By Karen Rubin, Travel Features Syndicate, goingplacesfarandnear.com
Travel has so many benefits – on a macro level, travel is the greatest invention humanity has devised for promoting peace, prosperity, progress and understanding by bringing different people together. On a micro level, travel is a life-enhancing, oftentimes life-changing experience that promotes personal health and well-being. Indeed, wellness travel is a significant and growing segment of the wellness industry writ large, and the travel industry in particular. And the travel industry is responding to demand.
“The global wellness tourism market represents a small but rapidly increasing share of tourism trips. Compared to other leisure travelers, wellness tourists tend to spend significantly more, while exploring diverse destinations, activities and services. Governments, wellness businesses and local organizations can implement thoughtful wellness tourism strategies to benefit both the destinations and their surrounding communities,” Global Wellness Institute research fellow Tonia Callender writes. “Now is an especially opportune time, as wellness tourists are increasingly interested in nature, curative waters, outdoor exercise, local healthy cuisines, and indigenous healing arts. Protecting all of these assets strengthens a destination’s appeal for wellness tourism.”
In 2023, wellness trips accounted for 7.8% of all tourism trips but 17.9% of all tourism expenditures. Because wellness travelers spend more and favor experiences that are authentic and unique, there is less pressure for destinations to engage in a “race to the bottom” strategy that competes on price and quantity – in other words, an antidote to overtourism and mass tourism.
Wellness tourism has the potential to spread tourism to less traveled destinations; bring economic benefits and innovations to rural areas; and increase the incentives to protect local culture, biodiversity, and the environment. The values and interests inherent in wellness tourism are well aligned with those of sustainable and responsible tourism. A region’s key assets for developing and promoting wellness tourism extend beyond its hospitality and wellness businesses, and include the wellbeing of its people, the integrity of its culture, and the quality of its natural environment. As shown by the examples of Costa Rica, New Zealand, and Bhutan, sustainable tourism policies and strategies can help protect key assets and foundations while creating a successful and competitive wellness tourism destination.
The Global Wellness Summit’s (GWS’s) The Future of Wellness: 2025 Trends cited important developments impacting the travel industry and wellness travelers.
Trend: Slow Travel
One of the leading trends identified that I am obsessed with is slow travel. I have just returned from a perfect example that hits on all cylinders: BoatBikeTours’ sailing and biking trip to Netherlands’ islands, which offers an ideal pace for personal reflection, for visual interest, for a boost of endorphins, the opportunity to stop and take a photo or engage with someone you meet, even to ask directions, to go through villages and towns and ride back roads where you can appreciate how people live that you would never see otherwise – in other words, engagement. Slow travel provides all the wellness benefits of the travel experience.
At the Global Wellness Summit, this trend was dubbed “Wellness on the Line” and focused on how cruise and rail travel fit into the desire for “slow travel” (but I would add biking, hiking, walking and pilgrimage tours offer much the same benefits).
Train travel fits the ideal of slow travel – both in pacing that promotes mindfulness, even the rhythm of wheels rolling on the track and the gentle rocking as you watch the landscape roll by, and being eco-friendly.
Belmond, the luxury travel company that is part of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE and owns or manages 45 luxury hotels and spas, restaurant, train and river cruise properties, operates some of the most famous trains in the world including the Venice-Simplon Orient Express, the Royal Scotsman. Its new Britannic Explorer, UK’s first luxury sleeper train, has a first-of-its-kind wellness suite onboard, where as you travel to Wales, the Lake District, Cornwall, you can enjoy treatments based on circadian rhythms, with different treatments depending upon the time of day.
Nicola Herbert, Belmond’s global director of wellness strategies (its tagline is “Discover a new pace of travel”), described the company’s global strategy for Belmond hotels, trains, cruises, safari camps, focus on wellbeing and why trains and wellness are such a good mix: “Guests on a Belmond train feel like they are stepping into a cocoon, a bubble, moving away from reality. There is a natural tendency to disconnect. The common theme: it’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey; embrace the journey.”
Trains and boats have a naturally slow pace, their movement, and even sound, lull the body as you also see incredible natural landscapes floating by.
