soundtrack of ocean waves. And if you fancy more lying down murmuring ‘ahhh’, you can book therapies such as reiki, acupuncture and lymphatic drainage à la carte (for an extra charge). But do keep in mind that these may have to replace some activities on the well-balanced retreat programme. There’s also a studio for workouts and yoga sessions.
Packing tips
Hand ’em over, those duty-free Toblerones secreted in your suitcase lining. Well, in all honesty, no-one’s going to wrestle them off you, but you’re here to commit; as such, you’ll want various forms of the ‘athletic-er’ part of athleisure wear, and some sturdy hiking boots.
Also
The spiritual is embraced here too, so make space in your mind for intention-setting and the like.
Children
The focus does swivel to you and your wellbeing here; however, children are welcome to join in the programme and activities can be adapted on request.
Sustainability efforts
Yeotown Madeira is cognisant of the immediate effect our environment has on our wellbeing, and so has cultivated a wonderfully leafy haven, incorporating a kitchen garden and fruit groves (all the better for healthy eating) as part of an ongoing permaculture project; medicinal plant garden (all the better for holistic healing); and a mindful walking path (all the better for head-clearing). Resident chickens produce a steady supply of eggs, and otherwise very local (human) suppliers provide anything else. And, there are zero single-use plastics on-site, and composting is carried out daily.
Whether you’re swapping commiserations after tough volcano climbs or congratulations over successful ones, the alfresco communal table reinforces that sense of camaraderie in the retreat’s small groups.
Dress Code
While you could head straight from the trail or yoga deck to the dining room, you might want to slip into something flowy and organic to fit in with the overall bohemian look.
Hotel restaurant
If you hear ‘health retreat’ and think of subsisting on the diet of one of the more unfortunate Victorian orphans, then recalibrate your mind for the vibrant, flavourful and largely home-grown dishes Yeotown Madeira offers – say blueberry spirulina pancakes with blue coconut yoghurt and microgreens; sticky cauliflower 'wings' in a spicy almond-butter sauce; pan-fried seabass with lemon-braised leeks and brazil-nut cream; or seared pineapple with ancho chilli in a moringa-cashew-nut cream. There’s no calorie-maths or beach-body readiness, just listening to your gut – quite literally, as the health of that gurgling powerhouse is the main concern of meals here – and the advice of the resident nutritionist to see what will make you feel more focused, energised and altogether healthier. Menus are free from caffeine, gluten, meat, dairy and refined sugar (fish is served twice throughout your stay if you’d like it); but, made using bountiful harvests from the kitchen gardens, eggs from the house hens and other home projects (say trays of dainty micro-greens), what they do have is colour, freshness and lots of local flavour. And, cookery classes help to deepen that new relationship you’ll have with what you eat.
Hotel bar
A lack of alcohol doesn’t mean your holiday will be dry. Quenchers here include the ‘Yeotinis’, a range of fresh-pressed juices and smoothies made using fruit and vegetables from the kitchen gardens; and the likes of turmeric and ginger shots will give you a healthier kind of kick. Otherwise there are flavourful, locally made loose-leaf teas and a range of Yogi Teas.
Last orders
Breakfast is from 8.15am, lunch from 1.30pm and dinner from 6.15pm to 7.15pm.
Yeotown Madeira is set on a five-acre estate stretching out over a leafy slope of Madeira’s south-west side, about an hour’s drive from capital Funchal.
Planes
Madeira Airport (AKA Cristiano Ronaldo International) is the closest hub, an hour’s drive away. The hotel can arrange transfers for around €70 one-way, which must be paid direct to the driver (bring cash to be on the safe side). Taxis normally seat up to eight, so you may be able to share the cost with other arriving guests.
Automobiles
While driving in Madeira is fairly straightforward, vertiginous and narrow mountain passes complicate things. Once you’re at the retreat, your two legs will be doing most of the work, so it’s advisable to simply organise a transfer to and from, but there’s parking just outside the property if you need it.
Other
A ferry runs between Madeira and fellow Portuguese isle Porto Santo, but the mainland is a touch too far to go by boat comfortably.
Worth getting out of bed for
Yeotown Madeira’s retreats aren’t up-and-grind boot camps, more thoughtful holistic programmes that aim to achieve a feelgood homeostasis through a balance of rev-up and wind-down activities. But whether you’re hiking up the 2,000-metre elevation of Madeira’s highest volcano (note, this is not compulsory), or meditating in a spot overlooking the ocean, having the subtropical ‘Hawaii of the Atlantic’ – where temperatures rarely drop below 15 degrees – as a bird-of-paradise-flower-dotted backdrop certainly makes each effort feel rewarded. So, what does a typical day look like here? Well, you might kick off early with an all-abilities yoga session; spend a few hours trekking along the coast (the Levada Nova de Calheta trail runs by here) or into the mountains and forest; swim in a natural pool, or under waterfalls, or take a refreshing plunge into cold water; raise your heart rate in ‘functional fitness’ and core workouts or a strength-training class; practise mindfulness, meditation and breathwork; discuss bio-hacking methods; partake in a sound baths or qi gong; chat with a nutritionist before learning how to make your own gut-healthy meals; and then unwind with a range of massage styles before relaxing for the night. Expect some surprises too – guests aren’t told what they’re doing until 30 minutes before the next activity starts to keep them on their toes… and sometimes the hotel brings in experts in different wellness fields (say skincare, cookery, counselling or life-coaching) for extra-special retreats. ‘Yeotoxes’ – as they’re called here – take place outdoors in all weathers and each day builds on the last; but, you could add a touch more luxury to yours if you wish, swapping in some extra spa treatments and absconding to one of three beaches that are just a 10-minute drive away.
Local restaurants
All meals are included in the programme, and this isn’t a ‘sad stick of celery and a nutrition shake’ kind of place, so you won’t be tempted to deviate.
Every hotel featured is visited personally by members of our team, given the Smith seal of approval, and then anonymously reviewed. As soon as our reviewers have returned from this health-is-wealth retreat in a life-giving rural setting and returned with a whole new outlook on the world, a full account of their inside-and-out refresh will be with you. In the meantime, to whet your wanderlust, here's a quick peek inside Yeotown Madeira…
When you take away the calorie-counting and slim-it-to-win-it attitude from health retreats, you find something rather joyful and inspiring instead. This is the MO of Yeotown Madeira, the first wellness-focused hideaway of its kind on the island, and the second outpost of the wildly popular Devonshire outpost. Taking its five-day programme and adding a spoonful of sunshine and a setting that’s riotously green and within earshot of the ocean waves, it celebrates how it feels to move freely and confidently with yoga, wild swims under waterfalls and hikes into breathtaking natural surrounds; taking time to sit with your emotions during sound baths, meditation and daily massages; and truly nurturing yourself, with all-natural rainbow-on-a-plate meals (made using garden produce), fresh smoothies, nutritionist chats, and deep-dive talks and discussions. Throughout you’ll be gently nudged towards gaining a clearer head and burst of energy, so you’ll be all the more tempted to take your new habits home with you. And, yes, you may be relaxing with a herbal tea rather than a glass of wine, but you won’t miss anything here, including the you before check-in.
