So I've been doing travel writing since September, and I was thinking of persuing a story that I have since abandoned about luxury spas that offer education and enlightenment. I've changed topics and now I'm writing about cooking classes at resorts, because so many of the luxury spas and resorts offering education and enlightenment freaked me out. There's a bunch of spa trends that I think are sort of unsavory--first, that rehab is becoming glamourous. All of the bug young celebs go or have gone. Lots of spas I looked into offer detox packages. And some of the fancier rehabs look like resorts and offer resort like activities. Second, that resorts are marketing wellness to people who are unbalanced with "experts" that are often life coaches or gurus. And there is a very pricey set of "medical spas", that's what they're called, where actual doctors are on staff. Having spent much of my youth perilously close to being forced into a mental hospital, I didn't desire a vacation at a resort that errily reminded me of one, which is why I'm writing the cooking story instead. And of course, in terms of the problems that plague the mental health community, this one is a pretty low priority. It's more often the case that mental illness is stigmatized than glamourized. But glamorizing mental illness is just the lesser of evils. These luxury trends have a way of permeating the culture. And I think luxury wellness packages for people whose lives are unbalanced undermines the utterly unglamourous work of recovery, and obscures the illnesses themeselves. Oh, and the picture? That's me at the great wall of china.