“We provide amazingly curated aesthetic space where guests use their creativity to achieve wellness – guests find a sketch book gifted in the cabin, communing across a chess board. Passengers have permission to reconnect with relaxation. Traveling with companion or fellow passengers, discovering destination – bonding experience – create friendships for life on these journeys.”
You can find a plethora of wellness experiences at Belmond properties at a dedicated site, https://www.belmond.com/experiences/wellbeing
(A company specializing in rail journeys is Railbookers.com, 888-829-3040.)
Wellness is transforming cruising. We saw it in the 1980s, when cruiselines introduced luxurious spas and healthy dining on board, but what they are doing now is “integrated wellness” with onboard programming –a nutritionist lecture on “nutrigenomics,” a three-day cellular detox, fitness classes that focus on mobility, balance, posture; yoga meditation; and activities like stargazing at night, classes to learn computer skills, art, or learning the tango – as well as onshore activities and excursions.
Viking Cruises is one line that has embraced this in a big way. “There are so many facets from the architecture of ship reflecting its Nordic heritage, an onboard snow grotto with snowballs scented with lavender, to excursions to thermal lagoons and nature walks;
Shore excursions also provide opportunities for these enhanced experiences, like a workshop on Aloe Vera in Cape Verde; a guided medicinal plant walk through the jungle in Mexico, said Suzie Ellis, GWI’s CEO.
Blue World Voyages, launching in 2026, is promising to be the epitome of active lifestyle cruising. A ship designed in yacht style it is dedicated to sport and wellness. It strives to be the ‘healthiest ship at sea,” with an- entire deck designed around sports and fitness, the world’s largest functional training facility at sea, a state of the art golf school, and the largest luxury spa per passenger at sea.
While ocean cruising has embraced wellness onboard and with on-shore experiences, my favorite kind of cruising are the river and canal cruises on canalboats and barges which are quite literally “slow-travel” – so slow, that you can bike alongside at twice the speed, and float into ports you can just stride off the boat to explore. Among these are: AmaWaterways, Amadeus River Cruises, CroisiEurope, Emerald Cruises, European Waterways, Viking River Cruises, Uniworld Boutique River Cruises. You can even rent your own live-aboard self-skippered boat through LeBoat in Europe and Erie Canal Adventures on the Erie Canal in New York State. Also, historic sailing vessels, like the tallships of the Maine Windjammer fleet, are idyllic for an analog travel retreat (www.mainewindjammerfleet.com). Expeditionary cruises to the Galapagos, Arctic and Antarctic, like those offered by Lindblad Expeditions, Aurora Expeditions, Hurtigruten, Ponant, Poseidon Expeditions and Quark Expeditions are a category of “wellness” all their own, adding doses of adventure and exhilaration.
The growing desire for “slow travel” is seen in the surging popularity, accessibility and availability of bike tours –whether guided or self-guided, inn-to-inn or by boat. Bike tours evoke physical, emotional, spiritual and social benefits, as well as a direct connection to engage directly with local people and the environment. And the wide availability of e-bikes now extend a cyclists’ longevity in the saddle and take away anxiety over being able to handle the hills or the miles. Among the operators offering guided and self-guided itineraries on rail trails around the country and the world (where you are most likely to achieve that level of serenity and inner dialogue because you are not worrying about car traffic): Discovery Bicycle Tours; Wilderness Voyageurs; Backroads; VBT Bicycling Vacations and Boat Bike Tours.
Trend: Analog Wellness
At the heart of many of the wellness trends is a rejection of the digital, overly techno, virtual world in favor of a return to the simplicity and authenticity of the analog, spawning a trend to “analog travel”– old-school, old-fashioned, basic creative pursuits and opportunities for in-person social interaction and communication.
