Gluten-Free Globetrotting
Made Simpler

Keeping your gluten intolerance or allergies in check can be difficult enough in your daily
routine—never mind traveling, especially overseas. Not an impossible task, however, and even manageable, as authors Kim Koeller and Robert La France make plain in their award-winning guide Let’s Eat Out with Celiac/Coeliac & Food Allergies: A Timeless Reference for Special Diets (R&R Publishing).

In Let’s Eat Out, Koeller, a business consultant with food allergies, and La France, a restaurant industry veteran, have laid out useful tips when embarking on a flight or cruise or checking into a hotel. There are common-sense insights, like bringing your own snacks, to tips that you might overlook: Don’t bring cooling packs, for example, because they typically contain chemical liquids or gels, and are likely to be confiscated at
security checkpoints. Another nugget: You can request pre-boarding so you can wipe down your seats, arm rests and tray tables to be sure you won’t come into contact with residual food particles from allergens served on an earlier flight. Let’s Eat Out also lists more than 50 international airline carriers and their notification policies for ordering special meals.

Much of Let’s Eat Out is devoted to various international foods you are likely to encounter on your travels, with insights that can be put to very good use when dining out locally for ethnic cuisine, too. Thus the cautionary notes about wheat flour in noodles and dumplings, or the warnings about gluten in stocks and broths, can be helpful in Beijing or in your own city’s Chinatown. The publisher also offers passport-size travel guides for different cuisines, as well as a multilingual phrase guide that will have you telling your waiter, “No nueces” (“No nuts”) or “Estoy experimentado una enfermedad celiaca” (“I have celiac disease”) like a native of Madrid. www.rnrpublishing.com
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A Celebration of H2O at
The Water Club

When the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa opened in 2003, it raised the bar in Atlantic City.

The seaside resort town’s first new hotel in 13 years, the Borgata features a classic Italian-style design, a European-style spa, and 2,000 contemporary rooms the likes of which in a casino resort had previously been found only in the new wave of Las Vegas hotel construction. Five years after the Borgata debuted, its adjacent luxury property, the 800-room Water Club, raised the bar once again. One of the jewels in this handsome contemporary resort is the Immersion Spa at Water Club, a two-story 36,000-square foot tribute to all that is healing about H2O, set high on the resort’s 32nd and 33rd floors. One can almost forgive the Water Club for not including a dry sauna in this sleek and beautiful spa, but the theme, after all, is water. Offsetting this omission is a 50-degree cold plunge, hard to find in many spas but welcome in a routine that includes a soak in the hot tub and a good sweat in the eucalyptus steam room. We’ve found that exposing the body to these alternating temperatures makes for one of the most restful naps you can have, and the perfect place for it is on one of the spa’s deep-cushioned lounges overlooking the ocean through tall windows. Post-nap, if you’re up to burning off more calories, an inviting lap pool, pictured, is right behind you. For more immersion, at the lobby level you can soak in gorgeous indoor and outdoor pools. www.thewaterclubhotel.com.

Custom-Made Wellness
at Waldorf Orlando

As befits one of the most classic names in luxury hospitality, a stay at the Waldorf Astoria Orlando is a decidedly personalized experience. That customization is practically a theme at the resort’s 24,000-square-foot Spa by Guerlain, where beauty therapists begin each treatment by analyzing whether the focus should be on physical or emotional health.

Upon check-in at the spa, guests are asked to select from a number of fragrances to be sprayed into their treatment rooms to create an ambience that is uplifting (mandarin and basil or rose, for example) or relaxing (honey, jasmine and woodsy, among others). The scents are odes to fragrances created by Guerlain, one of the world’s oldest perfume houses, whose products the spa carries.

The personal touch continues with a number of Waldorf-exclusive treatments. The Waldorf Imperiale combines a massage and facial as one blissful therapy, for example. Similarly, the anti-aging Facial Therapy features two therapies in one that are designed to detoxify and invigorate. To rehydrate and replenish, guests are offered a “beauty water” menu featuring eight refreshing choices, from cranberry to elderflower.

