Want a Wellness Retreat? Skip the Spa—and Go Outside Instead

A couple months ago, life gave me some lemons. Instead of making lemonade, I squeezed them over all the liquor in my bar cart, thinking “having so much fun!” in swanky social settings would dull my mistakes, numb the pain of hard truths, and make me forget a person who I cared for that didn’t care back. It worked for a time. But after a night gone awry, I found myself in an empty train on 4th of July weekend, fleeing what was supposed to be an “amazing” weekend with my friends for the respite of an empty city. As I stared at a wall of street garbage on an empty block, I realized I didn’t like myself. Judging by my blank phone screen, at that moment, no one else did either.

That’s how I ended up, a week later, in Jackson, Wyoming, for my first-ever wellness retreat, seeking the elusive idea of a “fresh start.” I’ve always been skittish at these health-boosting getaways. I get claustrophobic in spas. And while yoga and meditation quiet some minds, mine goes haywire in the stillness. (“It feels like a million tiny miners are trapped inside my brain, excavating it with a million tiny pickaxes!” I once explained to an exasperated instructor.)

But this one was different. Because the host, boutique hotel Caldera House, had no formal spa, and no official yoga studio. Located at the foot of Jackson Hole Mountain and on the cusp of Grand Teton National Park, its primary offering was the great outdoors.

Since the age of Walden Pond and transcendentalism, nature has been romanticized as a path to self-healing. (“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived,” wrote Thoreau.) Science backs that up. In 2009, Dutch researchers found a lower rate of 15 diseases—such as depression, anxiety, and migraines—in people who lived within .5 miles of a green space. A 2015 study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found that those who walked in a natural setting for an hour and a half showed lower depression levels than those walking in an urban one. These revelations coincide with a time when we’ve never been more isolated from nature : as of 2018, 82 percent of North America’s population lives in a metropolitan area, and 30 percent of those with social media accounts (linked to their own mental health stressors) spend more than 15 hours online a week. So perhaps it comes as no surprise that, in their 2019 report, the Global Wellness Summit touted eco-therapy as a top trend.

It was a trend that I was excited to try. As a kid, the outdoors were a constant part of my life—I loved to run, to ski, to hike. And I’d actually spent a set of summers in Jackson, splashing around with my brother and sister in the Snake River. In the winters, we’d shoot into the glades on skis, stumbling down the steep slopes surrounded by snowy evergreens. But then I got older. There was sports, and school. There was college and required courses. There was the city and my career. And suddenly, a place I once felt close to felt very far away.

When I arrived at Caldera House, I was struck by the scenery, but also the interiors: the common spaces are designed by Commune, featuring an art collection that includes original Ansel Adams photographs, and sleek, expansive rooms—the only options are two-bedroom suites, or four-bedroom suites. But as the sparse packing list indicated (sunglasses, hat, hiking boots, athletic wear, and “casual clothes for dinner”), we wouldn’t spend much time indoors.

Instead we spent it on Jackson Hole mountain. After a breakfast of maple syrup and olive oil granola paired with fresh blueberries, we began our trek to the top of Corbet's Couloir—the legendary chute that, in the winter, only the most advanced of skiers dare descend. While my fellow hikers and I were chatty the first part of the hike, the rapidly increasing incline and altitude soon rendered us speechless and short of breath. We crossed through wildflower fields and up hills still covered in summer snow. Soon, it became so steep that hiking turned to scrambling—or, needing to use your feet and hands to climb up rocks. When I finally reached the top, my hands were covered in dirt, my chest was heaving, my legs were burning. I also couldn’t stop smiling. Call it a hiker’s high: the endorphin-induced euphoria that comes with exercise, combined with the dopamine that comes with finishing a task. Plus, that fresh alpine air didn’t hurt.

Back at Caldera House, it was time for an iced matcha latte and a lunch of cucumber pad thai and kale blackberry salad. The weekend’s menu was created by Annie Fenn, a former gynecologist-turned-chef who founded Jackson Hole’s Brain Health Kitchen. The cooking school advocates for a MIND (Mediterranean Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) diet: or, a lifestyle heavy on vegetables, berries, nuts, fish and other “brain-healthy foods” that prevent Alzheimer's. According to some studies, following a MIND diet can reduce the risk of the disease by up to 53 percent, and improves memory overall. Science aside, I can say this: it was delicious, and despite the morning’s strenuous activities, left me as energized as ever.