“The online and social media world has gone too far,” said GWI’s Beth McGroarty. People are resenting the manipulation, the intrusive marketing, the evil algorithms, the lies. People are sick of ‘brain robbing,’ polarization, and the time-suck from life spent in front of screens. People are getting aggressive about logging off in life and in travel. More travelers are seeking out destinations and experiences where the phone is locked up or properties that do not have wifi (think “White Lotus”). More hotels and resorts and destinations are channeling this zeitgeist, introducing retro, pre industrial programming, tactile experiences like embroidery, clay modeling– analog experiences that restore what the digital world stolen.”
Analog experiences are as varied as blacksmithing and birdwatching, or the use of “retro tech” like old-school film cameras, dumb phones (that can only be used for emergencies), typewriters, paper maps and old-fashioned alarm clocks. The common denominator is going “unplugged.”
Vinyl listening is now the rage, she said (and as if to prove the point, Newsday reported, “Vinyl bars in NYC to explore ” https://www.newsday.com/travel/vinyl-bars-nyc-g4cu5v7v)
There are deep listening sauna sessions, where you settle in for a group audio meditation – take complete vinyl album from classic artist; and “social reading”; wellness resorts and retreats are offering art as wellness therapy, arts and crafts, painting, ceramics, writing, knitting workshops. embroidery, clay modeling.
“It’s not just going retro, but back to pre-Industrial pursuits.”
At the Viceroy at Ombria Algarve in Portugal, for example, guests can sign up to be a “Shepherd for a Day” learning traditional sheep herding practices from a local shepherd and drive the flock home; also “Hive to Honey” and “Traditional Pottery Workshop”with a local artisan (Viceroy at Ombria Algarve, www.viceroyhotelsandresorts.com)
On a restored 17th century farm resort, you can do blacksmithing, milk cows, leatherworking, carpentry, wheat milling.
Tourism boards are jumping in. Japan’s tourism board has created a road map for travelers to find traditions like paper crafting, copper and gold smithing.
Nightlife is also going analog, with super social clubs, spaces where people craft, read, listen to music, play games; reading parties where an hour of reading is set to live music in beautiful settings.
People are also giving up booze and seeking a nightlife beyond eating and drinking: a rise in night experiences and wellness experiences like stargazing and night kayaking (also a reaction to global warming which is making daytime activities oppressively, even dangerously hot).
“The analog travel trend will only rise. With humanoid robots, AI agents replacing human agents, and more unreality than reality, analog travel will be a counter trend.”
Trend: Sauna Reimagined
Saunas have been around for thousands of years, but saunas are enjoying an incredible renaissance and renewal, a trend which GWI calls “Sauna Reimagined.”
“From new urban saunas in New York and Chicago, to rustic waterfront saunas in Oslo or Brighton, to saunas with immersive art installations in Tokyo, today’s saunas represent a reinvention of an age-old tradition—and an increasingly younger, hipper crowd is taking notice, the GWI reports. “These younger consumers, craving real-life connections beyond bars and clubs, are flocking to social saunas, which can feature DJs, drag queens or full-blown concerts. Where saunas were once a sad, dark, lonely box in a basement, today they’re lively, social, cultural and entertainment hubs, often with fantastic views and in incredible locations, and people just can’t get enough.”
Saunas are increasingly paired with other forms of entertainment (“sauna-tainment”, which resonates with a younger demographic. In London, sauna festivals and pop-ups combine music, dance workshops, bands and DJs with sauna rituals, cold plunges and hot tubs, even comedy, while in Norway, Deep Listening sessions at Farris Bad bring people together to hear a favorite classic album while in the sauna.
“People used to think of sauna as sad, dark, lonely box in a basement that smelled like sweat. Today, they are lively social hubs with fantastic views in incredible locations.”
Trend: Mideast Becomes Wellness Mecca
Another Wellness travel trend is unfolding in the Middle East, huge resorts and retreats are being designed for wellness based on ancient traditions (being alcohol free is appealing to the growing interest in being “sober curious) but embracing cutting edge technology including AI (going the opposite way of “analog travel.”)
