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6 ‘glowcation’ destinations for your next beauty and wellness fix, from Seoul to Marrakech

A trip built around a wellness treatment, beauty ritual or targeted pharmacy haul, ‘glowcations’ are trending throughout the travel world

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The Friedrichsbad in Baden-Baden has been running its 17-stage bathing circuit since 1877. The sequence moves through steadily rising heat, a soap-and-brush scrub partway through, then a cold plunge that resets the whole cycle before it climbs again.
Carolina Malis

For many, a holiday ends with a suitcase full of souvenirs. For a growing number of travellers, however, it ends with skin that looks different – glowier – from how it did at the beginning of the trip.

This is the whole premise behind the glowcation, a term everywhere in recent travel trend reports that describes a very specific kind of trip: one built around a wellness treatment, beauty ritual or very targeted pharmacy haul.
During a normal holiday, many people will squeeze in an odd spa afternoon between museum visits. A glowcation, however, is a trip where the treatment is the entire reason for going – a clinic in Seoul, a hammam in Marrakech, a thermal bath in Germany – for something that cannot be replicated at home.

That is not to say that you cannot get a facial, a skin booster or that same treatment without leaving your neighbourhood, but the real draw is usually something that does not travel well: that country’s fresh water or clay, or a decades-old technique in this country.

That exclusivity means that cities around the world have come to expect these wellness tourists. In Seoul, for example, there are hundreds of clinics fighting for business. With so much competition, this means shorter waits for clients – an appointment that takes months to land at home can be done in the same week you arrive.

According to Skyscanner’s 2026 travel trends report, travel planning and advice conversations within Reddit’s beauty subreddits have grown 215 per cent year on year. That same report says that 27 per cent of Gen Z travellers are seeking treatments or skincare shopping while travelling in 2026, while nearly a third of people now shop duty-free for skincare.

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