PRESS & MEDIA COVERAGE
"This gorgeous beach retreat offers the perfect combination of relaxation and extreme fitness. Daily activities include yoga, beach walks, bike tours, zumba, power abs, circuit training and salsa dance classes. Celebrities such as Reese Witherspoon, Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz have attended the Tulum Bikini Boot Camp. See more about Bikini Boot Camp
The luxury eco-chic resort Amansala in Mexico’s Tulum is already renowned worldwide for its high end bikini bootcamp breaks. This January, its little sister hotel Amansala Chica opens its doors, just down the beach. With just 20 rooms, upscale finishes in natural driftwood and a real organic feel, it’s the new destination du jour for a healthy yet oh-so-chic break away. The five day Destination Detox cleansing programme includes massages on the rooftop, a light Mexican-influenced menu, morning beach walks, raw food cooking classes and daily yoga.
The ritziest retreats where Hollywood’s hottest stars get fit.
Famous fans: Jude Law, Sienna Miller, Cindy Crawford, Drew Barrymore, Charlize Theron, Linda Evangelista
Never before has a boot camp felt so beautiful! The Amansala is a magnet when it comes to attracting big name stars, but don’t be fooled by the gorgeous, relaxed beach setting—you will definitely work hard. Here, guests can reconnect to themselves and nature through exercise, healthy eating, and relaxation.
Call it holiday fever or renewed confidence in my fitness ability. But perhaps the credit lies with the trainers, a dynamic, down-to-earth bunch from all over the world, who know their stuff and bring atmosphere to every session.
Amansala is an Eco-Chic Resort and Spa, because they offer bikini and detox retreats. Enjoy a six-day stay with healthy (and some raw) meals, daily yoga and meditation, massages and facials, training and cooking classes – many might not think of it as a vacation, but in my ears, it sounds like luxury. They recently opened their sister hotel, Amansala Chica, which is smaller but just a minute away. They’re both designed in beautiful Moroccan-style interiors, unlike many other Tulum hotels.
The sparkling white sands of Tulum, a hippie chic town on Mexico's east coast Riviera Maya (just south of Spring Break central, Cancun), are lined with intimate hideaways that are the definition of barefoot luxury. And Amansala, a blissfully unplugged collection of 25 thatch-roofed cabanas set in the heart of the Mexican village, epitomizes Tulum's vibe. The property hosts numerous wellness retreats including a raw food detox program and its wildly popular 5-day Bikini Boot Camp, which has a unofficial legion of famous fans including Drew Barrymore, Charlize Theron, Sienna Miller and Cindy Crawford. In addition to beach yoga sessions, dance classes, and cycling excursions, the program features Coco Loco, a circuit workout in the sand. During the hour-long workout, the coconuts are utilized in a variety of fitness moves: Think swung upward like kettle bells, tricep kickbacks, side twists with passes and more—before being cut open and served as an ultra-hydrating, post-workout drink.
TASCHEN has found the most exquisite and inspirational yoga retreats around the world. Amanasala has been featured on Taschen’s Great Yoga Retreats as the perfect combination of beach life and yoga classes.
Reese Witherspoon, Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz took time out of their busy schedules and jetted down to Tulum, Mexico this week for a girls-only fitness vacation at the swanky Amansala Resort where they are enlisted in Bikini Bootcamp – and RadarOnline.com has exclusive details about their luxurious retreat.
Amansala, a blend of the Sanskrit words for water (ambha) and peace (santi), describes itself as eco-chic. Like many other places in Tulum, the boutique resort has a rustic, low-fi elegance. Its 24 beachfront cabanas have private baths and terraces, and electricity is available only from dusk until 11 p.m. There are two yoga studios, including one on the beach, and the open-air dining room serves mango margaritas and fresh fish. The town of Tulum is a 10-minute taxi ride (or a 30-minute bike ride) away. Also nearby are Mayan ruins on t he cliffs of the Caribbean Sea and cenotes, or freshwater sinkholes, for swimming and snorkeling.
The location alone makes the Amansala Resort a perfect addition to any wish list — it's situated in Tulum along a secluded beach in the Mayan Riviera. But it's the bootcamp retreat that I'm after! The resort offers a six-night program that's made up of fitness classes, healthy menu options, spa services, and plenty of active excursions in the area. Yoga on the beach? Fresh papaya smoothies? Yes, please!
Escape to a yoga or bootcamp retreat along the beautiful beach of Tulum. During your stay with Amansala, expect to deepen your practice while also participating in extracurricular activities like snorkeling and kiteboarding. And as if it couldn't get any better, meals and massages are included in every package.
Reese Witherspoon, Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore took to the beaches of Tulum, Mexico for some fun in the sun earlier this week. On Sunday and Monday, the three leading ladies showed off their impressive bikini bods on the beach!