The most ambitious project is Amaala, a $1 trillion tourism megaproject under construction in Saudi Arabia, developed by Public Investment Fund-owned Red Sea Global, under the patronage of Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It is part of the Saudi Vision 2030 program (diversifying its image and economy from oil). Spanning 4,200 square kilometers, it consists of three main developments: The Coastal Development, Amaala Island, and Triple Bay. The scale of development is humongous: they are looking at 600 projects, 140,000-plus rooms with the first eight destinations, seven resorts and yacht club opening this year (https://www.visitredsea.com/en/destinations/amaala).
This year, a new luxury resort in Dubai will not only offer beautiful rooms and great hospitality, but guests also get comprehensive health diagnostic, treatments, high-tech genetic testing and have access to doctors on site.
Rather than follow Western wellness practices, these new resorts are setting new trends combining culturally-rooted wellness with cutting edge technology, says Thomas Morris, Senior Partner, Middle East, Finn Partners (United Arab Emirates) – not just luxury resorts, but high-tech clinics, not just massive sporting events, but cutting edge training for pro and amateur athletes. “The Middle East is no longer just a stopover, but is driving trends.”
The Future of Wellness 2025 Trends report is available from the Global Wellness Institute, https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/.
Road Scholar: Adventure is Key Factor in Happiness and Health for Older Adults
Non-Profit Leader in Educational Travel Establishes June 8th as Annual National Observance, ‘Age Adventurously Day,’ in Celebration of 50th Anniversary
Road Scholar, the not-for-profit world leader in educational travel for older adults, released a new report indicating that adventure is a key contributor to the happiness and health of aging adults. Based on a survey of 300 adults aged 50 to 98, Road Scholar’s findings reveal that 94% of older adults who embrace adventurous activities – whether through travel, lifelong learning or stepping outside their comfort zones – report higher levels of wellbeing.
In addition to the report, the organization has announced a new national observance on its 50th anniversary June 8th, “Age Adventurously Day,” kicking off with a contest offering one lucky winner a travel voucher, among other prizes.
Road Scholar’s Age Adventurously Report offers compelling insights into the connection between aging, adventure and wellbeing. Compared to previous generations, today’s older adults are more adventurous than ever before.
Here’s a look at a few standout findings:
Educational Experiences Spark Interest in Distant Destinations and Frequent Travel: Older adults who engage in educational travel are more likely to explore distant destinations and travel more often compared to their peers. Thirty-two percent of participants surveyed reported that the majority of their travel is international. Road Scholar participants also tend to travel more frequently with 45% of those polled taking 4-8 trips annually, compared to 26% of those not involved with the organization.
Adventure Adds to Health and Happiness: Nearly 100% of older adults surveyed agreed that being adventurous contributes to their health, happiness and wellbeing. In fact, Road Scholar participants above the age of 50 who actively embrace new experiences indicated feeling just as happy as they were in their 20s, 30s or 40s – scoring an average of 3.2 on a 5-point scale ranking happiness from “not happier” to “extremely happier.”
Adventurousness Across Generations: When asked if their generation was more adventurous in older adulthood than their parents’ generation, 75% of Gen Xers agreed and 89% of Boomers and Silent Gen concurred – showing that older adults have evolved to be more adventurous.
Celebrate Age Adventurously Day
Road Scholar has declared June 8th as Age Adventurously Day. This now-approved annual observance, certified by the National Day Archives, aims to motivate older adults to break free of their routines, seek out fresh opportunities, and redefine what it means to age.
On June 8th each calendar year, Age Adventurously Day will serve as a reminder to individuals that aging does not mean the end of adventure, but rather a new beginning full of opportunities. The day invites everyone within the Road Scholar community and beyond to embrace the spirit of adventure, stepping beyond the ordinary, trying something they’ve always wanted to do, and making aging an adventure.
To kick off the inaugural Age Adventurously Day, Road Scholar is hosting a special contest. Participants are invited to share their plans for the day or submit stories and photos of their adventures at www.ageadventurously.org. One winner will receive a $1,500 travel voucher for a Road Scholar program, along with other prizes. Entries will be accepted through June 13, with the winner selected at random.
For more information, visit roadscholar.org.
See also:
HEALTH & WELLNESS OFFERINGS EXPAND IN RESPONSE TO EXPLODING DEMAND BY TRAVELERS
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