When it opens on 1 June, Zening will be Europe’s first resort dedicated to yoga, meditation and wellness.   Located on the north west coast of Cyprus, in the Akamas Peninsular, adjacent to the stunning Akamas National Park and guests at Zening can look forward to daily yoga (suitable for all levels), meditation classes and workshops, as well as an Ayurvedic spa and regular culinary workshops.   The resort will also offer Zen Tea Rooms, 5 outdoor yoga zones and one indoor yoga studio, two swimming pools, an open air gym and access to the beach, with biking, kayaking and hiking also available. Cuisine is strictly vegetarian and sourced from local organic farms, and fresh seafood obtained from the daily catch.

Zening are designing their holidays to have at their heart the key pillars of spiritual wellbeing, complete relaxation, restorative beauty, soft fitness and a good diet.

The resort is offering some fantastic early booking deals with prices starting from as little as £899 for a week half board, including all yoga classes, flights and local airport transfers.  For more information, please see Zening

Every now and then in the travel business you’re surprised by how popular a particular destination suddenly becomes.  For 2013, that’s Paradis Plage – a delightful beach front resort on the wild Atlantic coast of Morocco, about half an hour north of Agadir.  Paradis Plage offers spacious accommodation (all suites) with friendly service, excellent surfing, thrice daily yoga classes, and a lovely little boutique spa.  It’s great for both adults and families and, due to its location, works very well as a year round destination.  We love the yoga studio on the beach (and Nico, the yoga teacher) and the surfing is fabulous – headed up by Tariq, an entertaining and professional, English speaking, surf teacher and surf guide.  In the evening, head down to the beach and enjoy the sunset by the camp fire and then the night stars as the sky darkens.  Magic!

But, even with the resort’s great facilities and services, it’s probably the excellent value for money that makes this such a popular choice.  We offer a 5 night surfing holiday for a family of 4 from £599 per person and a 3 night surfing, fitness and yoga weekend (including 2 massages per person) from £635.  Both options include flights and airport transfers.

Please contact us – we will gladly tailor-make the perfect healthy holiday for you at Paradis Plage and, if you wish, include few nights in Marrakech (about a 3 hour drive) or the Atlas Mountains too.

The fabulous Kamalaya, on the Thai island of Khoh Samui, is proving to be one of our most popular destinations for 2013.  We describe Kamalaya as a holistic island wellness retreat – a wonderful place where you can do as much or as little as you want.  It also offers a superb selection of wellness programmes, including weight loss, yoga, detox and holistic healing.  Kamalaya is a place to enjoy outdoor living.  Have a thai massage in one of the elevated, open-air rooms, wander in and out of the steam room and plunge pools set into natural rock, or sip fruit mojitos in a waterside sanctuary. There’s a daily programme of complimentary classes, from Kundalini yoga and expressive dance to sound therapy and martial arts. You can go on local hikes or take out a kayak, though we rather think you’ll be tempted to stay on site for the duration.

Serene, uncluttered villas and thatched public spaces are tucked into a lush, tropical ravine strewn with granite boulders and  plants. Food is delicious yet still detoxifying, and the service is calm and friendly.

Perfect for a week or two.  7 nights, including flights, from £1,500.  For full details, please see Kamalaya

Bali is rightly famous for it’s selection of wildly luxurious and uber-glamorous beach resorts, but in the hills, alongside the sacred Ayung River, there’s an altogether different opportunity available for travellers looking to reconnect with their minds, bodies and souls, and re-balance their lives.  Fivelements is still deliciously comfortable – their 9 riverside suites are utterly wonderful (as the picture shows) – but this is a place of healing and cleansing, rather than pure hedonism.

Fivelements is all about connecting with yourself and nature and embraces holistic Balinese-inspired therapies administered by traditional Balinese healers using ancient wisdom. Following the Balinese principle of Sekala-Niskala, which holds that we all live equally in two worlds; the seen or conscious world (Sekala), and the unseen or psychic world (Niskala), the Balinese healers engage the help of the higher divine source during each healing session.

There’s so much on offer for guests at Fivelements to help you rebalance your life, relax deeply, discover new knowledge, learn the Balinese philosophy of life, and return home feeling genuinely serene and blissfully energised.

The best time to visit this magical corner of the planet is from May to October.

Find out more about Fivelements

We are just back from visiting Cyprus to take a look at Zening, currently undergoing a multi-million pound refurbishment and set to open in May 2013.  It’s a very interesting project and, when it opens, will be Europe’s first destination focused specifically on yoga, meditation and wellness; for adults only.  There will be 135 rooms and suites sprinkled around the resort’s 60 acre gardens in 17 low rise clusters.

