Six-one and powerful from years of yoga, Jones is an Amazon, and she delivers the deepest, most intense, and most effective massage I've ever received. She uses her body weight to exile the knots in my shoulders and uses her shoulders to elongate my taut hamstrings. Holding my ankles, she lifts me almost completely off the table and swings my legs until my hips release, but working on my neck, she backs off the moment my muscles start to tense up from the intensity. By the time she finishes, I feel taller and freer than I have in years. My body fits me again like the custom-made garment it is. As will my entire three-day stay, which is being crafted by Pure Kauai. The vacation company is neither spa nor resort but a consummate tailor of bespoke experience, using the island of Kauai as the setting. Led by CEO Phil Jones, Pure Kauai pulls together a group of very talented people ("healers," as Jones describes them) dedicated to bringing all things spa--relaxation, fitness, treatments, and healthy food--to its guests, whom it houses in some of the north shore's most luxurious vacation homes. Thus, while I'm being massaged in the master bedroom of a 1,300-square-foot villa, a private chef is upstairs preparing an Indonesian curry, redolent with coriander, for dinner. My boyfriend, Andy, and I will eat it in our robes and then doze off on the cushiony sofa while watching a DVD--blissfully tired from a day that starts with a dawn Pilates class in a lovely hilltop studio, after which we eat delicious omelets and fresh pineapple. We spend the rest of the day being led on an arduous hike--we cover four very hilly miles in six hours--along the Na Pali Coast, one of the state's wildest shores, by a guide who knows the area like the back of her hand.

Privacy and customization are the keystones of the new luxury, and they're increasingly flanked by health and spa-centric wellness. Pure Kauai is at the vanguard in emphasizing both halves of the equation. It gives its clients a home away from home with a staff that sees to all the details (and makes the operation look effortless), and it places fitness, mostly through outdoor activity, at the center of the experience. This is especially the case when guests come to lose weight, as many do, including "celebrities who come for six weeks to drop 30 pounds for a role," says Jones. "Guests are really pampered, but at the same time, they can be pushed--in a pampering way."

That's the case on our Na Pali Coast hike. The rugged trail hugs a mountainside above the Pacific, and it ascends and descends some 650 feet. Parts of it require us to scramble over rocks; others, to keep our balance on treacherous ocher mud. The reward is the otherworldly scenery: a lush tapestry of greens blanketing the volcanic rises to our left, as many shades of fathomless blue down below on our right. Overhead, guava trees hang heavy with ripe, sweet fruit, and flanking the trail are verbena bushes whose little purple flowers taste curiously like mushrooms. Guide Noli Hoye doesn't let our photo breaks last long, and a few hours in, when we have to ford a knee-deep cold stream, she gently but firmly prods us along. And, really, we can't complain: She's also carrying our water and lunch (gourmet wraps, baby bananas, and, this being Hawaii, macadamia nuts), which our chef prepared that morning. We eat on a rocky beach, reachable only by foot, on the far side of that chill stream, watching the waves rise into perfect frothy curls. My thighs quake on the way back, but the promise of a massage keeps me going.