Nanuku is a five-star, luxury resort that plays host to an array of wellness offerings, including retreats, sea and land adventures, yoga, an open-air spa and fitness classes to suit all levels. Photo / Nanuka Resort
Nanuku is a five-star, luxury resort that plays host to an array of wellness offerings, including retreats, sea and land adventures, yoga, an open-air spa and fitness classes to suit all levels. Photo / Nanuka Resort
If you want more than just a relaxing holiday, rather a reconnection to self, it may be time to book an island wellness retreat, writes Lucy Slight
Nestled quietly along a stretch of pristine sandy beaches, tucked between swaying coconut palms, frangipani and hibiscus, you’ll find Fiji’s Nanuku Resort. It’s located on the southern coast of Viti Levu on a private, 202ha coastal estate. The 2.5-hour drive from Nadi Airport may be long, but it’s a small price to pay for the arrival: an oasis of barefoot luxury where Fijian hospitality abounds.
I’ve come to Nanuku for a five-day Vibrant Life Retreat, a collaboration between the resort, award-winning San Francisco-based cookbook author Amanda Haas and certified wellness coach Hailey Lott.
The retreat is based around Amanda’s 2019 cookbook The Vibrant Life: Eat Well, Be Well, which contains not only healthy, flavour- and colour-filled recipes, but guided meditations, body weight exercises and yoga asanas, tips for sleep and plenty more tools to encourage you to live your best life.
The main pool at Nanuku Resort overlooks the beach and is complete with a swim-up cocktail bar. Photo / Nanuku Resort
I know no one here. On the first night, I learn I am the only attendee who isn’t from the US, yet I instantly feel at home among the group of 14 women and two men, spanning ages from their mid-20s to mid-50s.
There are lawyers and leadership coaches, nonprofit founders, executive assistants and even an NFL player. But titles and life experiences blur in the presence of a shared goal: to feel well, eat well, and connect, not just with each other but with ourselves, in paradise.
This marks the longest time I have ever spent away from my two young children, and like most mothers, I’d say I desperately need it.
Breathing it all in
On the first official day of the retreat in one of Nanuku’s expansive hilltop villas overlooking the endless blue of the Pacific, the 16 of us settle in for a breathwork session, the first of many. The morning practices vary; one day, it’s guided visualisation led by Hailey, whose voice is so soothing she could be reading from a calculus textbook and still lull me into a trance.
Each morning began with breathwork, led by certified wellness coach Hailey Lott. Photo / Lucy Slight
Another day, we focus on deep diaphragmatic breathing, tuning in to the sound of the waves lapping the shore, the birds in the distance, the occasional “Bula!” drifting in from the resort grounds.
Each morning’s practice becomes a way to recalibrate before the day unfolds. Hailey’s introduction of sound bowls and bamboo chimes gently reminds me that even in stillness, there is rhythm, and I feel a real urge to learn to play these instruments myself.
Eating from the earth
Because food is a central focus of the retreat, each day includes an immersive culinary experience celebrating traditional Fijian ingredients and techniques. The Fijian Food Safari is a journey into the heart of local food culture and sets the tone.
Coconut, cumquat, mango and breadfruit trees line the roadside as we leave the resort by bus, their branches heavy with ripening fruit. Armed with woven coconut frond baskets and long bamboo sticks, we forage for what will become part of our lunch. Our Nanuku guide, Josh, shares a simple truth as we pick: “Nature is talking to us every day.”
Fiery hot chillies for sale from the local market at Pacific Harbour, a short drive from Nanuku Resort. Photo / Lucy Slight
We drive to Pacific Harbour, a small township established in the late 1960s. At the quiet riverside market, we buy plantains, avocados, fiery chillies, ginger and cucumbers.
Back at the resort these ingredients are transformed into kokoda – Fiji’s take on ceviche and one of Nanuku’s signature dishes – featuring Spanish mackerel, lime juice, coconut milk, coriander and spring onions. A freshly squeezed juice of passionfruit, cumquat, lime and pineapple tastes like sunshine in a coconut cup.
Later we gather for a traditional lovo, an underground earth oven feast akin to a hāngī, where we prepare marinated chicken, lamb, and root vegetables, wrapping them in coconut fronds before they are placed over hot stones. As the scent of roasting meat fills the air, I remember more of Josh’s earlier wisdom: “Mother Earth gives you what you need. Not what you want.” Tonight, we are lucky, it’s both.
