What’s with sleep retreats? Travelers are starting to plan entire vacations around catching some Zzz’s

You know we are collectively exhausted when the travel industry starts swapping out adrenaline- and experience-centered itineraries for nap time. ‘Sleep retreats’ are the latest wellness travel trend being offered at a number of luxury spas and retreat centers around the world, offering circadian-boosting hikes, sleep science lectures and guided meditation. These retreats are being sold as multi-day escapes from guests’ day-to-day lives just to enjoy activities centered around one thing: Getting a good night’s sleep.

The trend is catching on in some surprising places, like Ibiza. Instead of tapping into the islands’ renowned nightlife, some folks are opting to travel to Six Senses resort on the Spanish island for their spa’s  three-, five- and seven-day sleep retreats, complete with sound healing, facials, low-intensity exercise and sleep trackers, as well as amenities like having an on-site sleep doctor available for consultation.

The appeal isn’t hard to understand. Between political discord, geopolitical conflict, the burgeoning confirmation of alien life visiting us, the climate crisis, plus whatever’s going on in our personal lives—all on the heels of a global pandemic—who among us hasn’t wanted to convalesce on the seashore like an ailing Victorian child for a few weeks?

And unlike, say, antioxidants or bee pollen, there’s an undeniable body of science demonstrating that rest and sleep can improve or maintain almost every imaginable metric of health. Brain function, immune responses, mood, stress reduction, appetite regulation and metabolism—consistent and quality sleep plays a key part in a lot of our body’s most important functions.

You shouldn’t have to fly anywhere or pay hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for a chance to rest or to learn more about how to sleep better. Let’s just put that out there. But the wellness travel industry seems to be tapped in and ready to cater to our collective world-weariness. “After the last two years, we are all overdue for a good night’s rest,” Karina Chung, the director of wellness at Rosewood Hotels and Resorts, a chain of spa resorts that offers “Alchemy of Sleep” retreats at a number of their locations around the world, told Forbes. 

We all travel for a myriad of different reasons, but one motivator that can push us to new places is the feeling that whatever we’ve been unable to find close to home will be attainable if we just go somewhere totally different. Whether it’s self-understanding, new relationships, excitement and stimulation, or simply peace—surely whatever eludes us in our daily lives can be found just over the next horizon.

So if we’re using our vacation time to pursue that which we can’t seem to attain in our day-to-day lives, it makes sense that fewer people aren’t seeking thrills—exactly the opposite, in fact. In 2023, people just want some rest, it seems.

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