‘Tis the season for shopworn aphorisms about beginning contemporary. You know those I imply: all these previous chestnuts about it being a brand new yr and a brand new you, about turning over a brand new leaf, about how, if you happen to can dream it, you are able to do it. Like so many clichés, they’re simple to dismiss as pabulum, and but they’ve endured as a result of they comprise a kernel of reality.
What does this should do with journey? you could ask. One of the humorous paradoxes of journey taking is that it may be an escape from all of the complications again house and additionally function a method of rising as an individual so that you’re higher capable of meet your challenges within the place the place you truly reside—usually on the identical time. And I believe this stunning contradiction is very inherent in wellness travel, which had already taken off like a rocket ship earlier than the pandemic and has solely expanded extra shortly because the world reopened. Part of that development is because of extra vacationers placing worth on these sorts of getaways, however one other half is because of lodges and resorts including an growing variety of choices to assist their company do each the escape half in addition to the feel-like-a-new-you-at-home half. In this problem’s annual wellness bundle, we cowl just a few of essentially the most compelling new developments, together with applications that promote gut health; the transfer towards group wellness itineraries; and the rise of art therapy.
While I’m with regards to beginning contemporary, this problem can be my final at Condé Nast Traveler. To mud off one other well-seasoned saying (initially attributed, I imagine, to the thinker Seneca), “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” The expertise of serving this storied model, of being impressed day-after-day by the eagerness of the editors who work right here, and, above all, of sharing the magic of journey with you, our readers, will carry me far into my future. Right now, although, I’m occurring trip.
This article appeared within the January/February 2026 problem of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the journal here.