Tantalizing surprises are not the sole domain of the spa. The lavish but healthful breakfast buffet at Oscar’s brasserie—with an array of fruits and grains, and a dozen kinds of fresh juices, including pear-honeydew, watermelon, kiwi-apple and pomegranate, that we’ve not seen elsewhere—will help you fuel up for a day of swimming in the cabana-encircled pool or an outing on the Rees Jones-designed 18-hole, 7,108-yard championship golf course. Visit www.WaldorfAstoriaOrlando.com.

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Inspiration as a Cure for
Much That Ails Us

Inspiration is a deep and clear connection to our truest sense of self,” says Jonathan Ellerby, PhD, chief executive of the Tao Wellness Center in Akumal, Mexico, and former spiritual program director for Canyon Ranch Health Resorts. Unfortunately, says Ellerby, too many of us are not attuned to what inspires us, as evidenced by society’s range of physical illnesses, addiction issues, relationship breakdowns and even some low-grade mental health issues, among other stress-related afflictions.

“Knowing what inspires you is not really the core issue for most people,” Ellerby says. “A quiet weekend and most people will figure out what they should be doing. The bigger issue is ‘Why don’t I do what I know is good for me?’” Challenging our old beliefs is one way to identify what inspires us, Ellerby says, especially when we figure out that making an unhealthful choice over an inspiring one comes from the need to fulfill an old belief.

Ellerby, the author of Inspiration Deficit Disorder (Hay House), suggests tapping into what he calls your essential self, comprising those unique talents and aspirations you were born with that give you vitality, and finding how to express those in everything you do. In yet a deeper dimension within, we are connected to the spirit or “a feeling of original energy,” Ellerby says. “From that place, inspiration flows more naturally and manifestation becomes an irrelevant conversation.” Ellerby’s Tao wellness center, retreat and
residential community opens in 2012. Visit taorivieramaya.com.

Mandarin Oriental Brings
Ancient China to Zen City

The modern marble, the lush spa amenities, the haze of colored lights from the Strip—they all say Vegas, baby. The ritual baths at the Mandarin Oriental spa in America’s playground, however, tell another story—that of ancient China. Specifically the Shang and Zhou periods, during which emperors enjoyed three days of vegetarian diets and special ceremonial baths before milestones like enthronements. It wasn’t long before the masses discovered the healing powers of these unique bathing methods.

Spa-goers looking for a retreat where East luxuriously meets West will celebrate their experience at the Mandarin Oriental, where they can replicate this water-centric Tian Quan therapy that can help open pores, detoxify, promote blood and qi flows, and refresh the spirit. Spa attendants, doting on you with a level of service that befits this high-end brand, lead you through the 11-step Tian Quan therapy beginning with an “experience” shower infused with sandalwood herbs to set the tone for a calm mind and rejuvenated body. The ritual ends in a zen relaxation room with an herbal tea in hand while you’re aloft on cushy lounges. Or take a deep snooze.

Traditional Chinese Medicine is guided by the concept of hot and cold, often as a descriptor for food types, but the principle is applied much more literally at the Mandarin Oriental spa. A drink of lemon water and a cooldown at an ice fountain is encouraged between visits to the therapy’s warmer steps: a detoxifying laconium, curved tepidarium chairs, and a vitality pool (pictured above) with submerged air-massage loungers.

To completely harmonize your yin and yang, complement your Tian Quan therapy with a foot ritual (pictured below) or a heavenly Mahjong Balance treatment that is fit for a Chinese emperor. www.mandarinoriental.com/lasvegas

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No Excuse for Flab at Sheraton

Sheraton is spending $120 million to roll out a guest fitness program to its more than 400 properties worldwide, with the program in place at most of its hotels by year’s end. The hotel chain, owned by Starwood Hotels & Resorts, has tapped athletic training company Core Performance to develop its Sheraton Fitness program, with wide-ranging nutrition and exercise components, says Hoyt Harper, Sheraton’s senior vice president of brand management. “It’s a holistic approach,” Harper says. The move is a response to guest surveys showing high demand for fitness programs.