See our Zening page for full details

Zening will also offer Zen Tea Rooms, an Ayurvedic Spa, 3 yoga studios, 2 swimming pools, an open air gym (plus regular fitness classes) and easy access to the beach, with biking, kayaking and hiking also available. Cuisine is strictly vegetarian and sourced from local organic farms, and fresh seafood obtained from the daily catch.

Zening are designing their holidays to have at their heart the key pillars of spiritual wellbeing, complete relaxation, restorative beauty, soft fitness and a good diet. The resort is a ‘quiet’ zone, providing guests with the opportunity to enjoy quality time for reflection and the discovery of inner peace and energy. We offer 7 nights at Zening from £1,355 to include:

• Return flights and local airport transfers
• Half board and accommodation in a Yogi Studio
• All yoga classes

Price is per person, based on two sharing a Studio

On a completely different note, we also visited Aphrodite Hills near Paphos.  This is a family friendly resort with a great 18 hole golf course, a spa and an Annabel Croft Tennis Academy.  The resort offers an extensive choice of rooms, apartments and villas. We offer 7 nights at Aphrodite Hills from £725.

High in the majestic Italian Dolomites, in the charming village of San Cassiano, sits one of Europe’s best hotels: Rosa Alpina.  It’s a luxurious, 5 star, family owned Relais & Chateaux hotel that was recently voted by Conde Nast Traveller readers as the Best Spa Hotel in Europe.  This is the base for an exceptional 7 night ski, fitness and yoga holiday with fitscape – owned and operated by The Healthy Holiday Company – which will be hosting ‘fixed night’ trips here from 9-16 December and, next year, from 17-24 March.  If you’ve always dreamed of a ski holiday that you return from looking and feeling amazing, rather then knackered from too many boozy late nights, then a fitscape ski holiday is probably ideal for you – whether you’re a couple or travelling solo.

Each day starts with a delicious, healthy breakfast, followed by some invigorating stretching before heading out on to the pistes for a day of ‘same level’ guided skiing with fitscape’s experienced professionals.  After a day exploring the mountains, everyone returns to the hotel for tea before one of the personal trainers puts everyone through their paces with a circuit training session.  Of course, this isn’t obligatory and some guests may prefer to relax in the spa or enjoy a massage treatment instead.

In the evening, before dinner, a fitscape yoga teacher gives a one hour restorative class to help you unwind, stretch out your tired muscles, and set you up with a peaceful frame of mind for dinner – which are always a showcase of delicious, nutritious cuisine.

fitscape 7 night ski, fitness and yoga holidays start at £1,875 per person (based on two sharing a Deluxe Room) and includes 7 nights ensuite accommodation; local transfers to / from Innsbruck on recommended flights from London Gatwick; morning stretch class; healthy breakfast; fun skiing with your friends or a professional guide; post-ski stretching, followed by afternoon tea; afternoon / evening yoga classes and fitness training sessions; sauna, steam room, hot tub and swimming pool; delicious, nutritious dinner.

For further information, please see ski, fitness & yoga holidays or call us on 020 8968 0501

Morocco continues to be a popular and ever growing destination for clients looking for year-round sunshine to somewhere close by (it’s only a 3 hour flight from London) that’s also delightfully exotic.  So, in our continuous desire to bring you great new holiday ideas, we’ve just returned from a 5 day excursion taking in the Atlantic coast just north of Agadir, the Atlas Mountains and Marrakech.

Paradis Plage was the first port of call, located on the coast in the heart of Morocco’s surfing mecca.  It opened earlier this year and it’s a delightful 90 bedroom hotel (all suites) located on a beautiful 5km beach that’s great for both adults and families.  It has a truly impressive yoga studio over looking the ocean, a very well kitted surf shop and a delightful spa – all staffed by friendly experts.  With British Airways now flying direct to Agadir on Tuesdays and Saturdays, it’s a great spot for a quick getaway or for a week.

