Best Baja Summer Savings on Rejuvenation

Summer plans for Cabo? Consider instead an all-inclusive stay just over the San Diego border at Rancho La Puerta, a 3,000-acre healthy-living paradise with flowering meadows, landscaped gardens and breathtaking vistas all nestled at the foot of Mount Kuchumaa, also known as Sacred Mountain. All this beauty and healthy living at Tecate’s original destination spa in Tecate, Mexico is extra affordable this year with delicious new experiences waiting for just 140 guests at a time!

Decades of Delights

The one-of-a-kind resort, just shy of its 80^th birthday, has been family-owned and-operated since 1940 when Edmond Szekely and his wife Deborah welcomed their first guests to a “health camp” in a mountain-ringed valley 45-miles from San Diego. The cost? $17.50 for a week of hiking, rustic vegetarian meals, exercise and a daily lecture by Edmond Szekely, a health pioneer with an international reputation for his natural living theories. Campers were asked to bring their own tent.

Today, the resort continues to change lives with its focus on complete mind, body and spirit renewal. An in the summer months, the savings are as abundant as the rejuvenation opportunities. Appropriately referred to as a “camp” for adults, the all-inclusive Rancho La Puerta is practically guaranteed to renew your entire being. Guests are known to return year after year to get stronger, healthier, more fit or just commune with nature instead of technology.

Easy access

Guests arrive from all over the country at Rancho La Puerta for one-week stays via a ranch shuttle bus that picks them up at one of several terminals at San Diego International Airport. A 45-minute trip that enters Mexico over the Tecate border is swift and effortless. Upon arrival at the resort, guests are escorted along meandering paths lined with abundant nature to their deluxe cottages situated privately about the grounds. Hand-carved furniture, fireplaces and private patios perfect for birdwatching or sunbathing provide a relaxed ambience totally ensconced in nature.   

Create your Day

Rancho La Puerta’s secure and tranquil estate includes gardens, hiking trails, an organic farm, several pools, extensive spa and fitness facilities, a salon, a spacious dining hall, gift shop and an intimate library — as well as numerous inviting lounges and conference rooms. Activities, classes and spa delights abound on a daily basis, with lots of special lectures and classes tossed in. Most activities do not require a reservation—just drop in if you feel like it. Guests pretty much do as little or as much as they like.

Everything, other than spa treatments and cooking classes, is included in the stay including three gourmet spa meals and snacks, use of all fitness and recreational facilities, spa and library, as well as scheduled group classes (approximately 50 different classes each day, with up to five choices every hour), guided hikes and walks, activities and workshops. Also included are evening programs and entertainment. Tipping is always optional.

Classes, overseen by a staff of more than 20 full-time instructors, are held in large, newly renovated gyms equipped with the latest low-impact floors; water aerobics are very popular. Self-awareness classes, from yoga to Tai Chi are plentiful, as well as daily hikes, from strolling a meadow to a demanding 11-mile trek. Importantly, there is something for all levels of stamina and ability.

Kitchen that Sings

Nearly eight decades of culinary creativity come from the ranch’s kitchen. Using freshly picked produce from their own organic garden and natural foods has resulted in the ranch’s recipes that are low in fat, sodium and refined flour and sugar, while being high in energy, fiber and complex carbohydrates that keep you going during the most strenuous fitness classes. No starving here—portions are plentiful thanks to the menu’s low-calorie content and your activity-abundant days. The semi-vegetarian fare employs lots of fresh seafood from nearby Ensenada; gluten-free diets can be accommodated. Although not a weight-loss facility, many guests lose weight just due to the healthy diet combined with the bounty of exercise choices.

La Cocina Que Canta (The Kitchen that Sings) has much to croon about. The culinary center at the ranch opened in 2007 and serves as Rancho La Puerta’s home to visiting chefs who demonstrate and teach interested guests. With the Cocina situated high on a hill, a favorite guest activity is the breakfast hike to the kitchen that is rewarded with a breakfast fresh from the adjacent organic garden.

Summer’s Chocolate Experience

Summer features the new “Xocolatl Experience” package, focusing on one of Mexico’s most famed ingredients: chocolate. This package includes a Bean-to-Bar Chocolate Class, a wine and chocolate tasting and 90-minute Xocolatl Skin Replenishment Treatment. In Bean-to-Bar, guests will visit Tecate’s own chocolate factory to learn about the health benefits of cacao, enjoy a handcrafted chocolate tasting and take home delicious cacao tea. The wine tasting will be held at the Bazar Del Sol and features robust reds from the nearby Valle de Guadalupe, paired with handcrafted chocolate.  Finally, guests will be treated a chocolate spa experience designed to cleanse, relax, and energize.

Special summer programming for La Cocina includes cooking classes with visiting chefs, a new restaurant for guests to dine outside of the dining hall, El Cafecito, live mariachi music throughout the evenings, sunset hikes and more!

Best Baja Summer Offer

This summer, Rancho La Puerta is offering guests summer savings for stays July 1 through September 14 for one, two, three or four guests. In addition, the Best Baja Summer offer also includes a $150 spa credit per guest. See deals here.

Rancho La Puerta welcomes both men and women from all over the world. However, many visitors are from California. Although the majority of guests are female, couples and single men are prevalent. Meals are served around communal tables, so making new friends is a plus. Partial week stays are also available at the ranch. Check the website for a schedule of planned classes and special events during your “journey to wellness.”

Photos courtesy of Rancho La Puerta