In addition to revamping its restaurant menu items, Sheraton is offering its corporate guests healthier options than the sugar-and-carb snacks typical of meeting breaks; they’ll now get some combination of grains, proteins and vegetables that complement each other for balance.

Besides having access to remodeled gyms, guests can exercise in their rooms with video-on-demand routines and call up for a workout kit that includes exercise cards, a mat, a resistance band and other equipment. At www.sheratonfitness.com, guests can download additional workouts.

Paradise Found at Four Seasons Wailea, Maui

Is your idea of heaven lying by an infinity pool while Hawaiian trade winds blow through your hair, a skilled therapist massages your feet and someone mists you with soothing aromatherapy oils? Then the Four Seasons at Wailea is a place you will definitely want to mark on your spa travel map.

Owned by Dell Computer’s Michael Dell, the resort and spa sits on a perfect crescent beach at Wailea, an upscale area of southwest Maui. An exquisitely landscaped running path along the beach borders the property.

Voted “Top Resort Spa in America,” Wailea offers treatments that are unique in the Four Seasons chain. The “Wai Aulia” consists of lying in a floating cocoon bed while being massaged and stretched; The “Wai Huaka’i” adds an Ayurvedic blend of oils along with simultaneous reflexology. The “Lomi Aumoa” uses two therapists to provide a unique healing experience. In the “Aquacranial,” you are suspended in the ocean while subtle craniosacral manipulations are done to lengthen the spine and soothe the soul.

Some resorts tack on additional à la carte expenses. However the Four Seasons boasts a long list of complimentary services including warm oshibori towels upon arrival; bottled water, towels and maps for off-resort activities; Kindle reading devices for loan; kayaks and Hawaiian outrigger canoes; snorkel equipment and scuba clinics; a fully equipped gym; a eucalyptus steam room; yoga, aqua cardio fusion, spinning and pilates classes; a golf putting green; billiards and ping pong; and a game room for kids.

One guest favorite: A dial that provides a choice of music while you shower.

The Four Seasons contains an impressive display of local art; preprogrammed iPods provide a tour of the collection. Every day a rotating group of local artisans take over the lower lobby area with their works and happily discuss their processes.

The resort is keenly aware of its responsibility to protect the environment. For example, management recently converted the chlorine-based pools to more natural salt water.
If enhancing your well-being by being pampered is your idea of an ideal vacation, the Four Seasons at Wailea can make your dreams come true. www.fourseasons.com/maui

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Meditation for Alert,
Safe Road Trips

It’s happened to many of us. We’re driving and miss an exit because we’re lost in our thoughts even though our eyes are planted firmly on the road ahead. No one wants to waste valuable vacation time backtracking, especially if the correct exit was miles behind. More important, that lack of awareness can be dangerous for you, your passengers and others on the road.

In the two-CD set “Awake at the Wheel—Mindful Driving” (More Than Sound), Michele McDonald introduces listeners to mindfulness meditation speci­fic to driving. McDonald says she can help drivers notice and transform their “auto-pilot” states into awareness and be free from the grip of emotion and repetitive thoughts. The content can be learned in the car and applied anywhere to sharpen the mind and promote peace and calm that supplant distracted and frustrated driving. www.morethansound.net

Gurney’s Mines the Sea’s
Rich Treasures

Water has a distinct role in virtually every religion and civilization. The ancient Greeks, more than most, appreciated what is often called the elixir of life as an integral part of their culture. To the Greeks, bathing as a part of spa culture was a holistic undertaking, an educational practice to feed the mind and a way to invigorate the body; it was embraced as a civil ritual of hospitality. European spas, through the lens of Greek culture, came to recognize the power of bathing. They developed thalasotherapy treatments—thalassa is the Greek word for sea—that harnessed the therapeutic powers of the mineral-rich seas. Over the years, thalassotherapy centers cropped up along many European shorelines and today are most common in Germany and France.

Nick Monte, an owner of Gurney’s Inn resort in Montauk, at the very end of New York’s Long Island, recognized the allure of European thalassotherapy centers and brought the concept to the oceanfront resort in 1979. Monte was so enamored with the sea’s restorative properties that he drank a shot of sea water every day.

