Let’s Meditate on This

Grenada’s abundance of spa resorts includes some of the island’s best boutique hotels, offering everything from Balinese treatments in a temple surrounded by tropical gardens to ice caves and steamy hammam treatments. Yoga classes, including beach yoga and even underwater yoga for divers, are offered at many resorts, and some host week-long yoga retreats as well.

Health and wellness, with its broad physical, emotional and spiritual aspects, doesn’t begin and end with spas in Grenada. Days can begin with a morning walk on one of Grenada’s beautiful beaches and conclude with a restful night’s sleep, aided by the sound of gently lapping waves.

Any hike that ends with a cool down under a Grenadian waterfall is a wonderful wellness activity combining exercise and relaxation, but it’s particularly true of the 45-minute hike to Golden Falls, which affords the unique opportunity for a therapeutic plunge under both cold and hot cascades, the latter fed by geothermal springs. Grenada also has a number of sulfur springs touted for their healing properties, including the Clabony Sulphur Springs and the River Sallee Sulphur Springs—local guides can show couples the way to these hidden gems.

When the World Food Travel Association named Grenada the first “Culinary Capital,” the use of spices for medicinal and wellness purposes was cited along with the island’s distinctive cuisine. Clients can bring home nutmeg lotion to use as an herbal pain reliever. Cinnamon tea is thought to aid weight loss and control diabetes; tamarind may lower cholesterol levels. Grenadian bush tea, made with herbal ingredients like lemongrass and black sage, also is said to have curative properties. Soursop, a fruit used often in Grenadian smoothies, is high in antioxidants and might help prevent cancer.

Even Grenada’s chocolate can deliver a wellness boost: The flavonoids in cacao have been shown to help lower blood pressure, improve blood flow and prevent blood clots. Visitors can find healing herbs and spices at the weekly market in St. George’s as well as many shops around the island. Visitors can purchase locally grown high-cacao chocolate directly from Belmont Estate, Grenada Chocolate Company, Tri-Island Chocolate, Diamond Chocolate Factory, Crayfish Bay Organic Farm, Gabu and Taste de Spice or during the annual Grenada Chocolate Festival, held each May.