One long-established favourite, for example, is the Hills Health Ranch, also in BC's Cariboo Chilcotin Coast. This homey resort boasts spa and fitness getaways, summer riding holidays, year-round weight loss programs, and is home to stables, an extensive hiking trail system, spacious fitness center, an indoor pool, a full-service spa, winter cross country trails, and even a ski hill.

With all of its offerings, Hills Health Ranch still manages to distinguish itself from other destinations in a number of ways. Noted as the top Canadian resort for health and wellness professionals on staff (the list includes a medical doctor, five nurses, a kinesiologist, a nutritionist, a behavioral counselor, personal trainers and even a microbiologist), Hills Health Ranch is the only retreat of its kind in North America capable of producing essential oils from indigenous plants utilized in health and healing treatments. In addition, the destination boasts another unique designation – it has received approval from the country of Finland for citizens to indulge in an all-inclusive seven-to-14 day spa, health & wellness vacation, making The Hills Health Ranch the only spa in North America approved by any European country under their national medical system for annual wellness vacations (a very common practice in many European countries).

Another big draw here is the sheer range of programs and activities available – not to mention their extensive daily fitness programs. Packages include smoking cessation, care for caregivers, light therapy, anti-aging, and weight loss; a la carte activities run the gamut from yoga, pilates and weight training, to hiking, canoeing and cross country skiing.

Choice is also the watchword at Hollyhock Centre on remote Cortes Island, north of Vancouver. More of an educational retreat centre than a spa, Hollyhock is where those interested in well-being, arts and culture, wisdom practices, social change and more, come to learn, relax, connect, and revitalize.

Visitors can choose from more than 90 three to six-day workshops ranging from visual arts, writing, music and dance, to personal, professional and spiritual development, leadership training, and natural healing practices. Hollyhock's seaside lodge and winding forest trails are also open to those seeking a simple retreat, where yoga, meditation, body work, hiking, kayaking, sailing, rainforest walks, and seaside hot tub soaks fill the day. Organic meals include wild local seafood and produce from the centre's own garden.

New this year is a Karma Yoga program. By advance application, visitors enjoy a room, board, and access to the site's facilities in return for volunteer service at the centre.

If you're more into workouts than workshops, check out Mountain Trek Fitness Retreat & Health Spa, near Nelson in BC's Kootenay Rockies region.

Billed as an "all-inclusive super natural fitness spa," this 12-room lake view retreat in the Purcell Mountains offers highly structured weight loss boot camps. It's a tough but effective program comprising of a personal fitness appraisal, daily hikes, weight training in a state-of-the-art gym, yoga, stretch classes, nutritional counseling, and organic seasonal spa cuisine. Three hour-long Swedish massages are included each week (you'll need them). And, while tired muscles will also welcome the sauna, hot tub and nearby natural hot springs, this is not, as the Web site puts it: "A cream-and-steam spa."

Says guest services facilitator Barb Nybo: "Everyone leaves here with fewer inches but with more stamina and energy; they're also more capable of managing the complex lives they have once home."

Just across Kootenay Lake, near Kootenay Bay, you'll find a very different, though equally intense, retreat experience. The Yasodhara Ashram Yoga Retreat and Study Centre were founded on this 120-acre forested site in 1963. Today, the ashram offers a year-round roster of yoga workshops, courses and retreats, including programs specifically for women, men, teens and elders.

Cedar lodges overlooking the lake are home to comfortable single and shared rooms; meals, eaten in silence, draw on organic fruit and vegetables grown in the ashram's own gardens; and each evening a service, called Satsang, is held at the Temple of Light, a light-filled eight-sided dome overlooking the lake. An important part of every stay is the practice of Karma Yoga, or selfless service, where each participant spends a few hours a day helping with tasks around the ashram.

Though hardly a pampering vacation, time at the ashram is a retreat in the traditional sense: a chance to focus on the spiritual, away from the distractions of everyday life.

Another way to get away from it all -- really away -- is to book a retreat at one of the most remote spas in North America.

The Elisi Spa & Wilderness Resort is a fly-in only resort an hour by charter plane from Fort St. John in Northern British Columbia. On a 1,000-acre ranch within the boundaries of the Northern Rockies Provincial Park, this getaway borders the vast Muskwa-Kechika Management Area, a wilderness of glaciers and mountain peaks so rich in wildlife it's been dubbed the "Serengeti of the North."

Guests utilize the lodge as a base for photo safaris, fishing trips, backcountry horseback riding, jet boat excursions, hiking, heli-hiking and big game viewing. And, although the lodge has just eight guest rooms and a cottage, it also boasts a fully-equipped gym, with yoga and ballet classes, and a full-service spa with infrared saunas and hydrotherapy tub.

The upshot? You can hike through some of the world's last true wilderness, spotting moose, elk, mountain goat, and wolverine in their natural habitat and still have an herbal wrap at the end of the day.

Now that's Sabai Sabai.