Why Hotel Spas (Mostly) Suck

Aah, the spa. Don’t we all love that fragrant corner of the luxury hotel, that tranquil haven where the tensions of a working life melt away in an enchanting world of exotic unguents and seraphic smiles?

Not me—I don’t love spas. They make me nervous. Believe it or not—and I realize how perverse, how ornery, how cantankerous this makes me sound—I tend to come out of a spa with a greater level of stress than when I went in.

I’ve done it all in my time—the oil drip in Dharamsala, marma in Mauritius, Tibetan singing bowls in Tulum. So I know what spas are meant to do. They are meant to make you go all gooey. They are meant to sink you gently into a deep well of blissed-out serenity. The trouble is that in my case they usually have the opposite effect.

Read more at The Daily Beast.