TRAVEL TRENDS

Top 5 healthy family holidays

Last updated 19th July 2022

The yoga retreat

1/5 The yoga retreat

A relaxing holiday with the kids might sound like a contradiction in terms, but at Alila Villas Soori in Bali, it’s possible. The resort’s three-, five- and seven-day Relaxology retreats involve a schedule of soothing Balinese spa treatments, gentle yoga and pleasantly distracting craft workshops.

While you practise your sun salutations, the kids can discover new experiences of their own with a range of Journeys for Little Ones, which include making traditional Balinese kites to fly on the beach, painting with a local artist or donning an apron with the resort’s pastry chef. Just try not to undo all the benefits of your raw-food menu.

Price: Three-bedroom villa from £450 per night.

Book: alilahotels.com

Borgo Egnazia

2/5 The wellbeing makeover

With an in-house psychologist, a dietician, a ‘hair doctor’ and even a resident shaman, if Borgo Egnazia in Puglia, Italy, can’t make you feel like a new woman, nowhere can. This super-stylish but also fabulously child-friendly destination is styled around a traditional borgo (village) and offers every treatment imaginable, including some pretty wacky ones, such as Nu Suun Vair music therapy, which can be done as a family to encourage harmony (excuse the pun).

For kids who aren’t up for anything quite so alternative, there are tennis lessons, wakeboarding, kayaking and heaps of other activities to keep them off the wi-fi, leaving you free to detox, lose a few extra pounds or just feel like you again.

Price: Rooms from £100 per night

Book: borgoegnazia.com

The active adventure

3/5 The active adventure

If you’re after an epic family expedition or just a sure-fire way to exhaust the kids, book the Healthy Holiday Company’s five-day hiking, biking and climbing package in the Italian Dolomites (spring or summer’s the best time to go).

Start in picturesque Val Badia, where you can wind along cycle paths through scenic villages, forests and meadows (perhaps looping in the odd zip-line or two for restless teenagers). Then you can hike in the fossil-studded Bletterbach Gorge, or take to the exhilarating high-wire via ferrata.

Price: From £2,420 per person, full board, including all equipment and the services of a mountain guide.

Book: thehealthyholidaycompany.co.uk

North Devon Coast

4/5 The boutique bootcamp

If you find it impossible to focus on your own fitness and wellbeing when you’ve got a family to look after, pack the kids off to their grandparents and book yourself and a girlfriend onto a NuBeginnings Retreat. Unlike most bootcamps, this one doesn’t go in for military-style intimidation and back-to-basics bunk beds.

You stay in a luxe mansion on the North Devon coast, and the food is all locally sourced and organic. There are never more than nine people on a retreat, so you get lots of personal attention.

Price: One week costs from £2,295

Book: nubeginnings.co.uk

Girl having her nails done

5/5 The family-friendly spa

If you’re desperate for some pampering, but don’t feel you can leave the kids while you check in to a spa, book a few days for the whole family at the Château Saint-Martin & Spa on the Côte d’Azur in the south of France. The spa has a menu of treatments for kids (little girls will love the Princess Nails manicure, while the Like Daddy massage is perfect for calming hyperactive boys). Just don’t get them too used to the spa lifestyle.

Price: Treatments cost from £24 to £78. Rooms from £275 per night, including breakfast

Book: chateau-st-martin.com