Holistic retreats
Ulpotha Sanctuary, Sri Lanka
(0870 444 2702; www.ulpotha.com)
Cost: £1,200/£980 (winter/summer)
Gently immerse yourself in the rigours of yoga in the lush Sri Lankan foothills. The community's focus is bio-diverse organic farming and reforestation. Visitors combine Ashtanga yoga with hill walking, lake swimming and contemplation, and they can even help out with the farming. There are few distractions, with no electricity, hot water, or phones.
Prices include full board (on a twin share basis), airport transfers from Colombo, excursions, yoga and massage. Flights not included.
Cortijo Romero, Spain
(01494 782720; www.cortijo-romero.co.uk)
Cost: £345 for a week
This villa in the Alpujarras - an unspoilt area of mountains, rivers and ancient hill villages in Andalucia - focuses on the tuition and practice of the Alexander Technique, yoga and t'ai chi.
Price includes full-board accommodation, tuition and transfers but excludes flights. BMI Baby (0870 607 0555; www.flybmi.co.uk) flies to Malaga from £120.
Huzur Vadisi, Turkey
(0870 444 2702; www.huzurvadisi.com)
Cost: £345 for a week
Huzur Vadisi in Gocek south-west Turkey offers courses in everything from 'finding the music within' to eastern European dance but the main focus is yoga and meditation. Visitors get to sleep in a yurt (a felt and wood frame tent) set among pines and fig trees in the garden of an old farmhouse.
Cost includes full board, tuition and transfers but excludes flight. Dial-a-Flight (0870 333 2266; www.dialaflight.com) offers summer charter services to Dalaman from £99.
Skyros, Greece
(020 7267 4424; www.skyros.com)
Cost: from £505.
The Skyros Centre was founded in 1979 as the first alternative holiday centre in Europe. There are more than 200 courses on offer, ranging from writers' workshops and windsurfing to personal development, dance, painting and yoga. Many visitors return home, apparently, to change their jobs or partners, so liberating is the experience.
Price includes full-board accommodation, courses and transfers to the island. Flights to Athens are extra.
Back to nature
Dry stone walling, National Trust Working Holidays
(0870 429 2429; www.nationaltrust.org.uk/volunteers)
Cost: from £54 per week
Dry stone walling is the Lego of the stressed executive classes. The National Trust offers week-long working holidays in more than 100 locations on which you help to rebuild collapsing dry stone walls, repair eroded woodland footpaths or open up new areas to visitors. You stay in a farmhouse, cottage or apartment. Everyone takes a turn at cooking a meal and keeping the place clean.
Price includes accommodation, food and hard work - plus free entrance to all National Trust properties for the following year.
Atlantic whale/dolphin watching, Canary Nature, Tenerife
(020 7240 5795; www.whalefoundation.org.uk)
Cost: £875 per week
Communing with that most intelligent of animals, the dolphin, and that most magnificent, the whale, should unburden the mind. Tenerife, host to 28 species, is one of the three most important whale watching locations in the world.
Price includes full-board accommodation on the yacht, and whale/dolphin programme. September is the ideal month for whale watching.
Centre for Alternative Technology, Wales
(01654 702400; www.cat.org.uk)
Cost: £260/£190/£130 (high waged/waged/ unwaged) for a weekend course
This charity based in Machynlleth, mid-Wales, has been inspiring, informing and enabling people to live more sustainably since 1975. You can learn ancient crafts such as willow weaving or find out about composting, organic gardening or how to build your own eco-house.
Price includes bed, board and hard work.
Cuba Solidarity Campaign, International Work Brigades
(020 7263 6452; www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk)
Cost: £800 for three weeks.
Sick of the daily capitalist grind? To experience the Cuban Revolution first-hand you can join the International Work Brigade (Brigadistas) at a camp near Havana where you carry out agricultural or construction projects with local members. Brigadistas also take part in a full programme of activities including educational and political events and visits to factories, hospitals, trade unions and schools.
Price includes air fare, food, accommodation costs and some excursions. You will need spending money and cash for optional excursions.
Spiritual highs
Kingdom of Mustang trek
(020 8870 2600; www.worldexpeditions.co.uk)
Cost: £2,285 for 23 days
In the Kingdom of Mustang, nestling on the Nepal/Tibet border, the last vestiges of ancient Tibetan Buddhist culture are laid open to only a few select trekking groups per year. After trekking in the middle-level Himalayas through the Kali Gandaki gorge you follow ancient trails marked by mani walls (made from stones with the Tibetan Buddhist mantra Om Mani Padme Hum carved in), impressive chortens (memorials to the teachings of the Buddha) and simple village monasteries to reach Lo Manthang, the otherworldly capital of the kingdom.
Price includes full-board accommodation (often tents), leaders, guides and portering, mountaineering equipment, international and internal flights.
Purelands, Scotland
(01387 373232; www.samyeling.org)
Cost: £300 for eight days
Purelands is a purpose-built retreat centre in the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery complex, where the wisdom of the Karma Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism, emphasising meditation, is imparted among the rolling hills of the Esk Valley, south-west Scotland. While there you must abide by the golden rules, including refraining from killing, stealing, lying and intoxicants.
Price includes vegetarian full board accommodation and instruction.
Walking Pilgrim's Way, Santiago de Compostela, Waymark Holidays
(01753 516477; www.waymarkholidays.co.uk
Cost: £685
Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain has been Europe's greatest pilgrimage destination for eight centuries.
The relaxed 200km Waymark walk's combination of awesome scenery and treading in 800 years' worth of footsteps is guaranteed to help regain a sense of perspective. Price includes half-board accommodation, flights and a guide/leader. Maximum group size 14.
Hideaways
Sleepy Cove, Nova Scotia, Canada
(00 49 40 338989; www.vladi.de
Cost from£67 per day to rent the whole island
Experience solitude amid the pristine Canadian wilderness on your own island. A rustic log home suitable for two adults and two children, with electricity and hot running water, nestles in the forest and glade of Sleepy Cove - in the Shubenacadie Grand Lake on Canada's east coast. Just 30 minutes from Novia Scotia, the island is easily accessible by boat and canoe from the mainland. Swimming, windsurfing, sailing, canoeing and fishing can all be enjoyed from the cabin.
Polmina, Cornwall, Classic Cottages
(01326 555555; www.classic.co.uk)
From £231 per week
Found at the end of a bumpy track and set within its own grounds, this barn conversion (antique pine furniture, stripped floorboards, whitewashed walls and high-vaulted ceilings) offers peace and seclusion overlooking the wild Penwith moorland and the Atlantic. Can accommodate two adults and a baby.
Norwegian Lighthouse Cottage, Fjord Line
(0191 296 1313; www.fjordline.com
Cost: from £70 per night
The island of Hellisoy off the coast of Norway is home to a 150-year-old lighthouse and keeper's cottage. The cottage has five bedrooms, a sauna and two sitting rooms. You can fish from the private jetty. Hellisoy is a short row from the island of Fedje, which is a two-hour drive from Bergen.
Price is for accommodation only. Fjord Line sails from Newcastle to Bergen from £400 return.
Els Masovers de Torriella, Pyrenees, Vintage Travel
(01954 261431; www.vintagetravel.co.uk)
Cost: from £545 per week for cottage sleeping six
This rustic cottage with a pool overlooks a spectacular wooded valley in the village of Coll de Nargo in the relatively untouched Pyrenees. If you fancy some exercise you can wander down the hillside to the bathing pools of the translucent mountain stream below the house.
All prices per person for two weeks unless otherwise stated.