Which was good, because I had a full afternoon of paddleboarding ahead of me. (Other activities you can do on the Caldera House retreat? Paragliding, rock climbing, and horseback riding—equine therapy is said to have some tangible effects.) After a quick change into some wetsuit leggings, a bikini top, and neoprene booties—my mismatched outfit of choice for an air temperature of 82 degrees but a water temperature of 48—and a two-hour drive through Bridger-Teton National Forest, it was time to glide out onto Slide Lake. It was a soothing exercise: balancing, paddling, switching hands, paddling, balancing. I paused to look at a beaver lodge—did you know, my guide told me, a beaver lodge has multiple rooms and is home to generations of beavers? I considered the reddish-purple slopes of the Gros Ventre wilderness, created by a mudslide almost 100 years ago. And then I just floated.

But the bliss was short-lived. Suddenly, a rogue thunderstorm rolled in, the blue sky now dark, the calm waters now choppy. Rain pelted down, lightning struck in the distance. I shouted an expletive from the middle of the lake—which, by the way, no one heard over the thunderclaps. The tumultuous water rocked my board, and the wind catapulted me sideways. My once well-timed paddling rhythm turned frantic and scrappy, and halfway to shore, I hit a rock, my once-graceful form becoming a spasming windmill motion in a desperate attempt to keep my balance. When I finally reached land, soaked and little shaken, I burst out laughing in relief. My guide and I spent the next five minutes rehashing the minor drama as clouds dissipated and the sun returned. As I sat on a log, peeling off my wetsuit, I realized that I hadn’t thought about my New York issues for the entire afternoon. The storm had broken and, it seemed, so had mine.

On the last morning of the retreat, I woke up at 4:15 a.m. to see the sunrise. I drove through the woods and the prairie until I reached Mormons Row. At the turn of the 18th century Mormons Row was 27 thriving homesteads, tended by settlers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Today, only a handful of buildings remain: a barn or two, a shed, the pink stucco home of T.A. Moulton, all teetering on the edge of a rugged expanse. As the morning went from black to navy to lapis to finally, sky, the light began illuminating the craggy peaks of Grand Teton range in the background. Everything looked so serene in the rising sun.

There’s this concept called attention restoration theory. It says that people concentrate better when in nature. The authors behind it, Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, explain the factors that contribute to the concept: First, Fascination—or, the ability to take in the awe of a place without being mentally exhausted from it. (Times Square, for example, is visually interesting, but with all that bright-light stimulus, it’s also cognitively stressful.) The second factor is being away—or, feeling distant from the places you associate with your problems. Third, is extent—feeling comfortable, and wanting to engage, where you are. (It helps if you’ve been there before, or some place like it.) And lastly, compatibility—does this place fit with you as a person? (Someone who dislikes cold weather, for example, probably won’t find solace in the winter wilderness of Alaska.)

As I stood in the shadow of the Tetons, I saw that Jackson, Wyoming, had ticked all of those boxes. It’s why I struggled to reset by the beach, or in a treatment room—they weren’t me. But this was. And I had never felt more at peace. At a time when relaxation and wellness is often marketed via facials with fancy ingredients or fat-blasting fitness trends, or other thin guises meant to preserve thinness or cling to youth, it was a welcome reminder: Sometimes, healing can be jump-started in the simplest of places: outside.

I can’t exactly pinpoint when I started having trouble sleeping at night. But I do have a distinct memory of being wide awake at 3 a.m in my dorm room in Boston, circa 2012, frantically searching “falling sleeping tips.” Google told me I should envision a calming landscape. So I picked those tranquil snow-covered trees I skied through as a kid, until I drifted off into a tentative slumber. And I did that for awhile, until one day my memory of them grew too fuzzy. So I switched to copious amounts of melatonin instead.

It would be a tidy ending to say that, after Wyoming, I went back to New York and everything was a-ok. But problems just don’t go away. There were still slip-ups, there was still sadness. But after my trip, as restlessness began to overcome me, I didn’t reach for any sleep aids. Instead I thought about the Tetons at sunrise. And slowly but surely, I drifted off to sleep.

Originally Appeared on Vogue