For as long as I can remember, I’ve longed to be asleep. Sleep is the most sacred thing we do, and I protect it stubbornly from obligations that might pry me from it. Like my Italian ancestors, I nap nearly every day after lunch—a habit that feels like a rarity in bustling New York City, I’d argue. Yet I can’t say that I ever feel truly rested. In fact, I’m always chasing restfulness, searching for it in upscale pajamas, magnesium lotions and meditation apps that promise of dreamy peace.
As a travel writer and stand-out sleeper, I’ve watched the rise of sleep tourism with a sense of superiority: Couldn’t any tourism be “sleep” tourism if you prioritized sleep over sightseeing, tours, and tastings? (I don’t know what competition I thought I was winning.) Yet on a recent visit to the cliffside Waldorf Astoria Los Pedregal in Los Cabos, Mexico, for a three-night sleep and wellness retreat, I realized that all my years of DIY sleep tourism—i.e. simply sleeping a lot while on vacation—had been amateurish. And that maybe I had been missing the point.
Over the course of the retreat, wellness expert and yoga instructor Phyllicia Victoria led sound baths, gentle yoga, and journaling exercises by the whale-flecked sea. The first night, in a candle-lit room alongside blankets and tea, she led my fellow sleep tourists and me in a calming sound bath. Afterwards, I floated back to my room to find an actual bath: atop the deep, filled-up soaking tub sat a tray of calming lavender and rosemary bath salts, a honey-infused face mask, and lavender body oil. To my surprise, the real magic happened in the morning: After a short beachside yoga flow, Bonanno led us in a gratitude journaling exercise, and then spoke about restfulness. Good rest isn’t just something to think about at nighttime, she explained, but also in the morning: How can we set up our days to find moments of rest and release?
“I believe in the duality of life,” Victoria told me. “If you want to sleep peacefully, you have to wake up peacefully as well—one cannot truly exist without the other.” I chewed on the notion that the mornings of a sleep retreat mattered just as much as the evenings. “Allow yourself time to wake up with the sun, gently take in the natural light, and, instead of popping right onto your cellphone, use the time to reflect, journal, slowly sip your tea or coffee, [do] breath work, or even some gentle stretches to start the blood flow to energize you,” she said. “The same way you start your day, you can end it.”
