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Tags: Costa Rica Field Trip / Spas / Eco-Travel / Eco Spas / Green Travel / → All Tags

How to Indulge in Some Earth-Friendly Pampering in Costa Rica

All this week, Lost Girl Amanda Pressner will be bringing us reports from her recent trip to Costa Rica with her entire family. Any questions about traveling to Costa Rica or family-oriented activities to do while you're there? Let us know.

Ever wonder where this whole sustainable travel, eco-tourism trend got its legs in the first place? As I learned during my family vacation, it was the formerly impoverished banana republic of that Costa Rica almost single-handedly spawned the concept back in the 70s.

After the price of “yellow gold” crashed back a few decades ago, the nation fell into a devastating depression. Sensing that CR needed to identify an alternative industry—and fast—a few government smarties kicked off the nation’s Green Revolution, reforesting huge tracts of jungle that had once been clear-cut for farming and turning them into protected wilderness areas and national parks. By successfully marketing itself as a nature-lovers paradise, Costa Rica no longer needed to export bananas to survive. They started importing tourists.

And with those tourists came the birth of another trend: Eco-Spas.

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Tags: Turkey Field Trip / Hammams / Spas / → All Tags

What a Foamy Scrub and a Rub Inside a Turkish Hammam is Really Like

Last week Shira Levine spent a few days getting her Turkish Delight on in Istanbul, Turkiye ("Turkey is a bird; Turkiye is the country"). Any questions about what to do in Turkiye? Send 'em to us and we'll have Shira answer them for you.

Going for a hammam experience is something not to pass up when in Turkiye. While a Turkish bathhouse is not for the body conscious, we recommend the body conscious suck it up and go for it. And, to go for the real deal.

While most hotels offer a hammam treatment, they typically are glossy spa treatments and private. In an authentic Turkish hammam, guests essentially lounge together buck-naked on a hot plate in a steam room. Together everyone waits their turn with mostly non-English speaking scrubbers who then randomly beckon for patrons to come to them for their individualized soapy body scrub. Remember: people have been bathing like this for over 500 years. Oh, and men and women are separate of course.

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Tags: Bizarre Foods / Food Travel / Spas / BBQ / → All Tags

Sweat It Out in a Sauna While You BBQ Your Meats

This week's Bizarre Foods saw host Andrew Zimmern visiting the weirder side of Seoul, South Korea, where the emphasis was on undercooked foods – and by undercooked, we mean still moving.

We're fans of fried octopus, but not when it's cooked just to the point that the tentacles are still squirming around as you pick them up with chopsticks. And no, we're not so comforted by the knowledge that dipping them in sesame oil helps stop the suckers from gripping onto the inside of your mouth. Ack! Once you mention a food item "gripping onto the inside of your mouth," we've pretty much lost our appetite.

The same goes for mudfish, which sound pretty unappetizing already, and don't get any more so when we see they're tossed into the soup still flipping around. We like to eat after the food has lost all chance of jumping out of the bowl.

But one place we were taken with was Zimmern's stop at a charcoal BBQ/sauna. Yes, you can work up an appetite while relaxing inside a steam room, and then order up a tableful of BBQ meats – all barely cooked of course. Now that's more like it. How long before a BBQ/sauna opens in New York?

Related Stories:
· South Korea Travel Guide [Travel Channel]
· Lounging In The Jjimjilbang Is As Cool As It Sounds [Jaunted]
· Drinking Dirt Soup and Banana Beer in Tanzania [Jaunted]

[Photo: Travel Channel]

Tags: Spas / Middle East Travel / Wellness Travel / → All Tags

New Spa in Jordan Has Therapeutic Benefits Plus Ice Cream

Think you deserve a bit of pampering? The Evason Ma’In Hot Springs have just opened an hour out of Amman in Jordan and look like a pretty decadent place to hang out next time you're passing through the Middle East.

These hot springs are pretty special--for one, they're found nearly 900 feet below sea level in a dramatic-looking ravine. The set-up includes natural hot waterfalls that Herod the Great bathed in, or so they say.