Amanda’s outdoor cooking class is another highlight. Taking three recipes from The Vibrant Life, she adapts them to suit the island’s bounty, swapping ahi tuna for fresh pakapaka in her poke, using sizeable Fijian cucumbers in a refreshing salad and replacing rice noodles with buckwheat soba in a Thai-style dish.
The key lesson here is that simplicity and flexibility in the kitchen, and always embracing seasonal produce, can yield meals that are both nourishing and extraordinary even when time is of the essence.
Amanda Haas preparing a fresh Thai-style salad made with local ingredients for a cooking class during the retreat. Photo / Chloe Lott.
Experiencing Fiji’s natural wonders
While the on-ground activities are deeply fulfilling, I quickly learn that to truly experience Fiji you must venture beyond the resort. At Nanuku, this can be as easy as borrowing a paddleboard at 6.30am and watching the sunrise on the water or grabbing a snorkel and flippers and heading out to the resort’s “house reef”. Located off the beach straight in front of the hotel, the reef teems with tropical clownfish, angelfish and colourful coral.
Further afield on the third day of the retreat, our group piles into three longboats and travels 30 minutes up the Navua River on a guided trip to a secluded waterfall. The “Anaconda River” is alive with lush greenery, occasional fishermen, a herd of cows, and a lone chestnut-coloured horse.
After a short, easy hike we arrive at the waterfall, its cascading rush of water is both a spectacle and an invitation. We dive in, the crispness of the fresh water a welcome contrast to the tropical heat.
A 30-minute boat ride up the river took guests to a secluded waterfall for a welcome dip. Photo / Lucy Slight
Another day we take a small boat a few minutes down the Taunovo River, which runs parallel to the resort, to Nanuku’s iteitei, a farm-to-table garden where the resort grows much of its produce. Rows of eggplant, taro, cassava, ginger, pineapple, guava, sugarcane and bananas thrive under the Fijian sun and we’re able to pick whatever is ready to harvest for the cooking class with Amanda that follows.
The river itself is home to mud crabs and trevally that come up to feed at high tide. Every village in Fiji, we learn, has a similar garden, a testament to the symbiotic relationship between the people and the land.
During a visit to Nanuku's own fruit and vegetable garden, Lucy Slight has a turn pulling cassava from the ground. Photo / Chloe Lott
More than a retreat
Beyond the retreat Nanuku Resort offers a wealth of activities for all guests and a recent $12 million refresh means no details are spared. Villas ranging from beachfront bures to expansive residences are havens of tranquility, complete with private plunge pools and outdoor showers. Even the Fijian President has a holiday home here.
Nanuku Resort has recently undergone a $12 million refurbishment. Photo / Nanuku Resort
Days at Nanuku can be as active or restful as you please with paddleboarding, snorkelling, spearfishing, island-hopping, indulging in spa treatments or simply lounging at the main pool’s swim-up bar, cocktail in hand. Cultural experiences abound, from firewalking ceremonies to meke performances, where storytelling unfolds through dance and song.
Our final night is marked by a kava ceremony, where we sip the earthy, mildly intoxicating drink prepared from the root of a pepper plant that is native to the South Pacific. It’s a communal ritual, one that dissolves barriers and fosters connection.
Nanuku Resort offers experiences such as firewalking ceremonies, an ancient Fijian tradition performed by descendants of the original firewalking tribes. Photo / Chloe Lott
As we take large gulps (as is custom) from our coconut cups, laughter and conversation blend with the rhythmic strumming of a guitar and a group singalong to the likes of Bob Marley, The Beatles, Neil Diamond and John Denver. It is quite simply the perfect way to end this journey.
Leaving in peace
As I pack my bags I realise something: this retreat has given me space to breathe, to reflect, to move and to nourish myself. But more than that, it has reminded me that wellness is not a destination, but a practice.
While I certainly can’t commit to this much me-time at home with children in tow, I feel encouraged to do a few more little things that will hopefully make a big difference to how I feel, like planting more veges in my garden, experimenting more in the kitchen, moving my body every day or making the most of any little pockets of alone time I’m get.
I may be leaving Fiji, but a part of me is staying, woven into the fabric of this place, its people, its land, its spirit and the new friends I’ve made, all of whom live on the other side of the world but have helped me create some very special memories to take back home.
Lucy Slight flew to Nanuku Resort Fiji courtesy of Fiji Airways and Storey Hotel Management Group.
