Spa holidays & retreats
including hydros, health farms & hotel, mineral water, thermal & destination spas

Style guide to help you choose the right spa – we've indicated spa styles, as follows:

Dedicated & destination spas are centres and retreats entirely given over to the spa experience. They are often purpose built, although some will have developed from traditional thermal spas and hydros, or may have been set up in old or historic buildings. In general these will tend to offer the most comprehensive facilities and the widest range of treatments.

The resort spas section lists holiday destinations that feature a spa, but also provide a lot of other activities and facilities. A resort spa break can be good when a couple, family or group wants different things from their holiday, perhaps a family break when the kids are looking for adventure activities while mum and dad just want to relax, or perhaps a his and hers golf/spa holiday. Resort spas are also good for longer holidays for people who don't wish to spend all their time chilling.

Hotel spas, more and more hotels are providing spas facilities these days, and the quality of these is improving greatly too, sometimes even matching the quality and reach of a dedicated spa. However, generally speaking a hotel spa will probably have fewer facilities and offer less treatments than you'll get in a dedicated spa. Ensure you check out exactly what's on offer in a hotel spa to avoid disappointment, this information should be available from the hotel website. One of the advantages of a hotel spa is that they are often in city centre locations making it easy to combine a spa with a city break. A hotel spa is also another good choice for couples when one person wants the spa while the other doesn't.

Thermal and mineral spas are the destinations for dedicated spa lovers, they are found in areas of geothermal activity and are based around natural hot water springs which often provide mineral rich water (with alleged healing properties). These are sometimes the sorts of places where you'll be expected to take your spa seriously and can occasionally be fairly utilitarian, but that's changing and these sorts of spas are now increasingly being developed to the same standards and comfort levels as destination spas.