Here’s one trend that everyone can get on board with, in every sense: wellness odysseys that begin long before you reach your destination.
To the bewilderment of many observers, this spring arrived with a flurry of headlines that were all variations on a theme: Dior to Show in Scotland. A grand departure for the quintessential French couture house? Seemingly.
But to anyone who’d ridden Belmond’s Royal Scotsman train through the Scottish Highlands in the last year and visited the new onboard spa carriage, the prospect of a local Dior fashion show made perfect sense. The designer’s feelings for Scotland ran so deep, they earned a place in his memoirs, and—as the treatment menu explains—lent inspiration to the Dior Spa Royal Scotsman.
An onboard offering that debuted last April, this partnership between Dior Spa and Royal Scotsman is part of a promising trend: wellness experiences that don’t keep you waiting until you reach your destination. Instead, they take place enroute, flipping the old calculus: If getting there used to be half the fun, the balance is now shifting in favor of the journey.
Read on for some of the best cases in point.
Photo credit: Belmond
TRAIN TRAVEL
One could argue that transiting through the Scottish Highlands— all misty mounts, shimmering lochs, ancient forests, and floppy-fringed cows—is highly therapeutic in and of itself. But if you’d like to take the effect over the top, start by traveling on a train that lets you gaze out, dram in hand, from a banquette in an indoor-outdoor observation car, or a table in a mahogany-paneled dining carriage, or a plush settee in a marquetry-adorned sleeper cabin.
Put otherwise: The Royal Scotsman. Then, book a service in the spa carriage, where the menu opens with a note about the charity fashion show Christian Dior held in the Scottish Highlands in 1955, when he fell hard for the place, proclaiming, “I was even more struck by the beauty of the country, the castles, and the moors than I had expected.” Accordingly, the three treatments at the intimately scaled yet meticulously appointed Dior Spa Royal Scotsman reflect both the designer and his love of Scotland.
The D-Elements massage, for example, is an ode to the Highlands’ ever-shifting mix of sun, wind, and rain—with semiprecious hot stones standing in for the sun, skin-ruffling movements for the wind, and a warm misting of Bain Dior for the rain. Whichever treatment you choose, it comes with a bonus: the next-level relaxation that results from the gentle rumble of the rails. Though you can book a treatment regardless of the accommodations you choose, two new Grand Suites on the train—which debut this month—include one spa treatment per person, in addition to the cabins’ lavish layouts, personal butler service, and private dining on request.
Meanwhile, in South America, another Belmond wellness carriage—the Picaflor Spa Car on the iconic Andean Explorer— packs bonus bliss into an already sublime experience: rolling through the heart of the ancient Inca empire. As you ride the rails from Cusco to Lake Titicaca, you’ll see the outsized peaks rising next to you, market stalls bustling to either side of you, and maybe a playful kid or two running behind you, llama in tow. And though you’ll be hard-pressed to take a break from the views, an Altitude Acclimatizing Massage will be time well spent, with regional herbal infusions to help offset some of the symptoms of traveling ever higher into the Andes. Other worthy contenders on the menu include the Obsidian Massage, in which the stones are used to ply both body and spirit, and the Magic Candles, a massage with the warm, scented and eminently soothing oil from aromatherapeutic candle wax.
If you’d like to dream up your own wellness-on-wheels experience, consider doing so amid the dramatic landscapes and skylines of eastern Canada. Indeed, the national passenger train service, VIA Rail, offers chartered cars between Windsor and Québec City, where your spa-themed journey might include chair massage, yoga, meditation, and organic, plant-based fare. You can get as creative as you want within the limits of what’s permissible on a train, and a sales specialist who’s familiar with local offerings will work with you to find the best available practitioners and menus.
AIR TRAVEL
In-flight spa menus have taken off in fits and starts. Virgin Atlantic, a pioneer of famously beloved midair massage, no longer offers the service, while other commercial airlines are taking different aspects of wellness to new heights. In late 2021, for example, Singapore Airlines announced a partnership with Golden Door to bring healthy dining, mindfulness, and stretching programs to, for starters, some of the world’s longest flights: LAX, SFO, JFK and SEA to Singapore. Since then, the partnership has grown— in terms of both routes and menu items. The food ranges from oatmeal with goji berries, blueberries, quinoa, almonds, and a honey drizzle to miso sesame chicken breast with a dulse and mung bean salad. Even the beverage cart has gotten a wellness upgrade with drinks that are meant to meet your body’s ever-changing needs—say, for sleep or electrolytes— during the journey.
For their part, private airlines are offering their own wellness experiences. VistaJet, for one, lets you customize your in-flight menu in consultation with a nutritionist, or choose from a variety of existing wellness-minded menus: Relax focuses on tryptophan, magnesium, and melatonin; Revitalize includes complex carbs, electrolytes and, of course, caffeine; Rejuvenate is rich in probiotics and antioxidants; and the Performance Athlete (a collaboration with F1 star Charles Leclerc) is eminently protein-forward. The jets also deploy a circadian rhythm-based lighting system, herbal infusions, aromatherapy scents, and various meditation and guided breathing app-based programs.
Meanwhile, Air Partner—which offers private jets and helicopter charters, among other specialized aviation services—has recently joined forces with Silver Linings Wellbeing and The Modern Concierge to create bespoke retreat experiences for which not even the sky is the limit.
WELLNESS ON THE WATER
Wellness services have long been a fixture of ocean cruising. But they’re getting more common—and thoughtful—on the rivers you might travel to get from, say, Amsterdam to Basel, or Nuremberg to Budapest. On AmaWaterways, for example, Wellness Hosts lead onboard fitness classes, while massage therapists tend to spent muscles between guided hiking and biking excursions, and chefs whip up locally sourced, plant-forward offerings that pair perfectly with the ship’s citrus- and gemstone-infused water. Of course, many wellness seekers find the most therapeutic onboard water to be the warm, bubbly variety in the whirlpool. For those traveling into the lush, remote Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve from Iquitos in northern Peru, wellness services won’t necessarily fall by the wayside.
On Aqua Expeditions’ Aqua Nera, the company’s newest ship in the Amazon, there’s a spa treatment room to complement other river-based health and nutrition offerings (kayaking, swimming, and food sourced directly and sustainably from one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet). On the other hand, when you’re traveling along rainforest-flanked waterways where pink river dolphins are actual, recurrent sightings, anything else meant to bolster your wellbeing can almost feel redundant.