Grab some cucumber slices and prepare to cancel all your plans. If your holiday fantasy involves immediately putting on a ridiculously plush bathrobe and refusing to take it off for a solid week, we have some excellent news.
The 2026 World Spa Awards have named the best wellness spots on the planet, and if you love world-class pampering, you might want to book a one-way ticket to Europe. While New York took home a massive win for best hotel spa, Italy absolutely dominated this year’s 12th annual awards, racking up wins in categories including best overall spa destination, best wellness retreat and even the world’s most spectacular thermal grotto.
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The winners are decided by public and industry vote, with anyone able to register and cast a ballot for their favourites online. This year’s voting ran through the summer, with spas first competing regionally across nine areas worldwide: Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, the Indian Ocean, Latin America, the Middle East, North America and Oceania, before the regional winner with the most votes overall in each category went on to claim the global title.
Taking the title of World’s Best Hotel Spa is the Guerlain Wellness Spa at the Waldorf Astoria New York, while World’s Best Resort Spa goes to Lefay SPA World, part of the Lefay Resort & SPA Dolomiti in Italy, a dramatic, high-altitude Alpine retreat that’s picked up serious acclaim since it opened. Italy also claims World’s Best Spa Destination, on top of taking World’s Best Wellness Retreat for Palazzo Fiuggi, a medical-grade wellness clinic made around the region’s mineral-rich thermal springs.
For something even more unusual, World’s Best Thermal Grotto Spa went to the Grotta Giusti Thermal Spa Resort, also in Italy, home to an otherworldly network of underground grottoes where guests can soak in naturally heated mineral waters deep beneath the Tuscan hillside.
World’s Best Spa Signature Treatment went to a session with Ibu Ketut Mursi, an intuitive blind healer working out of the Mandapa Spa at Mandapa, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve in Bali, while World’s Best Mineral & Hot Springs Spa was awarded to SPA 3000 at Austria’s AQUA DOME, and World’s Best Longevity Programme went to the Advanced Longevity course at SHA Mexico.
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