While the whole therapeutic spring water stuff should be the focus here, we’ve been distracted by a few of the side benefits. For example, they’ve got a fine dining Arabic restaurant looking over the waterfalls, a herbal tea bar, and (our favorite part) a snack bar serving 40 different kinds of homemade ice cream. Spa treatment or ice cream? We might just take the latter.

Related Stories:
· Evason Ma’In Hot Springs & Six Senses Spa [Official Site]
· Jordan Travel Guide [Jaunted]

Tags: Spas / South Korea Travel / → All Tags

Lounging In The Jjimjilbang Is As Cool As It Sounds

The Korean Jjimjilbang is even more fun than trying to spell it. Think of it as a 24-hour Peewee’s Playhouse--but giant-size and minus the psychosexual disorder.

Thousands of Jjimjilbang’s fill Korea. They’re large, gender-segregated complexes complete with spas, pools, video arcades, massage parlors, snack bars and play centers for kids. The main draw of the centers are the heated hardwood floors, once a fixture in traditional Korean homes but forced out by the modern high rise and the arrival of the padded bed.

Since most Koreans live in tight quarters with their extended family members, the Jjimjilbang is a wholesome way for parents and kids both to retreat to their own favorite activities and get away from each other. It’s also a place for a foreigner to learn the surprising joys of laying on a hot, hard floor.

Related Stories:
· For All Kinds of Good, Clean Fun, Koreans Turn to Bath Houses [NYT]
· Learn The Monk’s Life In South Korea [Jaunted]

[Photo: IHT]

Tags: Spas / Beauty / Doctor Fish / Videos / → All Tags

Adventures of Link: Doctor Fish in the News Again

The AP brings us news today of a promising new trend in spa technology: garra rufa fish. Of course, we've covered these so-called doctor fish before, and YouTube is, uh, stocked with videos of the critters.

The flesh-eating fish first popped up in Turkey, where they'd nibble the dead skin off the feet of spa-goers. The trend then spread to Asia and even Croatia. Yvonne Hair and Nail in Alexandria, Virginia claims to be the only place you can take the plunge in the US.

Related Stories:
· Fish Pedicures: Carp Rid Feet of Scaly Skin [AP, via Google]
· Yvonne Hair and Nail [Official Site]
· Asian Spa Fish Feast on Flesh [Jaunted]
· Former ANTM Contestant's First-Person Review [Elyse Sewell]
· Discover For Yourself If Piranhas Get a Bad Rap [Jaunted]

Tags: Russia Travel / Spas / Art / Public Art / Statues / Weird / → All Tags

Russian Spa Erects a Bronze Tribute to the Enema

Here's a tip: When you find yourself assuring reporters that the $42,000 bronze monument you've put on display involves "no kitsch or obscenity," your art project was probably a bad idea. The statue in question is a tribute to the enema that was unveiled at a spa in the Russian city of Zheleznovodsk on Wednesday. The Botticelli-inspired monument depicts three cherubic little angles holding aloft a bronze syringe bulb that's used for anal cleansing.

The sculpture was presented to the public this weekend at a celebration featuring models and a banner bearing the charming Soviet slogan "Let's beat constipation and sloppiness with enemas." The owner of the spa said enemas are "almost a symbol" of the Caucasus, dotted as the region is with retreats offering visitors the opportunity to get local mineral water sprayed up their ass. (Hey, Zheleznovodsk does mean "Iron Waters.")

Maybe when the spa gang realizes how ridiculous this makes them look they can change that butt bulb into an onion?

Related Stories:
· Russian Spa Opens Monument to the Enema [AP, via Yahoo]
· Spas coverage [Jaunted]
· Russia Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Reuters]

Tags: Northern California Travel / Yoga / Hot Springs / Spiritual Travel / Spas / → All Tags

Hippie Travel: Harbin Hot Springs

"Hot springs" means different things to different people. To a group of four college kids on their first cross-country road trip, it means local girls with cheap cans of beer and stealing away for a moonlight walk and getting some nookie under the stars.

Turns out, we were wrong and innocence was our bliss, but enough about us. There are lots of legit, albeit trippy, places out there such as Harbin Hot Springs, about two-and-a-half hours north of San Francisco.

