Medical Wellness
Bespoke luxury holidays built around Medical Wellness, tailor-made by our specialist travel advisors.
Medical Wellness Retreats & Annual Health Checks
A glimpse at some of the exceptional properties we recommend for Medical Wellness, hand-picked by our specialists.
Lanserhof Sylt
Six Senses Vana
Villa Eden – The Private Retreat
JOALI BEING, Maldives
Burgenstock Hotel & Alpine Spa
Waldhotel Health & Medical Hotel
Clinique La Prairie
Palace Merano Espace Henri Chenot
La Reserve Geneve
La Reserve Ramatuelle Hotel, Spa & Villas
Grand Resort Bad Ragaz
BRENNERS PARK HOTEL & SPA – BADEN-BADEN, GERMANY
Sha Wellness Clinic
Redefining What a Wellness Booking Is
Something has changed in what our clients ask for. Ten years ago, a wellness booking meant a spa, a view, and a week of doing very little. Increasingly, it means a week that begins with bloodwork and ends with a consultant sitting down to explain what the results mean.
The annual health check retreat has become one of the fastest-growing requests we handle. The appeal is straightforward. A full diagnostic workup that would take months of separate appointments at home, completed in a few days, somewhere you would want to spend a few days anyway.
Why an Annual Health Check Retreat
The argument for doing this abroad, in one stay, is time rather than medicine. A comprehensive screening at home means a GP referral, a wait, a scan at one hospital, bloods at another, a cardiology appointment six weeks later and a follow-up letter after that. For someone whose calendar is booked three months out, the process quietly never happens.
At a clinic it happens over three or four days, in one building, with the results interpreted before you leave. You are given a plan rather than a letter. And you have spent the week somewhere with a lake or a coastline outside the window, which is not incidental. People complete programmes they enjoy.
Choosing the Right Clinic
The clinics we work with fall into four groups, and the distinction matters more than the brochures suggest.
Booking a detox programme when what you wanted was a cardiac workup is a wasted week.
Diagnostics-Led Programmes
The closest thing to a private hospital with a very good hotel attached.
This is where to go if the point of the trip is the screening itself.
Clinique La Prairie
Clinique La Prairie on Lake Geneva is the best known, with a medical heritage going back to the 1930s and programmes built around diagnostics, longevity and revitalisation.
Waldhotel
Waldhotel, on the Bürgenstock resort above Lake Lucerne, was purpose-built for medical stays and recovery.
Grand Resort Bad Ragaz
Grand Resort Bad Ragaz in eastern Switzerland pairs a serious medical health centre with thermal water, and is unusually strong on musculoskeletal assessment.
Brenners Park-Hotel
Brenners Park-Hotel in Baden-Baden houses a medical spa within one of Europe’s grand hotels. It suits anyone who wants the clinical side available without living in it.
Method-Led Programmes
These clinics run a defined protocol rather than a menu, and you commit to it for the duration.
Results tend to be more pronounced, and so does the discipline required.
Lanserhof Sylt
Lanserhof Sylt, on the North Sea island, applies the Lanserhof method around gut health, fasting and diagnostics in a building that is worth the trip on its own.
Palace Merano
Palace Merano in South Tyrol is the home of the Chenot method, built on detoxification and biological age assessment.
Villa Eden
Villa Eden, also in Merano, is the smallest and most private.
SHA Wellness Clinic
SHA Wellness Clinic on the Spanish coast near Alicante combines macrobiotic nutrition with integrative medicine and is the most food-led of the group.
Longevity and Better Ageing
A newer category, focused on biomarkers, biological age, and what to change rather than what to treat.
La Réserve Genève and La Réserve Ramatuelle both run better-ageing programmes within properties that remain, unmistakably, hotels.
For clients who want the science without the clinic atmosphere, these are usually the answer.
Six Senses Vana
Six Senses Vana in the Himalayan foothills works in Ayurveda, Tibetan medicine and yoga over longer stays.
JOALI BEING
JOALI BEING is a wellbeing island in the Maldives organised around four pillars rather than a diagnosis.
Bürgenstock
Bürgenstock offers an alpine spa at scale with the Waldhotel next door if the clinical option is wanted later.
What to Expect From a Full-Body Screening
Programmes differ, but the shape of a diagnostic stay is fairly consistent.
For what to do before you arrive, our guide to planning a medical retreat sets out the ten things worth sorting in advance.
Day 1 - Intake
Day one is intake. A long consultation, considerably longer than any GP appointment, covering history, lifestyle, family history, and what you actually want from the week. Bloods are usually taken the same morning, fasted.
