Fancy a £200 voucher towards a stay in a countryside cabin, coastal cottage or other standout rental? The Guardian Travel is running its tip-of-the-week competition right now, and the theme is wellness — specifically, the affordable kind. The prize is a £200 voucher to spend with Coolstays, which lists more than 3,000 properties worldwide, and the winning entry will be picked by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet.
What counts as a wellness experience? Broadly, anything that helps you switch off without the price tag of a luxury spa hotel. Think a beach sauna followed by a cold plunge into the sea, a slow mindful walk among trees, a meditation session in the woods, or a proper traditional hammam or thermal bath. If it left you genuinely recharged, it's fair game.
The practical bits: keep your tip to roughly 100 words, and if you have a photo that fits, you can attach it — though the judges are scoring the writing, not the photography. Entries close on Monday 28 September at 10am BST. One catch: for legal reasons, only UK residents can enter. Full terms and conditions are on the Guardian site, and it's worth browsing past winners if you want a feel for what makes a tip stand out — usually it's specific, personal and genuinely useful to another traveller, not just 'the spa was lovely'.
Even if you don't enter, the premise is a good nudge. Wellness doesn't have to mean an expensive retreat. Europe is full of public saunas and sea-swimming spots, from Baltic beach sauna culture to heated seawater pools on the Atlantic coast. The UK has forest trails designed for slow walking, wild swimming clubs, and Victorian thermal baths still doing the business. Many cost little more than the price of a swim ticket or nothing at all.
So dig out that one place — the outdoor sauna where you watched the sun go down, the forest circuit that cleared your head, the Hammam that cost a tenner and fixed your whole week. Write it up in 100 words and you might find yourself with a voucher for your next quiet getaway.
