The Best Wellness Retreat in Costa Rica You REALLY Need This Year
Imagine, if you will, waking up to an invigorating yoga class on the terrace of a stunning eco lodge. The jungle around you comes to life with the song of wild birds, monkeys, and more. A mouth-watering breakfast of organic, locally grown produce awaits, the waft of freshly-brewed Costa Rican green coffee enveloping all your senses.
Welcome to the first day of your very best Costa Rica wellness retreat.
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Costa Rica is tailor-made for wellness retreats. The country is made up primarily of wilderness, its jaw-dropping peaks and luscious valleys, jungles, cloud forests, and rain forests of all sorts facilitating, no, demanding, an outdoor lifestyle that puts nature first. Ad when you put nature first, there’s an almost automatic slowing down of time. Costa Rica is unhurried and unbothered; it doesn’t stress easily and it always has time to stop and soak up life’s little pleasures.
If you wanted to enjoy a wellness retreat in a big city or overly-frenetic country, you would need to shut off the rest of the world, by force. In Costa Rica, however, it’s the world around you that provides the most idyllic setting. Rather than shutting the outside in, you must open yourself up to it. It’s the reason why Costa Rica is a huge magnet for yogis and surfers, for hikers, bird-enthusiasts and all wildlife-lovers – everything about our glorious land of sea, sun, and stunning nature is about enjoyment and relaxation. The wellness? Well, that’s just the stellar consequence.
After such a tumultuous year, more and more people are wishing to inject a heady dose of wellness and relaxation in their adventure vacation to Costa Rica.
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Here are the best places to do just that.
Asclepios Wellness & Healing Retreat, Alajuela
Named after the Greek god of good health and well being, Asclepios is an extraordinary resort nestled in almost 13,000 acres of pristine rain forest. It boasts just a dozen rooms and offers stunning holistic wellness treatments and daily yoga and tai chi classes. This haven of tranquillity is close to the town of Alajuela so including a few days of ‘me time’ on adventures in the Central Valley is dead-easy.
One of the most indulgent boutique hotels and definitely one of the best wellness retreats in all of Costa Rica, Asclepios serves up a host of spa treatments and massages, as well as out-of-this-world culinary delights with ingredients organically grown right on the property. Couple that with an awesome fitness room, spa, hiking trails, Turkish hammam and impeccable service. Yes, they’ll probably have to pry your feisty hands away from the gate at your stay’s end.
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The Royal Corin Thermal Water & Spa Resort, Arenal & La Fortuna
Found in the foothills of the country’s most-loved volcano, the Royal Corin is opulent wellness personified. For an incomparable water therapy, dive through a series of natural hot springs and whirling jacuzzis, before plunging right into a refreshing natural waterfall. If you don’t feel totally alive after that, check your pulse!
With a comprehensive in-house spa offering a wealth of sensational treatments (the volcanic steam sauna is seriously life-changing!) a terraced bar that will blow you away with its eye-popping views and a setting and décor that scream ‘paradise on earth’, The Royal Corin is that indulgent treat 2021 calls for.
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The Parador Resort and Spa, Manuel Antonio
With its elevated location above the Pacific coast and framed by the spellbinding nature of the Manuel Antonio National Park, The Parador is the kind of place that instills a sense of well being from a mere first glance. The setting is stupendous. There, amidst 12 acres of unspoiled Costa Rican nature, sits one of the most beautifully landscaped wellness resorts in the entire country.
The Parador is no shrinking violet – there are over 100 rooms here although, given the sheer size of the property, it doesn’t feel overcrowded. Choose from jungle or ocean-view suites, enjoy the three stunning pools (two of which are adults-only) and indulge in the full-service spa’s many services, as well as the well-equipped fitness center, to emerge refreshed and relaxed…ready for the adventure of a lifetime in Manuel Antonio.
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Blue Osa Yoga Retreat & Spa, Osa Peninsula
Tucked away in the country’s remote southwestern peninsula, where you’ll find the world-famous Corcovado National Park, the Blue Osa Yoga Retreat & Spa is perhaps the hardest-to-reach wellness retreat in Costa Rica. Paradoxically, this might just make it the most special. You won’t find air-conditioning nor many other ‘glitzy’ luxuries here but if it’s the ultimate chance to totally unplug and recharge your wellness-o-meter, then you really couldn’t find a better destination.
The Osa is the country’s least-developed corner, the one that promises immersive experiences with wildlife. This is where you head to when you want to be awoken by howler monkeys and chatty toucans, the kind of place that makes you forget ‘the rest of the world’ even exists. So it reasons that in a destination such as this, the only indulgence you’ll want is the offered by a sustainable eco-resort.
The resort’s yoga pavilion, unchlorinated pool, holistic spa treatments, personal yoga classes and organic cuisine will revitalize your mind and body. The untarnished wilderness of the Osa will take care of your soul.
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Samasati Yoga & Wellness Retreat
The Caribbean is renowned for being much less developed than the Pacific and, although your wellness retreat options aren’t as extensive here, what you find is worth the trip. Samasati is set in one of Costa Rica’s last primary rain forests and offers wellness and healing retreats that very much focus on total body-and-mind relaxation. It offers couple’s meditation classes and massages, wholesome organic cuisine, and undoubtedly one of the most magnificent settings of all. Costa Rica’s best wellness retreats really don’t get much better!
FYI. The yoga teacher training program may just entice you to stay a little longer in paradise…
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El Silencio Lodge & Spa, Alajuela
When the blissful sound of the cloud forest is all the noise you can handle, then El Silencio is where you’ll want to escape on your next Costa Rica adventure vacation. Curl up with a good book on the terrace overlooking the soul-reviving peaks near Poas Volcano, join a yoga class to stretch all your cares away, and tap into the healing power of nature as you immerse yourself in your cloud-drenched surroundings.
A healing sanctuary with few rivals, the 5* El Silencio houses a luxury spa, called Esencia, and offers a wealth of amazing experiences, like horseback riding, cocktail classes and romantic candle-lit dinner in the jungle for two.
Considering every vacation in Costa Rica is essentially a wellness experience in and of itself, rest assured that you’ll find plenty of chances to indulge in yoga, massages, treatments, and meditation no matter where in the country you choose to stay. Almost every eco lodge, hotel and resort offer relaxing and invigorating treatments (be it in-house or outsourced) so if you don’t have time to spend a few nights in a dedicated wellness resort, sneaking away for individual experiences makes for a fabulous alternative.
In times of COVID, rest assured that all of Costa Rica’s best wellness retreats, and all other accommodation, is practicing the strictest protocol as directed by the World Health Organization to keep staff and visitors alike safe and well.
Have any questions or are you particularly worried about visiting Costa Rica? Why not give us a call and we can discuss your travel options. Our bespoke adventure tours have been going ahead for months and we’ve enjoyed a phenomenal return to nature and adventure.
Why not join us?!
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At Costa Rica Rios, we offer our guests a helping hand by sourcing all clinics offering COVID tests to our foreign visitors and schedule appointments on their behalf, when possible. Anything to make adventures with us easier and more enjoyable!