Day 2 & Day 3 - Testing
Days two and three are testing. Depending on the programme, this can include imaging, cardiovascular and pulmonary assessment, body composition, and gut or metabolic analysis. There is more waiting than you expect, which is why the setting matters.
Final Day - Consultation
The final day is the consultation. Results are interpreted in person, and you leave with a written plan rather than a set of numbers. Around this sits the rest of it: treatments, movement, nutrition and sleep, all built around the findings rather than chosen from a list.
How We Arrange It
Medical stays involve more coordination than a hotel booking, and rather more discretion.
Clinic availability is limited, and the better programmes are held months out, particularly in January and September when demand is highest. Records need to reach the clinic before arrival for the intake consultation to be worth anything. Programmes frequently need extending or shortening once the intake is done. And an accompanying partner usually wants a different week entirely, in the same place.
Your Travel Designer handles all of that, alongside the travel itself. Our concierge team covers ground transport, private aviation where a scheduled connection is unhelpful after a procedure, and the arrangements for anyone travelling with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Most of the clinics we work with are built around an annual cycle, and clients who make it a habit tend to book the same fortnight each year. How often you personally should screen is a medical question rather than a travel one, and it depends on your age, history and what a previous screening found. Your own doctor is the right person to set the interval.
Three to four days for a diagnostic programme, and five to seven if treatment or a structured programme follows the results. Method-led clinics generally ask for a minimum of seven nights, and their fasting or detox programmes are designed around fourteen. Anything shorter than three nights rarely justifies the journey.
A medical retreat begins with a doctor, a consultation and a set of tests, and everything that follows is built on the results. A spa holiday begins with a treatment menu. The distinction shows up in the staff. Medical clinics are led by physicians and run diagnostic equipment on site. Both are worthwhile, and they answer completely different questions.
Usually yes. Most programmes ask for fasted bloods on the first morning, and many send a pre-arrival protocol covering alcohol, caffeine, supplements and certain medications in the days beforehand. Some ask you to pause specific medications, which needs to be agreed upon with your own doctor rather than decided in transit. The clinic issues this in advance and we make sure it reaches you in time to act on it.
Yes, at every clinic on this page, and it is one of the more common requests we handle. The usual arrangement is one guest on the medical programme and the other on a spa or wellness schedule, sharing a room and meeting for dinner. Where menus are restricted for the programme guest, most clinics will accommodate the other separately. Worth flagging at the time of booking rather than on arrival.
Speak to a Travel Designer
The right clinic depends on what you want from the week, and that is a short conversation rather than a long one. Tell us whether the priority is the screening, a programme, or a rest, and the shortlist narrows to two or three. Speak to a Travel Designer today to arrange your stay.
YOUR DEDICATED TRAVEL PARTNER
24
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365
TAILORED SERVICES
TAILORED SERVICES
Our in-house concierge service will use their extensive contact list
to help you source anything you desire.
TAILORED SERVICES
Our in-house concierge service will use their extensive contact list
to help you source anything you desire.
BESPOKE itinerary
BESPOKE itinerary
We work hand in hand with clients to create your dream
itinerary ensuring every detail is looked after from start to finish.
BESPOKE itinerary
We work hand in hand with clients to create your dream
itinerary ensuring every detail is looked after from start to finish.
BESPOKE AIR
BESPOKE AIR
We have access to every major airline and an extensive knowledge of their pricing schedules helping our clients achieve highly competitive airfares in all cabins.
BESPOKE AIR
We have access to every major airline and an extensive knowledge of their pricing schedules helping our clients achieve highly competitive airfares in all cabins.
PRIVATE SKY
PRIVATE SKY
Working directly hand in hand with our brokers and
aircraft owners we can source the best deals and most convenient slots for Private Jet hire.
PRIVATE SKY
Working directly hand in hand with our brokers and
aircraft owners we can source the best deals and most convenient slots for Private Jet hire.
EXCLUSIVE BENEFITS
EXCLUSIVE BENEFITS
We have arranged with a number of our luxury partners some exclusive additional benefits. These can include complimentary daily breakfast, a hotel credit towards food or spa treatments,an upgrade on arrival where available, and early check in / late check out.
EXCLUSIVE BENEFITS
We have arranged with a number of our luxury partners some exclusive additional benefits. These can include complimentary daily breakfast, a hotel credit towards food or spa treatments,an upgrade on arrival where available, and early check in / late check out.
COST MANAGEMENT
COST MANAGEMENT
We provide access for our clients to the most cost effective and convenient travel means. Our long standing partnerships and in depth industry knowledge ensure that we source the best rates available on the market.
COST MANAGEMENT
We provide access for our clients to the most cost effective and convenient travel means. Our long standing partnerships and in depth industry knowledge ensure that we source the best rates available on the market.
London office suite
