Spascape

Hi everyone! I hope you’re staying cool if you’re somewhere hot, like me, trying to hang in sweltering New York City. I’ve had a busy few weeks, writing wellness articles for Travel + Leisure, and then appearing on a panel this week at the Travel + Leisure World’s Best Summit, a conference for travel professionals. My panel was called Shaping More: How Spirituality Is Shaping the Way We Travel.

As any New Yorker with a pulse knows, the city can’t get enough of saunas and bathing clubs these days. Lore Bathing Club opened in the Noho neighborhood of Manhattan in May and it’s been fielding a waitlist ever since.

Last week, I ventured about a mile away from my apartment in Brooklyn, and found myself in another world. I was at the newest location of Bathhouse, one of the pioneers of the modern New York City sauna revival. Their first location opened in 2019 in Williamsburg, and a second followed in Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood in 2024.

Happy Sunday! And happy Mother’s Day to any mama readers out there. If you’re lucky enough to get a spa treatment as a gift, I hope you enjoy it. Let me know in the comments! There’s a lot of exciting things happening over the next few weeks, and I wanted to share a few of them with you. First off, I will be on a panel at Organic Spa’s Experience Wellness & Travel Media Event, happening Friday, May 15 in New York City.

Maybe it’s just my algorithm (which is obviously a little spa-biased!), but over the last year, I kept seeing posts about head spas, accompanied by videos of that kind of look like souped up wash stations at a hair salon. I try to steer clear of purely influencer-fueled viral trends, but my curiosity got the best of me when I started seeing things about scalp analysis and personalized treatments.

Hello spa lovers! For this week’s Spa of the Week, I didn’t stray too far from home. My mom was recently in NYC because my dad had a conference. Usually, they stay with me in Brooklyn when they visit New York, but this time they had a hotel in Midtown. When she told me she could use a good massage, I knew just the place: The spa at the Peninsula New York, just a couple of blocks from where she was staying.

Happy Wednesday! It’s been a week since I returned from Arizona, where I went on a spa vacation with my sister. We spent three wonderful nights at the 130-year-old Castle Hot Springs, which is about an hour north of Phoenix and a new member of Relais & Chateaux, the prestigious global association of independently owned hotels and restaurants. The resort first opened in 1896. After a fire in 1976, it was abandoned and remained closed until a major renovation and reopening in 2019.

Hello! First of all, please accept my apologies for the lack of posts the last two weeks. I was traveling with my family in Costa Rica, and then we got stuck in Miami for four unplanned days because of the blizzard that hit the Northeast! I got so behind on so much work and life, but I’m finally mostly caught up. Since the end of last year, I’ve had my eye on several upcoming spa resorts and retreats focused on wellness that are opening in 2026.

Hi from Costa Rica! Sorry to everyone still stuck in winter weather, but I’m so glad I’m able to escape for some warmth with my family this week. And of course, I’m doing plenty of spa research while I’m here (it’s a tough job, etc.). But until that’s ready, I’m taking you to, er, cold Germany. Luckily, we can still warm up, thanks to the thermal mineral waters flowing at one of Europe’s oldest spa towns, Baden-Baden, which I visited in early December.

A few weeks ago, I visited a sleek spot in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood called 113 Spring. It calls itself a “journey of well,” offering a rotating menu of offerings that purport to provide expert-vetted wellness experiences inspired by nature. They also have a small café with functional drinks, a retail area, and host events like panels, mocktail workshops, and sound baths.