What Is Insider's Guide to Spas?

Welcome. Insider's Guide to Spas came about from my desire to help consumers sort through the wonderful but often confusing world of spa and wellness. As a spa critic and speaker, and as the founding Editor in Chief of Organic Spa Magazine, as well as a founder and former Editor in Chief of American Spa magazine, I've reported on and watched the spa and wellness movement take off from a very interesting vantage point.

Through my years of experience, I have the unique ability to explain what the spa world is all about to the consumer—and to explain what the consumer needs and desires in their spa experience to the spa world.

I wrote my first spa story back in the late 1980s for a fitness magazine, and I launched American Spa in 1997. At that time, spas were just beginning to blossom, and the spa industry in this country was virtually unheard of. Since then, spas have grown more quickly than anyone could have imagined. (According to a study conducted by the International Spa Association, spa revenues in the U.S. surpass those of other leisure activities, such as motion picture box office receipts.)

Open any magazine or newspaper, and you're bound to read one glowing review or another of a pricey new spa destination or indigenous spa treatment or super-duper beauty product you just can't live without. Spas have influenced everything from home design to restaurant décor. Spa, and all that those three little letters conjure up, is being used to sell products from cars to nail care to laundry detergent.

There are plenty of spa reviews out there, but very few writers who understand the spa experience or who have even visited the spas they are writing about. That's where Insider's Guide to Spas steps in. Consider the Guide your personal spa adviser. Someone with more than twenty years of experience who knows the ins and outs and the ups and downs of the spa world—and who doesn't hesitate to tell it like it is.

What does Insider's Guide to Spas hope to achieve? To help you sort through all of the hype, to educate you about the spa experience, to help you find the right spa, and most importantly—to help you discover the true meaning of spa for you.