Today, the Sea Water Spa at Gurney’s Inn bills itself as the only continental US-based thalassotherapy center true to the European tradition. The ancient Greeks’
multi-dimensional approach is clearly a model for Gurney’s: Seawater, drawn from the resort’s well and filtered, is used in the resort’s Olympic-size indoor pool, Roman baths and European hydrotherapy tubs. To enjoy the spa’s spectrum of sea water offerings, try the stress-busting and invigorating Marine Kur Therapy treatment. After a massage from a strong stream of 94-degree sea water in a hydrotherapy tub, followed by a seaweed toning gel exfoliation, minerals work their way into your pores via a body mask of seaweed culled from rich beds off the coast of Brittany, in northwest France.

Walking the shoreline, or taking a seaside massage, Gurney’s guests can reap the benefits of negative ions—airborne molecules believed to cause a state of euphoria by increasing levels of the mood chemical serotonin when they hit our bloodstream. Negative ions are created around waterfalls and other environments where air and water move. Sea water is said to double the benefit. “At the edge of the ocean where the water is turbulent there are droplets of ocean in the air, so with every breath you take you’re also breathing in sea minerals; it’s like breathing in a vitamin,” says Susan Yunker, RN, the resort’s spa nurse and resident thalassotherapy expert.

There’s nothing clinical about Gurney’s. Nestled high on bluffs overlooking a wide private beach, the tastefully nautical-themed scenic resort appears to sprawl out like a cruiseship. For healthful dining, the resort’s inviting Sea Grille offers fresh catches of the day, local shellfish and organic produce from local farms.

There is no shortage of area activities for the sports- and fitness-minded, from traditional surfing and boating to kitesurfing and stand-up paddleboarding. You can fish for striped bass, fluke and flounder, or the animal lover in you can set out on a whale- or
seal-watching excursion. Or hike extensive park trails and climb the lighthouse at Montauk Point.At Gurney’s, a statue of a mermaid-like beauty is perched atop a seashell, a symbol, a plaque reads, “of life emerging from the ageless sea, depicting eternal youth, health and beauty.” Aided by the sea’s magic, a stay at Gurney’s can leave you feeling ageless, too. www.GurneysInn.com

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Thermal Springs in Costa Rica

Tabacon Grand Spa Thermal Resort, a 114-guest room Costa Rica luxury hotel, taps the power of nature in a big way. The five-star resort is situated at the base of the Arenal Volcano, which heats springs in which guests can luxuriate and soak ailments away.

 Hot springs are a natural expression of Earth’s inherent energy. Geologically, Tabacon Resort’s thermal natural springs are 97% rain-based and 3% magma-based. Rainwater enters the earth through fissures on the surface and is then heated by magma found in the earth’s core. Once heated, the waters rise to surface, taking with them minerals found in the earth's rocky stratus.

 The minerals work their way to the skin and bloodstream; the water temperature helps dilate the skin, improving oxygen flow in tissues being treated; and the heat encourages the flow of natural sedating substances in the body, relaxing the muscles. It all adds up to a unique thermal wellness regimen in the midst of a mystical rainforest.

 Five springs run throughout the property, with temperatures ranging from 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). Two main branches to the thermal river flow through the gardens, and one cold river spring flows down from the rainforest in the back area of the Temazcal. Two more springs are captured for cold water consumption for guest use.

 While many hot springs resorts drill for underground wells and depend on pumps and mechanical systems to fill their pools, Tabacon is completely natural. Water flows by gravity throughout the property, forming in-river pools, waterfalls, and cascades.

An eco-friendly and carbon neutral resort, in 2009 Tabacon was recognized with the coveted Seven Stars Green World Award (www.sevenstarsandstripes.com). Tabacon garnered the Luxury Eco Certification Standard (LECS) last year, becoming the first luxury hotel in the country and the second hotel worldwide to receive the certification. Visit www.tabacon.com.

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Water Shiatsu in San Diego

East meets West at Rancho La Puerta Fitness Resort & Spa in San Diego, California, where guests can engage in Aquatic Shiatsu, also called Water Shiatsu or WATSU. The practice focuses on stretching to strengthen muscles, increase flexibil­ity and range of motion, and release blockages along meridians—the channels through which proponents say chi or life force flows.