It’s a 3 hour drive from the coast in to the Atlas Mountains, courtesy of the new motorway and the contrast is extraordinary.  The newly opened Kasbah Angour nestles in the mountains and is the perfect base for hiking and relaxing.  With just 25 bedrooms, a fabulous pool and extensive gardens, you can set off in to the mountains for one of several full or half day inspiring hikes with incredible views.  The kasbah is a less glamorous (and therefore more generally affordable) option than our current featured property in the mountains, Kasbah Tamadot

Details about Kasbah Angour will be published shortly.  To be sure of being updated, please sign up for our newsletter

Kasbah Angour is only 30 minutes from the centre of Marrakech where the myriad delights of this ancient city, protected by magnificent earthen walls, awaits you.  As we already know the city very well, we were simply seeking out 3 lovely private villas that we had recently become aware of, and taking the opportunity of inspecting again the golf courses on offer here too.  Marrakech is already an excellent destination for golfers and with several more courses scheduled to open over the next few months, is set to become an even better place to escape to for a weekend (or longer) of golf.  The top three courses, at the moment, are the excellent Al Maaden course designed by Kyle Phillips, the Samanah designed by Jack Nicklaus and the Robert Trent Jones Palmeraie Golf Club.

Please let us know if you’re interested in a holiday to Morocco.  We would be delighted to tailor-make your perfect holiday.  Enquire now or call us on 0845 458 0723

Destination Yoga, our recommended specialist yoga retreat partner, has just announced two yoga holiday options over New Year.  There will be a 5 night trip to the luxurious Shanti Som (pictured) in the hills about 20 minutes inland from Marbella (from 28 December – 2 January, fly to Malaga) and a 7 night trip to Suryalila, a little further north (from 27 December – 3 January, fly to Seville).  Both New Year retreats start at £995 per person, all inclusive (but excluding flights).

Shanti Som is a delightful and very luxurious slice of south east Asia in the hills 20 minutes north of Marbella. It sounds bizarre, but works beautifully. Why fly long haul to Asia when you can nip down to sunny southern Spain instead?   Once you step through the doors of this boutique 14 bedroom residence, you enter another world. Its stylish and elegant design, high beamed ceilings, thatched roof-tops, tinkling water and liberal sprinkling of giant Buddhas all create the sense of being on another continent. It’s delightfully welcoming and instantly calming. The perfect haven for a 5 night yoga retreat, allowing you to return refreshed and energised and ready to face the world at the start of 2013 with a smile.

Suryalila is a unique and beautiful old renovated olive farm, deep in the heart of the lovely Andalucian countryside, in the south of Spain and only an hour from Seville. The residency buildings are surrounded by mountains and are charming, spacious and beautifully decorated with an exotic eastern flavour. There are both indoor and outdoor dining areas and plenty of cozy hang out spots. And, of course, a fabulous and spacious yoga studio.

If you would rather go further afield for New Year, perhaps to Thailand or India, to be certain of warmer weather, we would be very happy to recommend destinations to you and arrange everything for you. If it’s a destination yoga holiday that you are particularty interested in – and we certainly recommend them – there’s one scheduled for 8 nights to Shreyas, an hour from Bangalore in India from 2 – 10 February 2013 with Katrina Repka, another of destination yoga’s exceptional teachers.

Click here for more about all our yoga holidays

We are delighted to announce that Shreyas, a delightful Relais & Chateaux yoga and Ayurvedic spa retreat near Bangalore, has been awarded the TripAdvisor® Certificate of Excellence.  We have been hosting yoga retreats to Shreyas under our destination yoga brand since 2010 and every year the feedback from our holiday guests gets better and better.  Hardly surprising as Shreyas genuinely endeavours to offer guests the highest levels of personalised service and elegant luxury, enabling them to relax, rejuvenate and nurture mind, body and soul.

As the team at Shreyas said to us the other day:  “Customer feedback is paramount to us, which is why it is very humbling to receive such a glorious accolade.”

Just a few words about the TripAdvisor® Certificate of Excellence:  Out of the thousands of hotels listed on TripAdvisor®, only ten per cent receive this prestigious award. The Certificate of Excellence, which honors excellence in hospitality, is given only to establishments that consistently achieve outstanding traveller reviews on TripAdvisor®, and is extended to qualifying businesses worldwide.

To qualify for the Certificate of Excellence, businesses must maintain an overall rating of four or higher, out of a possible five, as reviewed by travelers on TripAdvisor. Additional criteria include the volume of reviews received within the last 12 months.

The Healthy Holiday Company can provide a number of different itineraries and retreats to India.  We’ve hand-picked the few really outstanding properties available, from the mystical Ananda Spa in the Himalayas to Kalari Kovilakum, a former Maharaja’s palace in Kerala, southern India.  These are all places to relax, rediscover some balance in your life, and to benefit India’s ancient holistic system of health, Ayurveda.

The next destination yoga holiday at Shreyas is from 2 – 10 February 2013 and the yoga teacher will be Katrina Repka.  But you don’t have to wait until then to visit!  We can organise a holiday for you whenever you want to go.

For full details about Shreyas itself, please see Shreyas