2021 Rule: Wellness Travel Trends Top Priority to Make up for Lost Time

Travel is anything but normal right now, and we are craving normal. If your current wellness program includes searching for plane tickets as a calorie burner, you’ll welcome these indulgent - and practical -wellness options to make up for lost time. If there has ever been a time for stress relief and mindfulness, it is now. Travelers have moved beyond seeking only pampering and beauty to planning epic transformational wellness vacations. Encompassing all-inclusive health immersions and multi-faceted well-being getaways on overdrive. Think, a bit of extravagance paired with endurance and a dose of the outdoors, all topped with a more beneficial acceptance of mental health therapies. This blended wellness is fueling quickly changing wellness trends and consumer demands. Whether you enjoy these with socially distanced future travel or from your digital wellness space, these accessible choices will satisfy your pandemic-escape restlessness.

Fit Camps

For the more active minded traveler, fit camps and wellness body holidays provide a well-rounded getaway. Focused on results every guest can choose their level of immersion from Tai Chi, to windsurfing or the quadrathlon – a combination of running, hiking, biking and kayaking to improve endurance at The Body Holiday, St Lucia. More people are embracing active holidays as they desire improved self-care and learning new skills they can integrate into their daily lifestyles. Want a personal trainer, and a sun, sand, fit getaway? Try Active Escapes, Paros, Greece meant to make lasting change led by trained fitness professionals. Activating your muscles will definitely take your mind off of your vacation-deprived body. Still stuck at home? Try online training app from Alomoves.com.

Food as Medicine

Our current reality seems to have us bombarded with too much screen time and overpriced take away meals affecting our psychological and behavioral rhythms like diet and sleep. That means a lowered immune system and diminished longevity. One of the simplest changes we can make to our personal wellness is through diet. That’s another reason wellness travelers are seeking getaways that include a holistic outlook with meals that heal. Booking a retreat in remote locations like Finca de Vida, Nicoya, Costa Rica provide field to table fresh food that rebuilds your cells from the inside out. It includes plenty of rejuvenation time. Can’t get away but still want healthy choices? Order detox systems online at Live Beaming.

Wilderness Wellness

Our connection to the outdoors has been a focus of cultures around the world since time immemorial. A rise in buzzwords like forest bathing and Ikigai (ick-ee-guy) – concepts of grounding ourselves in nature -are feeding the wellness boom and more candid conversations about our natural environments. Now wellness brands are providing a host of options that get you upclose-and-personal with nature. Wild Adventure Wellness pairs outdoor survival training skills and endurance challenges with a pampering yoga style retreat while The Safari Retreat takes you to the savannahs of Africa for wildlife and wellness. Dreaming of closer to home options? Head over to your laptop to experience the wilds with Explore live cams. View orcas in British Columbia or lions in Kenya.

Virtual Medicine & Wellness Apps

Priorities have changed during the pandemic and physical and mental wellness has taken center stage. Part of that value has made virtual medicine and wellness apps more accessible and price friendly. Instead of spending our lives searching, worrying, and coveting the health and wellness we want, we can reach out to health-conscious brands anywhere, anytime. And right about now, some of us are feeling the extra stress of those added covid-pounds or coping with lost celebrations, anniversaries, weddings, and holidays. All with a price tag on our wellness. Tap into virtual and at-home solutions to renew your sense of self with detailed sleep health tracking by the Sleep Space App, or body bio-hacking with Viome to measure gut health and wellness on a molecular level. Join the 2021 virtual Bio-hacking Conference and learn to bulletproof your life, carry a portable gluten tracker by Nima to assist in your nutrition, or use red light therapy with infrared continuous wavelengths by Proaller to help heal injuries and mitigate pain. Need something a little more interactive? Find an online coach with certified therapists with JRNI coaching.

With more people spending time online during restricted travel, wellness brands have more ways to connect and listen to what wellness seekers are looking for. Travelers worldwide are viewing signs of improved travel standards as a hopeful sign and are booking experiences that will provide fulfilment for their wellness wanderlust and give the travel industry a high-powered transfusion.

Insights into our health are fundamental to succeeding in life. If fact, it can be valued as one of the best investments we can make for ourselves long-term. It has been said that if we don’t make time for our wellness, we will be forced to make time for our illness. Since we have been forced to slow down, our planet and our minds have had an awakening and we have an increased desire for more sustainable health and wellness. Travelers are hoping to get back out there and they’re already planning the details. Will your next travel booking include sustainable wellness options? Our health is a conversation worth continuing.

We encourage you to stay safe and travel responsibly including temperature checks, regular testing, crowd control and social distancing measures that respect local and international destinations, sustainability and cultures.

Written by Liz Galloway, Travel & Lifestyle Contributor

Photo by Dino Reichmuth