Rancho La Puerta has designated one of its four pools for WATSU treatments.
The 96° water, and the continuous support and weightlessness it provides, frees the spine by taking stress off vertebrae and relaxing muscles. Gentle, gradual movements initiated by the practitioner, the resort says, relieve the pressure a rigid spine places on nerves.

Rancho La Puerta is set at the juncture of the Laguna and Sierra Juarez mountain ranges about 25 miles from the Pacific Ocean at an elevation of 1,700 feet. Guests can swim, hike and choose from more than 50 classes in yoga, Pilates, tai chi, dance and other disciplines.

The resort and spa’s cuisine is “semi-vegetarian,” featuring organic fruits and vegetables, much from its six-acre organic farm. Fresh seafood is brought in from the nearby port of Ensenada, Baja California.

The resort welcomes up to 125 guests weekly to its 3,000 private acres of gardens, mountains and meadows. www.rancholapuerta.com

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Cancun’s Hydro-Detox Spa

At the year-old Gem Spa, set at the Fiesta Americana Grand Coral Beach Cancun Resort & Spa, a flowing design integrates rich woods, luminous Italian mosaics, sand marble and expansive water features over black granite.

The layout helps bring to life the spa’s ten-step Hydrotherapy Ritual, which aims to detoxify skin and soothe body and soul through contrasts of warm and cool temperatures combined with high and low water pressures. The ritual includes a guided “circuit” through a sauna, aromatherapy and clay steam room, rain shower, bubbling whirlpool, lagoon pool and a “pool of sensation” filled with bubble and floor geysers. Water cascades and cervical neck jets round out the ritual, which is free to spa guests before or after treatments. If you’re looking for more water-inspired wellness, two spa master suites have hydro massage tubs; a VIP couples spa suite features a double Jacuzzi tub and steam room.

The spa’s treatments are inspired by the Mayan Riviera, the South Pacific and Asia, and
the Baltic regions. Gem stones indigenous to these regions, such as tiger’s eye, amber and jade, are used in some treatments. www.fiestaamericana.com

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Gaylord National Harnesses
Power of Potomac

The Gaylord brand of resorts is notable for its expansive glass enclosures that make a stay at the properties engaging in any season. That is certainly the case with the Gaylord National, in National Harbor, Maryland, overlooking the Potomac River and monuments of our nation’s capital on the horizon. One of the most alluring views of these sites is from the couples treatment room, pictured, or co-ed lounge of the property’s Relâche Spa.

Adorned with wisps of clouds, the sky over the Potomac and the modern spa’s interior, furnished in white marble, seem to blend into one. Sipping on ginger peach tea after a treatment while losing yourself in this dramatic vista makes for a seriously meditative stay. In addition to offering treatments that are year-round staples, like a divine mud wrap, Relâche offers innovative seasonal treatments, such as cherry oil massages and scrubs during the capital’s famous cherry blossom season. A 24-hour fitness center offers inviting, state-of-the-art equipment. And you can round out your workout with a dip in the junior Olympic-size pool.

Walking is encouraged. Strolling by the Gaylord National’s shops and restaurants in public spaces within the huge atrium, you’ll encounter black bamboo and fishtail palm from Asia and African coffee bushes planted around a stream. Venture out by foot, and National Harbor can be touristy, but artsy and fun. Water taxis can take you to Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, or to historic Mount Vernon, but the Gaylord National has plenty to keep you entertained on site. www.gaylordnational.com.

A Tour of Exotic Beauty

You would have to reach pretty deep in your pocketbook for the resources to hop on a plane to the Leeward Islands of French Polynesia, check into the Four Seasons and settle in for its Kahaia Haven spa’s body scrub with Tahitian black pearl powder and fragrant, native vanilla. Or you could replicate the experience at home with author and former fashion model Dawn Gallagher’s Polynesia Pearl Powder Facial from her new book, Nature’s Beauty Secrets: Recipes for Beauty Treatments from the World’s Best Spas (Universe).

