The Wellness Seen 100 is our list of the places that do wellbeing best. It is chosen by Sidra Nasir, interior designer and founder of Wellness Seen.

Sidra comes from an interior design background and has worked in hospitality design, where she has always seen the guest experience as the starting point for every decision. How a room looks matters, but it is only part of the picture. Design also shapes how well you sleep, how the light falls when you wake, the flow of a room and how guests actually move through and use the space. The best hotels are designed around those details, and guests feel the difference even when they cannot name it.

Her work centres on design for wellbeing: how light, layout, materials, sound and air affect the way people sleep, rest and feel. It is the thinking behind Wellness Seen, and the lens behind this list. Sidra looks at a hotel from the guest’s side of the door. Not only at what it offers, but at how it makes you feel, and whether that feeling has been designed with care.

“Wellness” now appears on almost every hotel website. A spa, a yoga class and a green juice on the breakfast menu are easy to add. A place that is genuinely built around how its guests sleep, eat, move and rest is much rarer, and much harder to spot from the outside. The Wellness Seen 100 exists to find those places, and to recognise the ones that get it right.

What we look for

Every place on the list is judged against the same standards.

Setting. Nature, daylight, fresh air and quiet. Where a place is, and how it uses its surroundings, shapes how you feel from the moment you arrive.

Design and flow. How the spaces work, not only how they look. A sense of arrival, an easy flow from one space to the next, natural materials, and rooms designed around the way guests actually spend their day.

The room. The bedroom is where a stay is won or lost. We look at darkness, sound, air, temperature, light and the bed, and whether the room has been designed for rest.

Food. Fresh, seasonal and cooked with care. Food that leaves you feeling well, without feeling like a diet.

Movement and nature. Easy ways to walk, swim, stretch and be outside, whatever your pace.

Expertise. Treatments and programmes led by qualified people, with real substance behind them. We look for depth, not the length of the spa menu.

The people. Service that is warm, unhurried and attentive, and that makes rest feel easy.

Care for the place. A real connection to the land, the community and the culture around it.

How you leave. The final test. Do guests go home rested, and does it last?

How places are chosen

Every place on the list is selected by Sidra and reviewed against her experience in hospitality design and her research into design for wellbeing. Places are put forward by our editors, our contributors, our readers and the hotels themselves. Where Sidra has stayed, the entry says so, with a full review to follow.

Each entry is recognised for what it does best, whether that is sleep, longevity, design or time in nature. The list is reviewed every year, and a place keeps its spot only for as long as it continues to meet the standard.

Some stays are hosted by the hotel, and when they are, we say so. A hosted stay never guarantees a place on the list.

To put a place forward, email info@wellnessseen.com.

A place does not need to be large, new or the most expensive to be included. It needs to get these things right.

01. SHA Wellness Clinic, Alicante, Spain. A clinic on a clifftop above the Mediterranean, known for combining medical care with natural therapies and a largely plant-based kitchen. Best for: medical wellness.

02. Lanserhof Tegernsee, Bavaria, Germany. A medical health resort above Lake Tegernsee in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, with programmes built on F.X. Mayr medicine, which centres on digestion. Best for: a medical reset.

03. Chenot Palace Weggis, Lake Lucerne, Switzerland. A lakeside retreat run on the Chenot Method, which pairs diagnostics and treatments with a light, detoxifying diet. Best for: detox.

04. Clinique La Prairie, Montreux, Switzerland. Founded in 1931 on the shore of Lake Geneva, and one of the original longevity clinics. Best for: longevity.

05. Kamalaya, Koh Samui, Thailand. A hillside retreat built around a cave once used by Buddhist monks for meditation, with programmes for sleep, detox and rest. Best for: rest and recovery.

06. Ananda in the Himalayas, Uttarakhand, India. A hundred-acre estate in the Indian Himalayas, rooted in Ayurveda, yoga and Vedanta. Best for: Ayurveda and yoga.

07. Six Senses Douro Valley, Portugal. A restored nineteenth-century manor house among the vineyards, with a spa that uses treatments drawn from the region’s grapes. Best for: a countryside escape.

08. Euphoria Retreat, Peloponnese, Greece. A retreat on the edge of medieval Mystras, with a four-floor spa and a domed pool inspired by the Hagia Sophia. Best for: design and spa.

09. Golden Door, California, USA. Founded in 1958, in the hills near San Diego, and still taking just 40 guests at a time. Best for: a small, personal retreat.

10. Broughton Sanctuary, Yorkshire, England. A historic estate in the foothills of the Yorkshire Dales, with its own wellbeing and retreat centre, Avalon, and walled gardens. Best for: time in nature.