Spas Worth Their Salt

Jordan and the Dead Sea

Given that the Dead Sea is the only spa destination with biblical billing, it gets overlooked. (And misrepresented: Since the Dead Sea is fed only by the Jordan River, it's technically a lake.) But the opening of the Middle East's largest spa here—Jordan's 33,000-square-foot Anantara Spa at the Kempinski Hotel Ishtar—along with two other outsize yet very good Westerner-friendly ones, is raising the country's spa profile. The resorts share what's still a fairly undeveloped coastline, along with a passion for salt scrubs and mud wraps, so there are plenty of good reasons to sink to the lowest point on earth, 1,400 feet below sea level, to be exact. Another reason is that the Dead Sea is shrinking at a rate of about three feet a year. "Get it while you can," says Kempinski's marketing manager, Ashraf Abul Huda.

While the Marriott name conjures up my last business trip to Ohio, the Jordan Valley Marriott Resort & Spa is an up-market interpretation, done oasis-style with pretty patios, pools, and flowering foliage, just steps from the shore. And service is surprisingly attentive. The Dead Sea Extravagance is the treatment to get at the 22-room spa. It's a half-hour soak in a dramatically lit hydrotherapy tub full of diluted Dead Sea water (I could practically feel my skin softening, a change dermatologists attribute to the magnesium), followed by a fine desert-sand scrub, a green black Dead Sea mud wrap (slimy yet somehow luxurious), and a light massage. Many of the 233 guest rooms—as well as the spa's relaxation areas—have terraces with sea views, which take in brilliant orange red sunsets and, across the water, Israel. US$210-$422, 962-5-356-0400.
Read more on SpaFinder