How to enjoy a wellness-focused escape on Aruba’s One Happy Island
TheGrio...
The gorgeous island offers plenty of sun, beaches and relaxation. It also offers plenty to center oneself and detatch from the world.
It had been years since I’d meditated—work, errands, lit birthday brunches, doom scrolling and everything else had usurped quiet time. But now, in an Aruban yoga studio, I was reconnecting with a practice I’d long forgotten.
During a “sound healing” session—part sound bath, part meditation—I lay down wearing an eye mask and noise-canceling headphones as a holistic practitioner offered soothing affirmations.
“You are healing.” “Nature is healing.”
The stereo sound made it seem as if her voice was emanating from my own body.
At the end of the half-hour session, I stepped outside, where Aruba’s cool breezes and gorgeous landscape greeted me, and I felt lighter and clearer.
For travelers looking to escape the demands of work, caregiving, endless errands—or simply another doom scroll—Aruba offers plenty of opportunities to slow down and recharge. Here’s how to make wellness part of your next trip to the One Happy Island.
Why Aruba?
Part of the ABC islands alongside Bonaire and Curaçao, Aruba sits just off the northern coast of Venezuela. Its dry climate, strong trade winds and location outside the hurricane belt make it a year-round destination. The ideal time for travelers looking to avoid crowds? Visit between late August and early December, when the island enters its low season.
Aruba’s multiculturalism is another draw. Its official language, Papiamento, combines elements of Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, West African languages and Arawakan influences. English is also widely spoken.
“When you come here, you really feel included,” Asanya Foster Walters, a tourism expert and senior commercial manager at Radisson Blu, told theGrio. “Everywhere you go, there’s something for everyone.”
She says that the welcoming spirit extends to residents. “If you’re walking somewhere and you look a little bit lost, you can guarantee 100% a local would approach you and be like, ‘Hey, do you need help? Are you lost?”
For an introduction to Aruba’s wellness scene, the Radisson Blu offers guests a retreat-like atmosphere while partnering with local practitioners and artisans. Beyond Palm Beach, island tours offer another way to connect with Aruba’s landscape.
Tap into your creativity.
Palm Beach, about three miles from the capital of Oranjestad, is a bustling strip lined with bars, restaurants, clubs and many of the island’s hotels, such as the Radisson Blu, which features a wellness program focused on local experiences.
“We work with foundations and local businesses mainly,” Maria Mendoza, the hotel’s junior commercial manager, says. “All these activities are with the purpose of bringing what Aruba is to the hotel guests. So it’s not a commercialized experience; it’s a local experience.”
One partner is Royal Aruba Aloe, established in 1890. During its outdoor body scrub workshop, guests learn about aloe vera, Aruba’s signature crop, before creating scrubs with ingredients including sugar, cinnamon, vitamin E lotion, coconut lotion and oatmeal. Participants can customize their mixture and take home the finished product.
Cost: Free with a Radisson Blu stay; offered weekly with advance booking required.
Those looking to embrace their creative side can also try a jewelry-making workshop with an artisan from ArtisA, a gallery in the island’s San Nicolas art district. Using sea glass and gold or silver wire, participants create unique pieces to attach to a colored string for a necklace.
Cost: Free with a Radisson Blu stay; offered monthly with advance booking required.
Connect with your deeper self.
Relaxing on vacation may typically mean a massage or lounging poolside, but Aruba offers opportunities to go deeper through guided meditation and nature-based mindfulness.
During the Garden Flow Experience, holistic practitioner, coach and yoga instructor Janine Valecillos Digier guides visitors through a garden filled with shrubs and bright flowers. After breathing and stretching exercises, participants interact with various elements of nature, including water, Earth and more.
In the water section, guests dip their hands into earthen bowls, then rub them together and imagine a ball of positive energy, which they place wherever they feel it’s needed.
“Feel free to open your hands, be open to receive or to feel this energy of this beautiful day and life,” Valecillos Digier said.
Next comes Earth. Participants choose a rock, imagine something they’d like to let go of and place the rock somewhere in the garden as a symbolic release. Later, they select a tree, hold onto it and consider what they want to release—and what they hope to transform those thoughts or emotions into.
Then comes the tree hug.
Peak woo woo, perhaps, but being open is the point.
“The important thing is that using these kinds of techniques allows the body to release the things that the body doesn’t need to hold anymore, because we are too connected with devices, with emotions, with thoughts that we sometimes don’t realize,” Valecillos Digier said.
The experience concludes with sound healing in the yoga studio, followed by snacks such as avocado toast and refreshing drinks.
Cost: Free with a Radisson Blu stay; offered weekly with advance booking required.
Commune with nature
Wellness extends beyond the Palm Beach hotel strip.
De Palm Tours offers Jeep and van rides through Aruba’s landscape, where palm trees share space with desert cacti and the island’s signature Fofoti and Divi Divi trees.
A three-hour tour through Noord includes the California Lighthouse, where visitors can climb 120 steps for panoramic island views, and the ruins of the Natural Bridge, a massive coral-limestone arch that collapsed in 2005. Nearby, the smaller Baby Bridge still stands.
Animal lovers can visit a donkey sanctuary, where a cup of feed is enough to make fast friends with the residents. The last time I encountered a donkey, I was riding one down a steep, slippery mountainside in the Dominican Republic, so I was happy to have a much more chill experience this time.
Cost: De Palm Tours excursions start at $85 for adults and $75 for children for a three-hour tour.
For Valecillos Digier, who is originally from Venezuela, Aruba’s natural environment is ultimately what makes the island such a restorative place.
“When I came here, there was something completely different in connection with nature, in connection with the energy of the earth here in Aruba,” she said. “For me, it’s like the special key that Aruba has…that gives you the opportunity to go inside and transform your life.”