Gallagher scoured spas and resorts in points as exotic as Indian Ocean islands and the Far East for myriad recipes for hand, feet, face and body treatments, then simplified them for home preparation. Indeed, a simple trip to the grocery and health food store will give you the common ingredients needed for these recipes, from avocado, banana, olive oil and yogurt to clays and mud mixtures. In this handsome book, with images of appetizing ingredients and photos from the spas and locales that provide her source material, Gallagher offers recipes for a banana body glaze, brown sugar-and-coffee body scrub and Caribbean-inspired seaweed wraps, among many others.

A bonus is the highly practical material Gallagher offers on, for example, getting a good night’s sleep, or dealing with puffy eyes when you don’t—using time-tested, natural approaches.

A Day at elBulli:
Lessons in Culinary Creativity

Food aficianados widely consider elBulli the world’s best restaurant for its legendary chef Ferran Adrià’s innovation and creative techniques that pay tribute to nature and art. Considered the ultimate pilgrimage site for food lovers, elBulli sits on a remote beach on the northeast coast of Spain near the town of Roses. Open six months a year, the restaurant receives more than 2 million reservation requests a year.

If you are bound for Spain and one of the fortunate 8,000 who garner a reservation each year, A Day at elBulli: An Insight into the Ideas, Methods and Creativity of Ferran Adrià (Phaidon Press) can serve as a fascinating guide to what’s in store; if you are not, the book can transport you there.

The sense that something special is ahead comes early in A Day at elBulli, whose opening pages feature lovely photographs of sea foam, sunlit waves and other images of the Spanish coastline, and this caption: “Nature’s Textures: The colors and textures of elBulli’s remote and beautiful setting have provided a rich source of inspiration.” Thus, floral desserts are created by using liquid nitrogen to make leaves and flowers of coconut; roses are made from beetroot; discs of mango and black olive resemble sand dollars. Rich, color photographs take the reader into the creative process: Pulp is extracted from tamarind so its peel can be used for an infusion; a special herb press extracts juice from sprouted corn; a protein foam is readied for freeze drying. Inserts throughout the book drill deeper; one such sidebar, a summary of elBulli’s philosophy, highlights the need to know when foods are to be eaten: sole’s flavor is richer a day after it is caught; sardines are to be eaten the same day because the oily fish deteriorates more quickly.

A Day at elBulli is a pleasurable journey to Spain that at once stimulates the mind and the salivary glands.

Down on the Farm

Farming is hard work but that doesn’t stop guests from signing on to spend the night at Fickle Creek Farm. The 61-acre sustainable farm in Efland, North Carolina, is known for its fresh eggs and just-picked vegetables that are sold at area farmers markets and served in local restaurants.

Farm stays were first introduced in Europe in the 1980s as a means for farmers to supplement their incomes during tough economic times. In recent years, farmers in the US have thrown open their pasture gates to welcome guests.

Academics-turned-farmers Ben Bergmann and Noah Ranells opened a bed-and-breakfast at Fickle Creek Farm in 2005. Since then, the farm has attracted families in search of agricultural adventures and couples looking for romantic retreats.

Fickle Creek Farm’s accommodations were designed with the environment in mind and feature natural materials, low-VOC paint and energy-efficient fixtures.

The big draw is breakfast: The hosts prepare a feast of eggs, vegetables, meat, bread and fresh-squeezed juices—all from the farm or procured from local farmers and producers—and share tales of farming and rural life in their sunny kitchen.

After breakfast, guests can spend time collecting eggs, nuzzling lambs, filling water troughs and watching newborn chicks or exploring the trails and fishing holes on the property. The only rules: Keep the gates closed and have fun. www.ficklecreekfarm.com

Bed & Breakfast Wellness
Vibe at the Kerr House

The Kerr House, a wellness retreat housed in a Queen Anne Victorian manor built in 1880, marries Old World charm with a top-to-bottom wellness regimen that begins with breakfast in bed and winds down with the sweet sounds of a harpist soothing your soul through a natural, locally sourced and candlelit dinner. Free-range chicken over purple onion, wild rice salad and lemony celery soup are among Kerr House guest favorites.

