Fauna Journal / March 20, 2023
Wild Wellness at Londolozi
In my life, I’ve been lucky enough to spend plenty of quality time in the outdoors – from fishing the Texas coast as a child to hiking and safaris as an adult. I started Fauna Travel to help others find the same deep connection with nature because it’s been so important to me. Londolozi Private Game Reserve in South Africa shares this ethos. They pioneered the luxury photographic safari and are now leading the industry in an important new direction, wilderness wellness.
The concept is based on the scientifically supported premise that a connection to nature can facilitate well-being and heal trauma. The following quote from the Londolozi website summarizes their wellness offering and particularly resonated with me because I recently wrote something similar about luxury.
Working with our trained wellness practitioners, therapists and wilderness guides, we invite you to deepen your experience with the African wilderness and to find within you a sense of wellbeing. In the hurried world of today, true luxury is time to oneself in search of self-healing and connection to nature.
Londolozi.com
The center of wellness activity at Londolozi is the Healing House, a reimagined spa, located at Varty Camp. The space was created by mother-daughter team Shan Varty and Bronwyn Varty-Laburn on land that once was home to the original family bush camp, and their design “honor[s] sacred traditions and the rhythms of nature.” The Healing House has many elements of a contemporary spa but combines ancient healing methods with modern technology.
Healing practices include massage, aromatherapy, life coaching, sound healing, the Enneagram, and reiki. Daily yoga classes are also now included in your stay and are suitable for all skill levels. Ideally, this connection with your breath and body will carry throughout your experience and deepen your connection with nature on your game drives or walking safaris.
This wellness safari space is a place of remembering, a shift from the world of doing into the world of being, a chance to re-discover your own nature and access a deep and natural intelligence which lies within the still core of your own wild self.
Londolozi.com
Each treatment room at the Healing House has its own theme. For example, there is a room decorated with rose quartz to facilitate love and the opening of the heart, a blue room for relaxation, and a room in muted tones that uses Pulsed Electromagnetic Frequency Therapy to promote healing. Having personally experienced the benefits of cold plunges, I’m particularly attracted to their River Room which includes an infrared sauna and cold plunge pool overlooking the wilderness.
The Healing House would be beneficial in isolation, but its effect is compounded when combined with a safari, which is a true escape from the constant overstimulation of modern life. The cadence of your day at Londolozi follows a natural rhythm that supports healthy rest. Guests wake at dawn for morning game drives, followed by a quiet afternoon of reading or napping, and then an early bedtime after dinner and conversation around a campfire. A mindfulness meditation practice against the backdrop of wilderness only deepens the restoration so that your body is genuinely calm. In this state, you may feel a sense of oneness with the wild world around you. The daily game drives then take on a greater significance:
The movement of the game drive vehicle becomes a moving meditation – the simplest way to access a contemplative state for complete meditation beginners. Add to this encounters with wild animals in their natural habitat and nature truly begins to show you the beauty of the wordless world all around you.
Londolozi.com
Read more about the psychology of safari on the Londolozi blog for more information on the science behind the practices.
Twice per year in December, Londolozi offers a Healing House Retreat, a 5-day experience built around the Healing House and its natural wellness philosophy. During their stay, guests will combine meditative game drives, qigong, bodywork, sound healing, yoga nidra, and time spent immersed in the silence of nature into a transformative and rejuvenating stay in nature.
We believe healing and happiness happens naturally when in the right environment. Every offering is carefully curated to illuminate the links that help us remember that we belong to all things… we are all connected.
Boyd Varty, Co-owner of Londolozi
You can experience a taste of the Healing House right now via Londolozi’s online Mindfulness Nature Connection Challenge. It was created during the pandemic for those of us on lockdown away from nature, but it is still relevant and accessible through their website. The course includes a daily meditation and journaling exercise to deepen your connection with nature and yourself. I took it as part of writing this article and have had some illuminating insights about my place in life from it.
Contact us to book a visit to Londolozi’s Healing House as part of your South African safari. For more information, visit our Londolozi page or watch the video below.
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