I lay on the floor of a 407-year-old French chapel, reconstructed stone by stone on a lavender-covered hill at Cal-a-Vie, a tony Southern California destination spa. Six crystal bowls surrounded me, humming with a soothing sound. Palms up, eyes closed, I was there for a sound bath, a form of meditation that studies suggest can alleviate stress, anxiety, and depression (Kendall Jenner and Meghan Markle are fans). As the hour-long session rolled along, Kumiko Niwayama, one of Cal-a-Vie’s yoga and meditation instructors, strummed the bowls, rumbled a Native American drum, and shook a rattle filled with seashells that sounded like a receding wave—each note intended to relax the subconscious and activate the body’s natural healing systems. Before long, my mind quieted and I began to drift off into a semi-sleep state.
I had come to the spa seeking just such an escape—a dedicated hour where I could relieve my pulsing brain. Mothering two children under four during the time of COVID-19 has done a number on my nervous system. Weeks-long quarantines, hard-to-find childcare, and general looming uncertainty have dialed my existing anxiety into overdrive. Couple that with a pandemic puppy and a preschooler who, darling as she is, stopped napping and started going all Picasso on my walls, and by the time the two-year anniversary rolled around, I was one nursery school closure away from attending a #MomScream event. What I needed was some quiet time to myself, a place where I could mentally reset to survive parenting in a pandemic that just won’t quit.
Perhaps you can relate. Women, disproportionately impacted by the crisis, are maxed out: Twenty-nine percent of women reported symptoms of anxiety and depression in a 2021 University of Chicago Medicine study, nearly double the pre-pandemic rate. It’s no surprise, then, that we’re itching to get sprung from two years of house jail, and travel has come roaring back. In the third week of March 2022, hotel occupancy was down just 3.7 percent from the same time frame in March 2019. But now we’re searching for destinations that not only transport us, but transform us. More than two-thirds of travelers plan to base their next vacation on improving their mental well-being, according to a September 2021 survey by American Express. “We are seeing the demand for mental health retreats skyrocket,” says Alex Timmons, co-owner of Mountain Trek, a holistic hiking retreat in Canada, where interest in mental wellness offerings has jumped 137 percent since the pandemic started. “It was a long time coming, but COVID pushed people over the edge.”
The travel industry has responded to our collective angst. Wellness tourism, now a $436 billion industry, is booming, and the array of new mental health offerings is just as robust. There’s art therapy in a greenhouse surrounded by lush gardens at the Royal Mansour in Marrakech, or Reiki with a former Buddhist nun in Bali. At Mountain Trek, guests can forgo electronic devices, hike for three to four hours a day, and forest bathe. In Greece, Euphoria Retreat’s Feel Alive Again program promises to “purge the effects of the pandemic” with activities such as expressive dance, breath work, and moodboarding. In Brazil, you can go foraging for fruits and herbs to make doctor-recommended mood-boosting elixirs. And in Northern California, Cavallo Point serves up new customizable wellness itineraries that include Freedom From Anxiety hypnotherapy or, if you’re game to put yourself in the hands of a shaman, a program that “engages the forces of nature and the ancestors’ ancient wisdom to create lasting changes for physical, mental, and emotional well-being.”
The demand for psychedelic retreats—the ultimate mental reset—for addressing issues like addiction, anxiety, trauma, and depression is also soaring. From 2021 to 2022, bookings doubled at Soltara, a high-end ayahuasca healing center in Costa Rica frequented by celebrities, prompting the center to open an additional location in Costa Rica and one in Peru. (The burgeoning psychedelic tourism industry is often unregulated, so prospective psychonauts should choose retreats that have reputable healers, licensed medical staff, and trauma-informed facilitators on hand.)
Happiness retreats, too, are experiencing a post-pandemic-doom-and-gloom boom. “Now more than ever, guests are looking for moments of peace and physical and emotional harmony,” says Alejandra Bustamante, wellness director of Mexico’s Chablé Maroma, a seaside resort on the Riviera Maya. In January, the hotel debuted its Happiness Program, which uses an on-property shaman, centuries-old Mayan traditions, and energetic cleansings to help guests achieve lasting contentment. Meanwhile, the Happiness Break at Borgo Egnazia in Puglia, Italy, takes a lighthearted approach: aromatherapy to boost dopamine production, and sessions with a laughter master, who draws on guests’ silly impersonations of each other and traditional Apulian music and dance to evoke delight.
