The Enormous Appeal of the Bite-Sized Wellness Retreat

As anybody lucky enough to have spent a week doing yoga and being cooked for in an exotic location knows, fitness retreats are so much more than the sum of their parts. Yes, you will probably return with a steadier plank pose and a new friend or two, but you will also feel refreshed of spirit and ready to resume the routine that had you running off in the first place.

More and more retreats are shrinking, scaling down the time commitment and taking place at a location that you can easily reach by Uber. Here are a handful of wellness getaways geared for those of us craving a tune-up of body and soul—and fast.

 

XPT Experience
Montauk, New York, August 7–9
Xptlife.com, $4,250

Led by athletic power-couple Laird Hamilton and Gabrielle Reece, along with human performance specialist Brian Mackenzie, this two-night program is not for the faint of heart. “It’s as much as anybody can handle,” says Hamilton, who might be the best-known surfer on the planet. “It’s right at people’s limit of what they can absorb and learn and do. It’s not a boot camp, but it toes the line of being one.” The weekend retreat, taking place in early August at Montauk’s iconic Surf Lodge, incorporates recovery workshops, bicycling, stand-up paddle-boarding, and high-intensity circuit workouts that volleyball superstar Reece (and Hamilton’s wife) will lead on the beach. While the agenda is not mellow by any means, Hamilton assures us the program, which will cap at 15 people, is appropriate for participants of all levels. “No matter what, they’re going to have an epiphany during the course,” he promises.

 

Tracy Anderson Method Crash Course
Chicago, July 23–24
Tracyanderson.com, $1,233

The celebrity trainer behind Gwyneth Paltrow’s sinewy limbs and the gazillions of toned bodies that cardio-dance to Tracy Anderson Method DVDs is hosting her next two-day “Crash Course” in Chicago. While a weekend won’t be enough time to carve out a new set of abs, Anderson’s idea is to give up to 25 students the tools necessary to achieve a physical transformation in weeks to follow. The program includes lectures, Q&A sessions, and two hours of classic high-intensity Anderson exercise a day. “It doesn’t matter how in or out of shape you are,” she says. “You will feel so connected to yourself after one weekend.”

 

Yada Yada Yoga September Solution
The Peninsula Beverly Hills, September 10
Yadayoga.com, $675

Yada Yada Yoga, a Los Angeles–based concierge company specializing in private at-home yoga sessions as well as luxury wellness getaways, is about to put on its shortest retreat: a 13-hour program at the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills. The day begins with sunrise yoga and moves onto cooking class, afternoon beach yoga, a spa service, and moonlight meditation. “We have a lot of clients in the entertainment business or who are professional athletes and are so busy that they need a quick fix,” says company founder Jessica Gordon. “An overnight stay is an option but if even if they leave at the end of the day they still get their physical and emotional rejuvenation.”

 

Prema Yoga Mini-Retreat
Brooklyn, October (exact date to be announced)
Premayogabrooklyn.com, $35

“The retreat, in general, is getting mini-er and mini-er,” says Amanda Harding, owner of Prema Yoga in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. Harding led the studio’s first three-hour “mini retreat” earlier this month, and plans to host another one—as well as an eight-hour version—in the fall. “More and more I’ve noticed that exotic retreats don’t feel as effective as localized ones, where there isn’t a pressure to go sightseeing and shopping,” Harding says. “When you haven’t saved up for two years to take a trip across the world, there isn’t this pressure to see everything and you can focus on your practice.” She leads the session at her studio, a beautiful, bright space located in a former bank. A two-hour practice will be followed by a 20-minute meditation, then a 20-minute chanting session, and culminate in a vegetarian lunch cooked by Harding.

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