The retreat center is also open to the public, and it's the perfect place to experience a weekend of hot and cold soaking, yoga, massage, vegetarian cuisine and embracing your inner animal spirit. This is the kind of place you go by yourself without telling anyone, live through the old third eye for a week and come back able to lift refrigerators and put your leg behind your head.

Accommodations at the 1,600 acre center range from outdoor camping to "dome" accommodations that look like they came from the Tatooine school of architecture.

Related Stories:
· Harbin Hot Springs [Official Site]
· Yoga coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Luiza]

Tags: Spas / Beauty / Asia Travel / South Korea Travel / Japan Travel / America's Next Top Model / → All Tags

Asian Spa Fish Feast on Human Flesh

Fishy foot baths are all the rage in spas throughout the Far East. The bizarre trend started in Turkey where people pay to be immersed in a pool teeming with "doctor fish" that eat away at dead skin.

The treatment, which is also known as "fish reflexology," apparently results in super-smooth feet. Recently, doctor fish spas have popped up in Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Singapore and Croatia. After the jump, check out video footage of these flesh-eating fish in action.

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Tags: Aruba-Travel-Map / Islands / Spas / Caribbean Travel / → All Tags

Aruba Travel: The Island's Best Spa

Who knew a small island like Aruba could keep someone so busy? You've already been windsurfing, butterfly watching and sunset sailing on Palm Beach, plus you've conquered the Aruban outback on the island's best drive.

It's time to slow down and relax--after all, vacations were made for pampering. If it's Zen-like tranquility you're after, head to the Larimar Spa, easily Aruba's best sanctuary for the mind, body and spirit.

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Tags: Missed Connections / Videos / Golf Travel / Golf / Spas / Bookstores / → All Tags

Missed Connections in Santa Fe: Macho Jack Kelly Edition

That's Christian Bale at 18 singing about how he needs to leave New York City for warmer climes in "Newsies." If you've followed the weather in NYC recently, we're thinking a lot of people will be joining him.

Remember, Bale's paper boy found love, and you can too--try a special delivery to one of these hot spots.

Quail Run Country Club -- Get in a round all year long or spot a pink-clad beauty in the weight room. 3101 Old Pecos Trail

Ten Thousand Waves -- This Japanese-inspired mountain spa is the perfect place to unwind after that sixteen-hour paper route and meet someone in the tub -- or "meet them again." 3451 Hyde Park Rd.

Ark Bookstore -- All that horse-wranglin' and paper-tossin' and union-organizin' leaves a man very little time to develop his mind or his soul. Luckily there's the Ark, a spiritual bookstore with hotties. 133 Romero St.

Related Stories:
· Missed Connections coverage [Jaunted]
· Santa Fe Hotels [HotelChatter]

Btw, Christian, call me!

Tags: New-York-Spas-Map / Spas / Yoga / → All Tags

New York Spas: Finding Our Doshas

Tranquility in the big city might sound like an oxymoron, but we decided to suspend our disbelief long enough to check out The Chopra Center & Spa, located in a gold and saffron-hued subterranean space at The Dream Hotel. The primary draw? The facility was co-created by renowned wellness guru and self-help specialist Deepak Chopra, an endorsement that actually gave us some hope we'd be walking away feeling healthier--if not less stressed.

We went for a balancing facial based on the principals of Ayurveda, an ancient Indian science that attempts to harmonize one's mind-body type, or dosha. As our therapist did the assessment of our type, we asked so many questions that she had to gently remind us that Ayurvedic healing is something best experienced--not understood through the mind. So we settled in on the table and completely relinquished control for the next 80 minutes as she steamed, massaged and moisturized our congested skin. We surrendered so much that we actually drifted off.

In addition to facials, the Chopra Center has bodywork treatments and other spa services. Guests can also sign up for yoga classes or join in on complimentary guided meditation sessions. We would have stayed on to explore the pathway to enlightenment, but you know, we had to hightail it back downtown before our dry cleaner closed.

Related Stories:
· Chopra Center & Spa [Official Site]
· Spas coverage [Jaunted]
· The Dream Hotel [HotelChatter]