Some locations are working with certified mental health professionals to bring guests relief. In 2021, Miraval Resorts, with locations in Arizona, Austin, and the Berkshires, teamed up with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to produce a series of recorded meditations. In February, Canyon Ranch rolled out the Build Resilience Pathway, a course at its Tucson, Arizona, and Lenox, Massachusetts, locations in which guests meet with licensed therapists and spiritual wellness practitioners, such as a former Christian minister, to develop behavioral therapy tools and mindfulness techniques. And in November, Auberge Resorts Collection reopened Hacienda AltaGracia in Costa Rica’s highlands, where guests might top off a morning spent climbing to the rainforest canopy with a session of Integrative Energy Work, which incorporates Emotional Freedom Technique, or tapping, a method to treat psychological and physical pain.
Less therapy, more fun is the name of the game at Tschuggen Hotel Group’s four properties in Switzerland. Having seen a rise in the number of COVID-weary guests looking for relief, the hospitality group worked with wellness experts to develop Moving Mountains, a mind-body-spirit program created, in part, “to help travelers rediscover vitality and joy, and mentally recover from the pandemic,” says Leo Maissen, the group’s CEO. Launched in early 2021, Moving Mountains is based on the tenets of movement, play, nourishment, rest, and giving. So a stay at one of Tschuggen’s properties might involve gleefully skiing down the slopes of St. Moritz at sunrise or paragliding over the medieval town of Ascona, followed by an aromatherapy massage designed to balance the nervous system, an endorphin-releasing ice bath in Lake Obersee, or a sleep program devised by a Mayo Clinic-trained slumber specialist.
A cognitive reboot is what I was searching for when I signed up for Cal-a-Vie’s Refresh & Renew program, which debuted in January. This is how I found myself in that sound bath, one of a number of wellness offerings the spa has introduced since reopening after the first lockdown in June 2020. “Guests kept telling us that they needed help mentally as well as physically,” says Kyra Oliver, wellness director at Cal-a-Vie, which has welcomed Michelle Obama, Shailene Woodley, and Gwyneth Paltrow. Since launching new classes in response to the pandemic, such as Anxiety and Nutrition: The Gut-Brain Connection; Create a Meditation Mala Bracelet; and Restore Your Nervous System yoga, the spa has seen bookings jump 15 to 20 percent. “It used to be all about physical fitness; now it’s all about mental fitness,” Oliver says. “People want skills and techniques they can take back into their lives.”
Back in the former chapel, after an hour of sound bathing, I began to come to, and Niwayama started to explain how the pandemic has zapped our collective well-being. “We were going along as normal. Now there is no normal, and we don’t know what to expect. Everyone is a little depressed right now. This will snap them out of it,” she said. And it was true: The sound bath had dimmed the electricity of my anxiety; I felt lighter and more optimistic. Was I cured? No. Was I better? Yes.
Later that day, on a camellia-lined patio over a lunch of grilled swordfish with romesco sauce, another Cal-a-Vie guest reflected on travel in the time of COVID-19. “We all need a reset right now and a different way of living,” said Robin Ola, a certified life and weight-loss coach and personal trainer from Austin. In the distance, vineyards spooled down the hillside as guests trickled in from TRX and spin classes. “Traveling gives us the time and space to pause, creating opportunities to learn new ways of being that will help us thrive in such an uncertain future.” The war in Ukraine, a wobbly economy, new variants—yes, the future is wildly uncertain. But leaving Cal-a-Vie, I felt ready for whatever life, and pandemic parenting, throws my way. I won’t need that #MomScream session anymore, but I may need to invest in some sound bowls.
This article appears in the June/July 2022 issue of ELLE.
Kelley Manley is a freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Vogue, Marie Claire, Departures, and other national and regional publications. Follow her on Instagram @KelleyMcMillanManley.