Amansala Resort: Tulum, Mexico
Celeb calling: Cindy Crawford, Drew Barrymore, Jude Law, Charlize Theron
Imagine practising yoga on a white sand beach with turquoise waters and palm trees—an ideal setting to connect with your soul. Choose from a bikini boot camp, destination detox and beach ‘n bliss retreat, where everything from morning hikes, to salsa classes and organic meals will give you the beach bod you’ve always wanted.
...Barrymore also shared a #peopleilove photo from her recent three-night trip to Amansala Eco Chic Resort in Mexico, where she enjoyed a mud spa treatment with nine of her fellow mom friends from her daughter's school.
"#peopleilove me and the ladies! Some of my favorite women! Sometimes you might as well jump! This moment will be in my memory banks forever #sofree #sohappy #besttime #onlyoneinshorts," she captioned the post.
Experience I have to admit, the idea of working out for a whole week solid was softened by the fact I’d be doing it on the sunny beaches of’ TulumeCrusoe-meets-luxury resort is positioned steps away from the white sandy beach, where most of the activities take place, so you return buff as well as bronzed.
The programme is a “one size fits all” affair, but because the boot camp attracts a mix of fitness levels, you can dip in and out as you choose. Mornings start with a 30-minute beach walk and an hour ot yoga, before a breakfast of fruit and Mexican eggs (scrambled with hot peppers to rev up your metabolism). Then each day, a different programme of activities are on offer, including salsa classes, circuits, tribal dancing, Pilates, kayaking, and snorkeling in the sea reefs, so you almost forget you’re working out. Every evening. there’s more yoga (actually more challenging than I anticipated), a well-deserved group dinner, followed by an early collapse into bed.
Results It would be tough not to lose weight and tone up with this level of exercise. but I also came back with a more mellow mind and the ability to touch my toes for that time in a long time! Roberta Messy-Birch How hardcore: 8/10.
Amansala Bikini Boot Camp (amansala.com) offers a six-night package, from $2135 (about £1,370) including taxes. The prices are the same all year round include accommodation based on double occupancy, all meals. (two spa treatments, a clay treatment, daily yoga, fitness classes, hiking and other excursions to explore the island. If Mexico is a little too far, Amansala has just set up camp on the beaches of Ibiza.
What’s more relaxing for a couple of new moms than a few days on the beach?
Reese Witherspoon, 36, and Drew Barrymore, 38, left babies Tennessee and Olive, both 5 months, at home, and joined pal Cameron Diaz, 40, and five other friends for fitness retreat Bikini Boot Camp at the Amansala Resort in Tulum earlier this month.
“It was a girls trip,” says a fellow guest. “They all seemed like great friends who were there to relax and have a good time.”
A good time, and a little hard work too.
If you want a bit more glamour with your beach vacation, you could forego retirement and book a trip to St. Barts. Or you could make like Sienna Miller and Kate Bosworth and head to Tulum, Mexico. Once the secret haunt of fashion industry insiders, it's become a buzzy boho beach escape. Join the magazine editors and actresses detoxing and downward-dogging at rustic eco-lodge Amansala (from $135 per night), drink in the barefoot beach party at Papaya Playa Project, and pick up a breezy caftan at Josa Tulum. At the thatched-roof, one-room Casa Violeta restaurant, you don't even have to leave your hammock to lunch on the zucchini carpaccio and grilled seafood. Then there's the famous Mayan ruins, swimming in freshwater cenotes, and sundowner margaritas with your (well-manicured) feet in the sand.
“People today want a vacation with a purpose, something that makes them go home feeling better, looking better,” says Melissa Perlman, owner of Amansala, an eco-chic resort and fitness retreat in Tulum, Mexico. The resort’s six-day bikini boot camp is a Hollywood favorite for getting red carpet–ready. The exercise program mixes yoga, hardcore body sculpting, and cardio, with cave snorkeling, diving, and bike excursions to ancient Mayan ruins, as well as fresh organic meals and beachside massages. While weight loss is a common goal, the heart of the retreat is bringing beauty from the inside out. “Women tend to be very giving of themselves in their workplace and in their home, so they come to us looking to recharge their batteries, to reconnect with themselves, to check in with their bodies and to set new goals,” says Perlman.
When I arrived at eco-chic resort Amansala for Bikini Bootcamp, I was expecting just that – a week full of hard-core beach workouts to tone up my body for spring.
I was also escaping New York’s brutal winter and after a quick three-and-a-half hour flight from JFK to Cancun, bootcamp base is just a 90 minute drive to Mexico’s bohemian town of Tulum - a decidedly more exotic getaway than Miami for seasonally depressed New Yorkers.
What I wasn't expecting at Bikini Bootcamp was the spiritual journey that accompanied it and how the group of 18 women who had also traveled from America’s North East, Canada and London would be the ingredients to such a unique experience.
