Published December 28th, 2024

Photography by Kate Robertson unless otherwise noted.

My life can get insanely busy and exhausting. I’m not alone–a Mental Health Research Canada survey indicates 25% of Canadians experience burnout most of the time.

To experience a much needed wellness vacation, I headed to South Carolina’s Hilton Head Health (H3), a wellness resort operating since 1976, well before the wellness trend was born. The fact that when I left home at the beginning of November during the first snowfall of the season, to arrive later that day at Hilton Head to 22 degrees–a balmy breeze blowing through the palm trees–was a bonus. Even in January, the coldest month of the year, the average daytime high is about 15 degrees.

The H3 campus is compact. There’s a main building with a dining room, relaxation lounges, a lecture space, exercise rooms and a demo kitchen. Next door is the pool and a fitness/gym facility. On the other side is a spa facility. The tasteful “Hilton Head look” architecture blends in with that seen on most of the island–low-sloping roofs and muted colours to blend in with nature.

My luxurious room was in the 30-room on-site inn. There are also a few private villas that can accommodate bigger groups. The campus is located adjacent to some golf greens at the end of a quiet residential neighbourhood, so night times are blissfully quiet. Green space and trees with droopy Spanish moss help with privacy.

The first morning I’m signed up for a Body Composition assessment. It’s simple, personal trainer Julia tells me to stand on a machine that looks like a scale, input my age, and hold onto the hand bars for a few seconds as it scans the electrical impulses in my body. It measures my height and weight, then assesses fat-muscle and body composition ratio.

“This measurement goes way beyond the BMI (body-mass index), which most of us are familiar with,” says Julia. “The results can be affected by how hydrated we are and even how well we have slept, so you wouldn’t want to have this assessment more than once a month.” Some gyms have these machines, so it’s easy to follow-up at home (eg. Wynn Fitness Clubs). The test even measures each of your limbs separately, as well as visceral (as in your internal organs) fat level.

By afternoon, my results are in. Another trainer, David, pulls up a chair and tells me that although I’m within weight range, for optimal health, my body fat should be lower and my skeletal muscle should be higher. We explore ways to achieve this goal by increasing my daily protein intake and doing more resistance-training with light weights to build muscle mass.

I get a head-start with my protein goal at lunchtime. Meals at the resort, despite being calorie-conscious, are packed with flavour and fresh ingredients (think stuffed portobello mushroom drizzled with aioli or mandarin orange chicken served with sesame green beans and cauliflower rice for dinner and sushi bowl with ahi tuna or open-faced beef and mushroom sloppy joes for lunch).

Breakfast was no less impressive, with entrees like banana bread french toast or caprese avocado toast. Each dish states the number of calories for the weight-management stream of clientele at the resort (there are two programs available: healthy living/stress management or weight management). You are able to order as many dishes and sides off the menu as you want.

There is also a snack bar with items like pesto hummus, boiled eggs and fruit cups available all day long, as well as an espresso/tea bar and fruit-infused waters. If you prefer to be more meditative, it’s easy to eat at a table on your own, have the meal delivered to your room, or just as easy to join a group. A “thermal walk”, a 10-20 minute walk, is encouraged after one or two meals every day, which done regularly can increase caloric expenditure–a healthy routine to follow at home. There are also bicycles on-site which you can use during daylight, and a map of walking/biking trails over 60 miles.

This time of year, it’s getting dark by the time I’m finished eating dinner, so I must confess that I stuck with a shorter walk. I was paranoid being in alligator country with very little street lighting. While eating breakfast, I watched a gator sunning itself at the edge of the water hazard on the neighbouring golf course.

Due to environmental sustainability reasons, Hilton Head has minimal street lights and no neon signs, to remain in harmony with the natural world. This is especially for the sea turtles which nest on the coastline between May and October. The local “lights out” program means that even oceanfront homes must have their lights off by 10 pm.

Each week a new and different program schedule is available (visits can be as little as three days, like what I did, but many of the clientele at the resort were there for two to four weeks, some even longer), so that you can plan your daily activities.

My favourites were the 7 am beach walk to watch the sunrise and the dance fit class (lead by Carla, a bubbly Mexican woman who incorporated a lot of salsa and rumba moves into the easy-to-follow routines). The “vitality vibes” class was a series of full-body strength and core exercises, and I like that I’ve been able to replicate this at home with a couple of five-pound weights. There are also deep-water conditioning classes held in the pool, mindfulness practice classes, yoga, meditation and journaling.

Most days there are also educational workshops to attend, like “building an emotional eating tool kit” or “picking out the perfect shoe to fit your individual foot type and activity” or “understanding pre-diabetes/diabetes”.

By afternoon, I’m ready for some relaxation and I hustle over to the spa for my 4:30 pm Thai yoga spa treatment. Therapist Karen tells me how the “sen” in Thai massage are similar to the meridians in Chinese treatment–a pathway for prana or life force to flow. During this clothes-on treatment done on a mat on the floor, Karen encourages me to breathe deeply as she moves my body through a series of relaxing stretches while she compresses my muscles.

I leave feeling like a million bucks and wish that I had one more day to schedule classes, as I learn that Karen also teaches the yoga classes at the resort, including yoga on the beach, which I know would be bliss.

Perhaps my most enlightening assessment was my life-balance assessment with Anne, the resort’s director of behavioural health, and long time fitness practitioner. “A lot of our clients come here when they’re feeling lost and overwhelmed, or have had a life change, like experiencing an ‘empty nest’”, says Anne.

I describe my busy life to Anne and alternating between feeling like I want to “do” lots of things and have lots of experiences, and then crashing and feeling tired and like I’m on the treadmill of life. We take the next part of the hour poring over the balance-wheel handout she gives me and brainstorming how I can change this “interval lifestyle” as she calls it. Anne suggests a technique called “habit stacking”, connecting a new desired habit (for me, meditation), onto another behavour that I already have (my morning shower), before I have my morning tea.

Activities off the resort are available on the weekend, and I jumped at the chance to experience more of Hilton Head by signing up for the Vanishing Island day trip. Hilton Head is a bridge-accessed island in the Atlantic close to the Georgia/South Carolina border, known for its beaches and boating.

At the local marina we’re met by Captain Sebastian and his flat-bottomed skiff, the perfect vessel to navigate the salt marshes and briny water of Calibogue Sound, a common habitat for marine and bird life. As he navigates the tidal waterways to Vanishing Island, a sand spit visible only at low tide, he points out birds like osprey, tri-coloured herons (there are six different species here), egrets and pelicans who are feeding on the plentiful fish, and the “fluff mud”, or sulfur beds of anoxic decomposition on the edges of the marsh. “The manatees have gone to Florida for the winter”, says Sebastian, but we stop to watch several dolphins playfully frolicking alongside the boat.

As we cruise back to the marina in the setting sun, I soak in the perfect end to my wellness vacation: good food, exercise, spa treatments and a perfect climate. Maybe I can even call this nature experience a meditation? I’ll check with Anne…

Click here for more information on Hilton Head Health.

Tips on how to make the most of your visit:

There is an airport in Hilton Head, with direct flights to several major US cities, including Chicago, but it may be easier to fly into Savannah, Georgia. The resort has a shuttle service which will pick you up at your arrival time.
Be sure to sign up for activities before you go, as some of the classes fill up quickly. The resort will help you do this upon registering your stay. This also goes for any spa treatments that you want to indulge in.
Hilton Head can get very hot and humid through the summer months of June, July and August, so if that’s not appealing to you, you may want to avoid these months.

A Wellness Vacation on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

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