THE TRAVEL CURE

Is it the voyage or the destination? Both. A guide to the people and the places to soothe us—body and soul.

- JEN MURPHY

If you think traveling for your health is a newfangled impulse, consider this: The Sumerians constructed the world’s first known health centers around hot springs circa 4000 BC. But there is news: Lately a fresh crop of health-focused properties and programs have sprung up all over the world—from Miami to Montenegro, Sri Lanka to Switzerland, California to Qatar. They’re not boot camps. (Who cares, really, about washboard abs right now?) Their mission, first and foremost, is to help us feel good—looking good will naturally follow. Read on for our favorites. And there will be a quiz: What is a hyperbaric chamber? A nidra anantar?

Rx #1

Hug a Tree. REALLY.

Hotels are turning typical indoor spa sessions into outdoor rituals.

Remember when “forest bathing” made us smirk? No more. The Japanese, of course, have long believed in the health benefits of shinrin-yoku, their term for it. And thinkers like John Muir and Henry David Thoreau testified eloquently in their writings to the clarity and inspiration they found on wilderness rambles.

These days physicians are getting on board too, even prescribing time outdoors as the best cure for ailments ranging from anxiety to diabetes. “There’s plenty of evidence that incorporating more nature into our lives improves physical, mental, and social well-being,” says Dr. Robert Zarr, a physician researcher based in Washington, DC.