How We Made It
We’re firm believers in first-hand experience, and this guide is built from exactly that. Artificial intelligence, after all, will have a hard time expressing the precise feel of a massage, the aroma of a sauna, or the temperature of a tropical breeze. Consider this the anti-AI guide, built from the on-the-ground expertise of our editors, with a Vogue-specific perspective—and a little humor thrown in for good measure. Any spa guide worth its salt-scrub shouldn’t take itself too seriously.
For this iteration of the spa guide, we have refined the list to focus on destination spas—places that are really worth the journey—since so many of us are now orienting travel not just around what we will see when we arrive, but how we want to feel at the destination. With that in mind, we’ve made some additions that are off the beaten path. You may notice that a few of our city stalwarts have migrated off the 100 Best list onto some of our city lists. These beloved local institutions still rank high in our estimation, but this year we wanted to make a bit more room for some of our farther-flung destinations.
As enjoyable as it would have been to visit all 100 properties so, we did not update every single write up this year with a new visit. There are about two dozen totally new spas on the list; those we visited in the past 12 months. We also re-visited a handful of spas that were previously on the list to update those entries, either starting from scratch when a full-scale revision was warranted or tweaking the existing write ups. All the reviews have been fact-checked for dramatic updates. (Though if you visit one of these places and find anything mis-represented, please let us know!)
Check back again next year to see what made the 2026 update, and in the meantime, we wish you a very relaxing trip.
Who Wrote It
The first Vogue Global Spa Guide was edited by Chloe Schama, Jessica Diner, and Florence O’Connor, with contributions from staff and freelancers with a specialty in wellness and travel. Read more about them here!
Read more from Vogue’s Global Spa Guide.