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How to Travel Better is a monthly column with Condé Nast Traveller’s sustainability editor Juliet Kinsman. In this series, Juliet introduces us to the sustainability heroes she meets, signposts the experiences that are enhancing our world, and shares the little and big ways we can all travel better.
Where have you brought me? My 16-year-old wasn't saying it out loud, but her side-eye communicated her displeasure clearly. We were looking at a glass cabinet of 17th-century surgical implements. If looks could kill, my daughter’s eye-balling would have taken me out more swiftly than Killing Eve’s Villanelle. I’d sold our two nights in Québec City as a “spa stay”. Instead, we were looking at what could be medieval tools of torture. It wasn't quite fluffy robes on loungers by an infinity pool. But Le Monastère des Augustines is anything but a banal B&B.
Le Monastère des Augustines, part of the 1639-built Hôtel-Dieu de Québec, was a convent for centuries, but in 2015 reopened with a new mission. Not many city hotels like this lure you for mindfulness and ‘museotherapy.' Even fewer are the reincarnation of the first hospital in Canada. To explain: the Augustine Sisters, who provided free medical services on this site since the 17th century, essentially introduced public healthcare to Canada by dedicating their lives to caring for people. This cloister was gifted to the people of Québec as a charity-owned museum. It was a nice idea, but preserving the site required more revenue, so it was redesigned as a hotel open to all. You could even miss that a few sisters still live there, and a chapel is hidden away. Le Monastère’s legacy today is providing sanctuary for carers after much-needed R&R who get discounted stays—showing how our own hotel choices can also help subsidize supporting others.
Checked in via the light-filled contemporary glass atrium, we were given a tour of the original wooden-floored stone-walled wing. A lot has happened on this plot since three Augustinian nuns first arrived in 1639, but clues to its previous life come in the Christian iconography. Award-winning architects ABCP reincarnated the nuns’ quarters into bright, airy bedrooms. The simple old-meets-new adaptive design saw modern-minded mechanics enhance the bones of this 400-year-plus building with secret tunnels to conceal complex geothermal technology. Renewable energy now wiggles its way around via pipes cleverly hidden in the eaves. It’s a kinder and greener choice of accommodation.
Charismatic clues to Le Monastère's infirmary past come in artfully arranged exhibitions. Their Archive Centre gained UNESCO status in 2023 for preserving the historically significant writings of the Augustinian Sisters. There’s a meditative gallery of poetry during our visit where visitors are encouraged to unleash creativity. Traditional massages are available, but it’s a spell on the NeuroBed that I find enlightening. Lying down for 30 minutes, cocooned by soothing music and gentle vibrations, worked immediate wonders on my parasympathetic system. Snapped out of modern-day fight-or-flight mode, I was primed for smoother sleep despite the jet lag.
The team at Le Monastère preaches mindfulness. By anchoring your state of mind in the present, you allow your consciousness to be piqued with curiosity but remain grounded with acceptance and contentment. That might sound lofty, but it was a welcome rest stop on a longer electric-vehicle road trip for my daughter and me.
High-drama natural beauty makes Canada appealing for wellness pursuits. Scenes of pine-tree-framed deep-blue lakes make you feel healthier just from looking at pictures. You’d think it would be in Parc de la Chute-Montmorency admiring waterfalls higher than Niagara’s or on a boat tour along the St. Lawrence River that we’d really come to appreciate the benefits of quieting the mind as a route to better health for the body and soul. But, instead, it was next to Old Québec’s fortified walls.
I've said previously that there’s no better lesson in mindfulness than time spent in Bhutan—my pilgrimage to Asia’s Buddhist kingdom was the focus of my last How to Travel Better column. Our immersion in the practice of this philosophy in this UNESCO-status city was also affecting. A bright, light twin bedroom as stylish as boutique hotels in Berlin and Brooklyn had us talking to each other instead of scrolling on phones. A thoughtfully curated gift shop of charming wellness products and books compensated for the absence of fancy amenities or digital devices.
The biggest lesson in the health benefits of mindfulness came at mealtimes. Le Vivoir, the restaurant, presents delicious home cooking in a high-quality buffet. Chef Derek McCann stopped by to share his passion for fresh, local ingredients from their cooperative of regenerative farmers. A proselytizer of the art of the nutritional benefits of slower eating, we also set course on a route to better digestion.
Notable, too, in this dining room are the many solo travelers—not unusual in a retreat. But this isn’t a typical spa—it’s a restaurant in the heart of a city. Maybe the unexpected smattering of business travelers and a young family booked based on pictures and price via a conventional accommodation platform. Most guests, though, seek respite here since caregivers get a special rate. A brief exchange with a 60-something widow over an ancient herbal recipe tea revealed she was a nurse enjoying her first well-earned holiday in over a decade.
My exercise in how to travel better came amid pin-drop quiet over homemade organic bircher muesli when the silent breakfasts made me appreciate the soft might of Le Monastère. A polite request of silence in the mornings honors its past convent ways. It coaxes residents into a way of being that promotes physical, mental and spiritual well-being through calm and contemplation in our otherwise always-on world. (Even if it made me want to giggle loudly — which is what once got this ex-convent-school girl expelled.) Being forced to unplug and appreciate living more mindfully is a welcome reminder that we’re often in such a rush to see the world that we’ve forgotten how to disconnect and be fully present in unfamiliar contexts.
Our digital detox was a world away from the tourists taking selfies up the hill backdropped by the iconic grandiose Fairmont Le Château Frontenac. It meant we took in more stories of Canada’s past, and it cultivated compassion for the 10 per cent of the population who are unpaid carers. Being shaken out of your comfort zone can lead to inner journeys you aren’t expecting. Surrender to the quiet. Just be mindful of taking a teen along for the ride.
The details
Book a double room at Le Monastère des Augustines for around $150 a night as a regular guest. Retreat packages start with a full-board one-night stay, movement, and wellness, from around $180. For carers, the same stay only costs around $35, plus there's a 15 per cent discount on all treatments. Every stay subsides R&R for people looking after those who are ill, disabled, older, have mental health challenges, and really need to recharge their batteries. As well as professional carers and healthcare workers, a huge percentage of the population are unpaid carers.
This charity-powered platform in the UK connects accommodation providers with carers throughout the country: 60 percent of us act as a carer at some point in our life. Healthjob partners with Hotel Planner to offer healthcare workers discounts off the best available rates at hotels.
A version of this article originally appeared on Condé Nast Traveller.
