Grounding Wellness Stays To Reconnect You To The Earth

Earth offers a simple way to reconnect with yourself and return to the present. Daisy Finer picks out the wellbeing stays that will ground you

UK Rural Hideaways

Louma Country Hotel

Across the British countryside, a new generation of rural retreats is placing farming, food production and regeneration at the centre of the guest experience. In Dorset’s Marshwood Vale, Louma Country Hotel stretches across 100 acres of working farmland, vineyards and pasture overlooking the Jurassic Coast. Guests can join farm tours, feed the animals, forage, go yogic or settle into communal suppers of farm-to-fork beef, fish, wild mushrooms and honey. loumacountryhotel.co.uk

Further west, on the fringes of Dartmoor, Fowlescombe Farm offers a similarly grounded experience across 450 acres of farmland. Bristol-based artisan Lizzi Mann has created handwoven wall hangings inspired by the surrounding landscape; even the mattresses are crafted from wool sourced from the farm’s own flock. fowlescombe.co.uk

Fowlescombe Farm

Further north, Broughton Sanctuary remains the UK’s most progressive retreat centre – a model of what happens when ancient land, active rewilding and serious inner work converge. Set within 3,000 acres of Yorkshire countryside, home to the Tempest family for over 900 years, it now harbours beavers, all five species of British owl and all manner of flora and fauna (maybe even fairies). The state-of-of-the-art Avalon Wellbeing Centre hosts a rota of retreats of genuine depth, whilst outside, woodland saunas, wild swimming, a Bronze Age stone circle, a Fire Temple and moor-top moon baths await. Transformative in every way. broughtonsanctuary.co.uk

Visionaries

A growing number of British thinkers and musicians are helping reawaken a deeper relationship with the land. Guy Hayward has revived pilgrimage as a form of slow, reflective walking rooted in myth, landscape and community. His charity, the British Pilgrimage Trust, offers both guided walks and self-led routes across Britain, alongside a growing Sanctuary Network where pilgrims can sleep in churches, village halls and sacred community spaces for as little as £10 a night. britishpilgrimage.org

Meanwhile, Ben Pollard’s Mighty Fine Oaks grows new generations of trees from the acorns of Britain’s oldest oaks, preserving ancient lineages for future landscapes. mightyfineoaks.com

And musician and storyteller Sam Lee leads his Singing with Nightingales gatherings deep into ancient woodland, where people sit beside fires, under the stars, and listen to the liquid song of one of Britain’s most mythologised birds. samleesong.co.uk

Urban Grounding

Inhabit Queen’s Gardens has teamed up with movement collective Sanctum to create guided walks every Tuesday evening through the gardens of London. Sessions invite you to move energy through your body with a mix of breathing, walking, inspiring music and reflective pauses. inhabithotels.com

The Nordic Way

In Norway, connection to nature is so deeply woven into daily life that it has its own philosophy: friluftsliv, or ‘open-air living’. In the dramatic landscapes of the Sunnmøre Alps, experiential travel company 62°NORD curates journeys designed to immerse guests in the elemental beauty of fjords, forests and mountains. 62.no

Or head to the Swedish island of Gotland, where Sibbjäns – a working farm where hens, sheep and Mangalitza pigs wander – has been transformed by two couples into a beautiful design-led retreat. Days revolve around yoga, herbalism workshops, cooking with chefs, farm tours, cold swims, wood-fired saunas, cycling, horse riding and kitesurfing. During the endless light of Nordic summers, retreats explore the healing power of plants alongside yoga, breathwork and deep rest. sibbjans.se/en

Safari Retreat

South Africa’s Sashwa River of Stars sets a blueprint for what travel today should look like. Stepping deliberately away from the traditional safari model, a stay here is not about ticking off the Big Five, although you may see them. Instead, expect a more intentional approach which deepens connection to landscape. Expert guides bring the bush alive, from the urgency of rhino poaching to the environmental importance of termites. Back at camp, enjoy daily yoga, breathwork, meditations, muscle-melting treatments and an art studio. Most inspiring of all, owner Peter Eastwood runs Sashwa as a social enterprise. One hundred percent of profits are funnelled into neighbouring Koru Camp, which provides South African village children (and sometimes grannies) with the opportunity to experience the wildlife of their own country. sashwa.com 

Sashwa River of Stars

Surrender To Simplicity

Experience the ultimate in jungle living at Ulpotha in Sri Lanka, a hushed retreat with no doors or electricity (so yes, no wifi or phone reception), surrounded by paddy fields and a lotus-bobbing lake that has sustained the village for generations. Adobe huts are hand built from mud and local timbers, with nothing but a sarong and a soft breeze between you and the dawn chorus. You wash your own underwear and food is cooked over open fires; the curries and sambals taste of the earth they come from. Sit on floor cushions and share stories with fellow yogis drawn by the world-class rota of teachers, or come simply for the Ayurvedic treatments and silky waters. A rare, protected microcosm. ulpotha.com 

Desert Adventures

Desert specialist Amelia Stewart curates small-scale journeys into some of the world’s most elemental landscapes. Her camping expeditions include, for example, an exploration this November into the Ténéré — the desert within a desert — and the labyrinthine canyons of UNESCO-listed Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria, where 8,000-year-old paintings survive on cave walls ameliastewarttravel.com

Or, for a different kind of desert, White Desert’s Whichaway Camp sits within a rare Antarctic ice oasis of frozen lakes and sculptural ice formations. A wellness dome overlooking the glacier offers a space for meditation, breathwork and stillness, while saunas and cold exposure heighten your awareness of the raw polar environment. At $68,500 for six days, it is unquestionably a privilege but there’s nowhere else like it. white-desert.com