72 Hour Sydney Wellness Retreat Itinerary

When you’re in the right frame of mind, Sydney is a wellness retreat in and of itself. Australia’s brightest harbour city has quietly engineered an end-to-end wellness circuit that runs from salty dawn laps in heritage ocean pools to Peloton sprints with city views, cedar-planked saunas to midnight LED light baths.

Better yet, everything sits within a stone's throw of the CBD, so you can land at Central on a Friday afternoon and glide through the weekend powered only by Opal card taps and the occasional green smoothie.

Rolling your suitcase into Mantra 2 Bond Street’s lobby feels much like any other check-in, until the doors open to your Wellness Studio. Inside your apartment-style suite, fling open the block-out curtains and find the room’s headline act: a gleaming Peloton Bike angled towards the skyline. It takes roughly five minutes to connect your shoes and choose a 20-minute HIIT ride. The studio also comes stocked with yoga blocks, resistance bands, and a Nutribullet, so you can segue straight into a resistance session or blitz a mango-spinach smoothie while your heart-rate graph is still in the red.

Sweaty and satisified, head to street-level and across Pitt Street to Circular Quay. The 3km harbour loop from the Sydney Opera House to Mrs Macquarie’s Chair is the city’s most democratic running track: Lycra-clad locals cruise beside camera-happy visitors, enormous Port Jackson figs line the Royal Botanic Garden, and every bend delivers another see-it-to-believe-it angle on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. You’ll hit the chair (a sandstone bench carved by convicts in 1810) just as sunset ignites the sails of the Sydney Opera House.

Sydney’s yoga scene caters to every temperament, but tonight split the difference between novelty and nirvana. Humming Puppy in Redfern pipes low-frequency 'hum' tracks through the studio, so each down-dog vibrates in stereo beneath soft crimson lighting.

If volcanic sweat is your love language, choose One Hot Yoga in Potts Point instead; their 'Goldilocks' heat lets you pick 21°C for a gentle slow flow, 27°C for soothing warmth, or 37°C for full Bikram catharsis. Whichever mat you roll out, finish with a lavender-scented towel, then wander back towards Kings Cross for a refuel.

Back at Mantra 2 Bond Street, queue a ten-minute Peloton cool-down ride if the legs still itch or simply collapse into your queen size bed knowing you’ve already worked hard for tomorrow’s almond croissant.

At first light the city feels like it belongs to early risers alone. Warm up in the hotel’s well-equipped gym, then join Fit City’s Harbour Sights run, departing Hyde Park at 7am.

The nine-kilometre loop zips past the Anzac Memorial, across the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s eastern span, cuts through The Rocks’ cobbled laneways and skirts Barangaroo’s bold, terraced headland park before coffee hour.

Whether you flowed or flew, reward your effort at Wild Sage Barangaroo, the harbourside café that treats breakfast like its own wellness ritual. Slide into the alfresco seats on Scotch Row and order the Wild Sage Bowl: quinoa, baby kale, shaved zucchini, avocado, miso-tahini dressing, and a poached egg that bursts like sunrise. Pair it with their house-blend piccolo or an açai-banana smoothie if you’re still waking up.

Contrast the morning's run with deep stillness at True Float in Darlinghurst. The 75-minute sensory-deprivation experience resembles a private Dead Sea pod: magnesium-dense water warmed to skin temperature, zero light, zero sound, and zero push notifications.

Such meditative bliss tends to provoke hunger. Head down to cult Japanese-inspired salad bar Fishbowl in Darlinghurst for a choose your own adventure of raw salmon, kale ribbons, beetroot, crispy shallots, and roasted-sesame dressing.

Digestion complete, hop a Metro to Green Square then stroll into Alexandria’s industrial backstreets. Here Soak Bathhouse Sydney unspools like a wellness theme park for grown ups under one enormous saw-tooth roof. Follow the recommended circuit: hot magnesium spa to dilate vessels, cold-plunge pool to snap them shut, cedar-wood sauna for a pine-scented sweat, LED red-light booth for collagen stimulation, then head-spa chairs where ionised water massages the scalp.

Return to the CBD and head to Georgie Wine Bar, located on the ground floor of Mantra 2 Bond Street. Low lights, stylish surrounds, and a drinks list heavy on minimal-intervention Aussie drops set the tone for share plates: roasted cauliflower with cashew cream, kangaroo carpaccio, grilled octopus with chimichurri. By the time you finish up, you’ll feel refreshed, stretched, and deliciously heavy-limbed.

Set an early alarm, grab a flat white for the road and head east before traffic wakes. Bondi Icebergs, open since 1929, stages the quintessential Instagram scene: milky-white concrete, turquoise waves smashing the ocean pool’s southern edge and dawn light painting everything rose-gold.

If you want to avoid crowd, walk the Bondi to Coogee coastal path to Coogee’s Wylie’s Baths where a timber boardwalk wraps a basalt rock shelf, framing swimmers against an endless horizon. One headland further sits McIver’s Ladies Baths, reserved exclusively for women and children, an aquatic oasis of privacy since 1886.

Towel dry, pull on linen and amble to Slow House Bondi, ground zero for Sydney’s modern sauna revival. Inside a whitewashed terrace the team blends Scandinavian sauna culture with Bondi cool. Slide into a Finnish salt sauna set at 80°C, inhale mineral-rich air, then plunge into a stone cold tub to jolt the nervous system. Finish with a bespoke LED facial where colour-specific wavelengths coax fresh collagen to the skin’s surface. The whole affair takes ninety minutes and leaves you glowing like you’ve swallowed a ring-light.

Refuelling at this point is mandatory. Harry’s Bondi sits a block away, anchored by an airy corner site. The lychee-chia pudding comes crowned with edible flowers, but the cult order is blueberry-ricotta hotcakes: a stack of cloud-soft discs draped with seasonal fruit, lemon curd, and a snowfall of maple syrup–toasted seeds. Order a side of scrambled eggs if your macro tracker insists.

By midday decide whether wheels or weary limbs will define the final stretch. Choose to stay central and log another Peloton ride back at Mantra 2 Bond Street, or head to Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour’s day spa to relax and unwind in style. Floor-to-ceiling windows flood treatment rooms with honeyed light while therapists tailor massages using native botanicals: banksia seed scrubs, lemon myrtle balms, macadamia oil glides that dissolve latent knots.

After your spa experience, dress for dinner at Atelier by Sofitel, a French-inspired grill located within Sofitel Sydney Darling Harbour. You'll enjoy a menu inspired by the seasons and featuring local produce. Expect whole market fish roasted over charcoal with sides of Andean Sunrise potato and heirloom tomato drizzled in olive oil. And to finish, a dessert of banana malt parfait that satisfies balancing wholesome ingredients and indulgent flavours.

Once you've finished dinner, it's time to head back to Mantra 2 Bond Street under glittering city lights. Tomorrow’s check-out might feel like it's all too soon, but come Monday-morning you'll be moving through the terminal at Sydney Airport lighter, looser, and quietly chuffed that a single weekend could sift the city’s infinite wellness menu into one cohesive, 72-hour reboot.