I Owe My Friends a Partial Apology

I’d heard about so-called wellness retreats for years. Usually, it was from women who had gone on a “girls’ trip” and came home raving about the experience.

And then came the horse story. One of them had spent a long weekend at Miraval in Arizona, where a session with a horse changed how she thought about her life. She was someone I liked and respected, so I nodded and asked some follow-up questions. On the inside, I rolled my eyes.

The horse is real. Miraval has offered equine sessions since 1995. Wyatt Webb led them for 25 years, and his best-known workshop was called “It’s Not About the Horse.” I liked the title.

How Big It Has Grown

I’m rethinking my eye roll. Stories about these places are popping up everywhere, and every few days I come across another article about a new retreat or a new kind of program. The Global Wellness Institute puts wellness tourism at about $894 billion in 2024 and expects it to pass $1.38 trillion by 2029. Chiva-Som opened on the beach in Hua Hin, Thailand, in 1995. In Costa Rica, retreats run psychedelic ceremonies in a legal gray zone, and a friend who worked in the hotel business seriously considered opening one.

There’s also a newer, more clinical branch. Miraval and places like it are about rest and how you feel when you get home. Longevity retreats run medical tests and aim to add healthy years. Canyon Ranch launched brain-health courses in 2014, and Rancho La Puerta in Mexico holds a Brain Health Week. Canyon Ranch’s newer four-day longevity retreat tests more than 200 biomarkers and costs $22,000 per person. Its November session sold out.

More people are building wellness into ordinary trips. Minor Hotels found that 44 percent of travelers planned to add more wellness to their trips, and I see people tucking a few nights at a retreat onto the end of a longer one. If this hasn’t come up among your own friends yet, I expect it will.

What Holds Up

Research on longevity and brain health is everywhere, and much of it points to everyday habits. A 2024 Lancet Commission estimated that addressing 14 risk factors people can change, among them inactivity, hearing loss, and social isolation, could prevent or delay nearly half of dementia cases. A two-year U.S. study published last year found that older adults who exercised, ate well, and met regularly in small groups improved their thinking more than those who worked on it with less support.

A long weekend in Arizona can’t do that for you, but it can get you started.

Before You Book

Some of what’s out there falls short, and watchdogs and governments are starting to say so. Last year, a U.S. advertising watchdog, BBB National Programs, found that a longevity company called Next Health couldn’t support its claims of longer, healthier lives. When the company stood by its remaining claims, the watchdog referred the case to the Federal Trade Commission. The U.S. Embassy in Peru told Americans in 2025 to avoid ayahuasca retreats, citing deaths and crimes linked to them. In May, answering questions in Parliament about longevity clinics, Singapore’s health ministry advised consumers to ask their own doctor which tests make sense and to keep up sleep, exercise, and time with other people.

If you do book one of these trips, ask what the program tests that you can act on at home and what happens after you leave. Read the complaints alongside the reviews, and look up the clinicians.

Some of the oldest wellness travel is much less expensive. A public bath in Budapest or a night in a Japanese onsen town gives you hot water and time away for a fraction of the price.

I owe my friends a partial apology. Social isolation is on the Lancet list, and they went as a group. In the U.S. study, the people who did best had a group that kept showing up for two years.

I still have questions about the horse.