Atmantan - A Wellness Resort That Tends To The Young And Busy With Equal Vigour

Gone are the days when wellness retreats would be targeted at the unfit and the long in the tooth. Atmantan near Pune is a wellness resort that tends to the young and busy with equal vigour. We took our cover girl, Athiya Shetty, for a well-deserved break from filming schedules to the tranquillity of the western ghats.

- Rashima Nagpal

A DECADE AGO, words like WELLNESS, DIGITAL DETOX, and MENTAL HEALTH didn’t exist in the lexicon of the youth. But things have changed. As the kids put it, “peace is priority” today. Consider this: almost half of India’s population today is under 25 years of age. In the age of pervasive technology, it makes sense that the younger generation be introduced to the concept of holistic well-being early in life.

Travelling itself has been recognised to boost your health. Forest walks, for instance, have proven benefits to both, the mind and body.But of late, the trend of wellness tourism has grown by leaps and bounds. According to a 2018 report by US-based Global Wellness Institute, the wellness tourism industry is growing at the rate of 6.5 per cent per year, which is twice the growth rate of the tourism industry as a whole, with India alone having recorded over 17 million wellness trips between 2015 and 2017.

Keeping up with the global trend, world-class wellness resorts like Atmantan, near Pune, are upping the ante. As we arrived at the resort for this magazine’s cover shoot, I was surprised by the resort’s modest appearance, especially given its stunning setting. A two-hour drive from the airport in Pune brings you to Mulshi, a verdant little village at the foothills of the Sahyadris. Here, Atmantan sits on a prime piece of land. Across its 42-acre premises, spread out on a hill slope, one can take in panoramic views of the surrounding valley and the Mulshi Lake.