Spa Back in History ~ The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia

The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia

Serving guests since 1766, the Homestead, in the beautiful Allegheny Mountains of Virginia, offers guests a historic luxury vacation resort experience combined with sporting pleasures, outdoor activities and relaxation. All year round, endless adventures await at this premier mountain resort steeped in the rich tradition of Southern hospitality.

Built in 1892, the Homestead Spa is one of America’s most historic luxury spas. Still fed by the historic hot springs that have attracted travelers since the 1700s, the spa provides the ultimate in rejuvenation and relaxation. Treatments and amenities include massages, mineral baths, aromatherapies, steam and sauna, and skin, scalp and intensive facial therapies. The Homestead Spa Suite caters to families and groups, and the not-to-miss Jefferson Pools offer a soothing soak in the famous mineral-rich, naturally warm spring waters.

You deserve the Highlands Honeysuckle Experience. This tranquil experience begins with a honeysuckle soak, followed by a full-body exfoliation, a honeysuckle oil application and a warm body wrap of muslins steeped in fresh honeysuckle. Feel as though you have been napping in the meadows of the Allegheny Highlands.

A true retreat in the Virginia countryside, the Homestead offers acres of fun for the entire family. Sports enthusiasts will revel in a host of outdoor activities, including golf on three championship courses, skiing and snowboarding, horseback riding, carriage rides, shooting, tennis, hiking, swimming, fly-fishing, falconry, ice skating and mountain biking. The resort features 10 dining options and a movie theater for evening entertainment. There are 483 guest rooms and 88 suites, most featuring mountain views and all equipped with plush terry towel robes.

The Homestead received Mobil Travel Guide Three Stars 2007 and Spas of America's Top 30 Spas of 2008.

You Are Here: Fly to Roanoke airport (ROA) and drive north along US-220 North. Total driving time is 1½ hours.

The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia

Spas of Canada - 141 Years Young!

Celebrating 141 years young on July 1st, Canada is one of the world's favorite destinations for fresh air, health and wellness. The planet's 2nd largest nation offers a wide array of experiences for the spa traveler. From Quebec's Nordic spas, Ocean spas on the West Coast of British Columbia, award-winning Destination spas throughout the country, exciting Wine spas of Southern Ontario, or relaxing Mineral Springs, Canada offers something for everyone.

Spas of Canada

They Came to New York for the Waters

Pungently sulfurous waters burble up from the ground alongside a concrete 1970s hospital building in Clifton Springs, N.Y., southeast of Rochester, and I’m soaking in them. That is, waters from a mineral spring renowned in the 19th century for healing properties have been pumped from a stream running beneath the hospital lawn into a new spa wing, where I’ve gone more for relaxation than anything curative, and a nurse has prepared a hot bath for me.

In a serene pale-purple treatment room, I step gingerly into the tea-colored water. The vapors clear my head, and I soon feel tingly and light, yet strangely immobile. The sound of the spring outside, gurgling into tiers of concrete fountain pools, mingles with the indoor soundtrack of pan flutes. When a knock on the door comes for my scheduled massage, I’m sorry to let the water drain.

Upstate New York is hardly known as a center of mineral springs. But in the 19th century, the golden age of mineral-water spas, at least 50 New York towns, scattered from Long Island to Lake Ontario, had resorts or sanitariums drawing on water emerging from rocky places underground and laced with elements like magnesium, calcium, potassium, iron and sulfur. “There were more mineral baths available in New York than in any other state,” said Charlotte Wytias, the program manager at the Clifton Springs Hospital’s spa.

All sorts of healing powers were claimed for the waters, which often carry a metallic or swampy taste and smell. But primarily, the resorts were places to go on vacation. “Life at the springs is a perpetual festival,” an 1850s guidebook said.

Read The New York Times Article