When Melissa Perlman started Bikini Bootcamp—a weeklong, yoga-heavy fitness retreat—at the Amansala Eco Chic Resort & Spa in 2002, the hotel was barely more than a tropical, rough-hewn shack on the beach. Today it's still a tropical, rough-hewn shack on the beach—it just has a few more palapas (not to mention celebrity clients, such as Sienna Miller and Cindy Crawford). According to Perlman, the worst thing you can bring are preconceived notions.
At Amansala, the water is Technicolor turquoise, the sand plush enough to sleep on, the air tinged with the scent of jungle flowers—and these are only a few of the reasons why this tranquil oasis is the ideal spot for a major mind-body reboot. Building on the success of the resort's Bikini Bootcamp fitness retreat (a fave of cool-girl celebs Sienna Miller and Drew Barrymore), the new six-day Destination Detox program includes a two-day raw-food cleanse with fruit-and-veggie-centric meals thereafter, daily yoga and meditation, a gamut of body-sculpting classes, nutritionist consultations, and decadent spa treatments.
Don't Miss: Perhaps the area's most awe-inspiring natural wonders are the cenotes—underwater caves where you can safely swim, featuring stalagmites and jarringly gorgeous schools of fish. From $200 per night
Summer weather means a mass exodus from the gym in favor of the beach, the trail, or the playing field—making it an opportune moment to break out of a tired exercise rut. Answering the call is an elevated breed of fitness retreat that takes vacationing as seriously as sweating. In destinations near and far, these getaways combine challenging classes (sometimes as many as four in a day) with scenic views, great food, and a team of trained experts in the service of pushing your workout to the next level.
YOGA
Amansala; Beach N’ Bliss Yoga Retreat
THE DESTINATION: Tulum, Mexico, on the turquoise waters of the Riviera Maya
THE CHALLENGE: Two daily vinyasa flow yoga sessions are spaced out by hikes and outings to see the nearby Mayan ruins, along with quick cool down dips in the Caribbean Sea.
THE DURATION: Packages from four to seven days
THE PERKS: The resort is eco-chic, with airy beachfront cabins and spacious outdoor yoga areas that will keep you feeling comfortable, even in the mid-afternoon heat. Also on the menu: healthful meals, deep tissue massages, and Mayan clay treatments.
The luxury eco-chic resort Amansala in Mexico’s Tulum is already renowned worldwide for its high end bikini bootcamp breaks. This January, its little sister hotel Amansala Chica opens its doors, just down the beach. With just 20 rooms, upscale finishes in natural driftwood and a real organic feel, it’s the new destination du jour for a healthy yet oh-so-chic break away. The five day Destination Detox cleansing programme includes massages on the rooftop, a light Mexican-influenced menu, morning beach walks, raw food cooking classes and daily yoga.
The beachfront town of Tulum, Mexico, on the southern edge of the Riviera Maya, has quickly become of one of the hottest destinations in Mexico. The New York Times last year referred to it as a "hotspot for fashion insiders." Here, what celebs to look out for, what to pack to get the Tulum look, and where to stay, eat, and party with the rest of the jet-set.
Read more: http://stylecaster.com/jet-set-guide-how-to-vacation-like-the-alist-in-tulum-mexico/#ixzz56is5MRvZ
A name that comes up in modern Tulum mythology is Melissa Perlman. She came from Manhattan in 2002, fell in love with it and opened Amansala, a funky spa resort where she created bikini boot camp, an exercise program for body-conscious women.
Her savvy (she claims to have coined the term “eco-chic,” which is all over Tulum) led her to lease a property at the far end of the beach — the former home of the 1980s drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. In 2006, Ms. Perlman set up Casa Magna there, a kind of open-air sand castle hotel with good house music, dim lighting, a yogic mood and a laid-back staff more attuned with themselves than with the guests.
At $400 or more a night, the hotel was favored by media insiders with crunchy affectations, like Camilla Nickerson, a contributing editor at Vogue, and Michael Pitt of “Boardwalk Empire.” Ms. Perlman lost the property in a complicated governmental glitch, but not her entrepreneurial love for the area: she just opened a new boutique hotel called Amansala Chica.
Of all the health retreats launched in the past decade, Bikini Bootcamp wins the prize for best name. Founded in 2002 by New Yorker Melissa Perlman, it is based at the boho-boutique resort of Amansala in Tulum, Mexico, a dream location that has helped attract celebrities including Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista. The problem was that to get the ultimate beach body Europeans had to travel halfway across the world, hence the launch of a new camp at Atzaro in north-east Ibiza. “The hotel is far enough from the bustle of Ibiza Town, yet close enough for a day trip,” says Perlman. Describing the program as a “tune-up for the mind, body and spirit”, she says it has evolved to include fitness yoga, excursions and menus that encourage guests to eat properly while losing weight.
REPRINTED FROM CONDÉ NAST TRAVELER
Wearing a super-skimpy Missoni bikini, the LOL actress was spotted emerging from the surf at the Amansala Eco-Chic Resort alongside a shirtless, hunky mystery man. During the solo vacation, Moore also indulged in massages, yoga classes, and other spa treatments.