The Kerr House experience is holistic in every sense, boosting health through exercise, nutrition, body treatments, and classes in stress management, attitude, and self esteem. “We have a nation of people who dislike their bodies. We’ve always emphasized appreciating your body as it is, and then if you change parts of it you come from a loving standpoint rather than an angry one,” says owner Laurie Hostetler, who teaches yoga at the retreat.

Kerr House, a member of the Destination Spa Group, is set on a picturesque and intimate acre in Grand Rapids, Ohio, about 25 miles south of Toledo. For guests looking
for off-property activity, the retreat is close to the Maumee River’s hiking paths.

The retreat offers five-night, three-night, weekend and one-day programs, as well as individual treatments such as a full-body exfoliation, hot stone massage, reiki, and herbal and mud wraps.

The retreat houses up to eight guests at a time, so if a cozy getaway is what you’re after, the Kerr House is for you. www.thekerrhouse.com

At Boca Resort & Club,
Water and Wellness

On first blush, it can be difficult to pin down a theme at the Boca Raton Resort & Club, a sprawling luxury complex on 356 acres of Florida’s Gold Coast that has earned the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s coveted Green Lodging and Clean Marina stamps. It offers an array of activities, from biking, tennis and golf, to name a few, for active families or balmy walks through lovely gardens for couples on a romantic getaway. With magnificent architecture, high ceilings and sophisticated details, the main resort, built in 1926, is Old Florida, while the newer Beach Club, with its glass and chrome touches, and white walls, curtains and linens, is a contemporary oceanside oasis.

And that is where the resort’s unifying concept—water—emerges.

Besides the beach itself, that theme is most dominant at the resort’s glorious Spa Palazzo. Inspired by Spain’s Alhambra Palace, the spa is a haven of equisite mosaics, cypress woodwork, and carved stone. Its centerpiece, in both the men’s and women’s lounges, is the terme, or wet room, pictured below, that will put you in the mindset of ancient Spanish royalty. The terme is the pinnacle of the spa’s 50-minute Ritual Bath routine that begins in an inhalation room. You’ll be guided by an attendant as you soak in one ritual after another with varying degrees of water pressure and temperature. Our favorite? It was a tossup between the candlelit bubble bath and the shower with countless tantalizing jetstreams.

The Ritual Bath is typically a prelude to one of the spa’s signature treatments. If the water theme suits you, you’ll want the “Wrapped by the Sea” seaweed wrap, which employs active spirulina algae rich in antioxidants, essential vitamins, minerals and protein. (Hmmm? It was Florida where Ponce de Leon sought the fountain of youth, wasn’t it?) Still not enough H2O? A dip in several pools, or an afternoon of beach volleyball or on a powerboat, waverunner, catamaran or powersail, might do.

The Boca Raton Resort & Club offers plenty of indulgences best visited sparingly if you want to keep that spare tire off: a branch of New York’s celebrated Serendipity ice cream parlor, for example. But there are enough healthy touches—from vitamin C and wheatgrass shooters with breakfast to a citrus milk chocolate with sleep-inducing valerian extract on your pillow at night—to help revitalize you and make this an inspiring wellness getaway. www. bocaresort.com

Wanderlust Fest Touts Yoga, Music

Defined as a persistent urge to travel, wanderlust implies an almost physical need for discovery. Launched for the modern yogi in 2009 in North Lake Tahoe, California, the Wanderlust festival (www.wanderlustfestival.com) aims to fill that need by combining outdoor adventure, yoga and live, mostly indie, music.

Organizers have expanded the event this year to six sites. Among highlights are music acts the Wailers, the Mayapuris, Swing Noire and Sub Swaras, with yoga workshops by yogis such as Rodney Yee, Shiva Rea and John Friend. Also on the multi-sensory agenda are paintball, fly fishing, kayaking and golf. Wanderlust kicks off in Miami Beach, at the Standard Spa (3/17-20), and moves to Las Vegas at The Cosmopolitan (5/5-6); the Brooklyn waterfront (6/4); Vermont’s Stratton Mountain (6/23-26); and Lake Tahoe (7/28-31).