Blink:

“And What’s Your Idea of Happiness?” – Club Med’s current advertising slogan.  Club Med was the forerunner of exotic vacations.  Exotic travel has now evolved into everything from expeditions to the Antarctica, personal health & wellness retreats for HoopYogini, destination cooking schools, etc.

Read On:

What is HoopYogini?  It is the combination of yoga and hula hoop.  Currently it is part of the regime at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.  A premium five-day workshop for a couple which includes accommodations, meals, use of facilities and movement programs like transformative practices (Gestalt, massage, yoga, etc.) costs $4,025.  Sounds expensive!  According to the Global Wellness Institute’s Global Wellness Economy Monitor (January 2017), wellness tourism now accounts for $563 billion of the worldwide $3.7 trillion “wellness industry.”

Being in the food business, destination cooking schools pique my interest.  Here are some exotic options:

• Beijing cooking classes at the HuTong Cuisine Kitchen. Image mastering dim sum or learning to make the perfect Peking duck.

• Wake up at a retreat, enjoy a blast of morning wellness and forage for vegetables high in the mountains of Mexico. At the Rosewood San Miguel de Allende’s “A Sense of Taste“program, guests take a morning trip to walk the fields and pick produce from local organic farms, before attending a cooking lesson from the hotel’s Executive Chef, capped off by a celebratory dinner.

• Exclusive cooking classes at the La Canonica Cooking School in Tuscany on the 4,000-acre estate owned by the Ferragamo fashion family. Approximately $250 per person or $1,400 for a private lesson (note: excludes travel).  I always did want to learn how to make Scottiglia (wild boar stew) served with a side of home-made gnocchi.

“And What’s Your Idea of Happiness?”