by Anne Dimon

With fabulous spas and spectacular hiking trails Arizona has become North America’s Leading Wellness Destination

It’s alive! Freeze dried when it was no more than 10-hours old, the now newly-activated Pevonia seaweed mask that esthetician Luanne Pepper, is slathering all over my face is breathing new life into the skin. Cultivated in northern France, “this fresh sea weed is of a similar cell structure to skin,” explains Pepper, therapist at The Phoenician’s Centre for Well-being in Scottsdale, Arizona. “This is why the skin is able to absorb so many of its nutrients.” Think of a 50-minute face lift, she says. It firms, re-mineralizes, deeply hydrates, oxygenates and leaves the skin with a healthy glow. Pepper calls it “a beauty blast.”

Outside this award-winning spa, it’s another glorious day in Scottsdale. Every time I’ve visited I’ve felt there’s something about the destination that seems to make a body feel alive, the spirit uplifted, the mind clearer. It could be the desert, the mountains, or the near perfect climate (more than 330 days of sunshine, they say). It could be the expansive canvas of sky. Today it’s uniformly blue without a blemish of cloud. Combine all that with the ever-expanding spa culture and incredible opportunities for inspirational hiking, and it’s easy to understand why Arizona is quickly becoming the leading “wellness destination” on the continent.

Here at the Centre of Well-Being at the five-diamond Phoenician resort, services such as the Personalized Facial place it on the leading edge for anti-aging and rejuvenation treatments. Here and at other Arizona spas, other offerings also help position this as a distinctive spa destination: for instance, unique treatments that give spa-goers a sense of place.

Last spring after four days of trekking down into the dusty bowels of the Havasu Canyon with Arizona Outback Adventures, my whole body cried out for pampering. The guides at AOA suggested the Havasupai treatment at the Willow Stream, Scottsdale Fairmont Princess. The design of the spa is actually inspired by the turquoise pools of the Havasu Canyon and its incredible 100-foot waterfall. The spa’s signature Havasupai Body Oasis Experience is expressly designed for those like me – who have just crawled out of the canyon – or those who simply feel like they have. (CONTINUE...)