The travel that’s harder to find, and worth more, if you’re at a certain stage of life, isn’t always about a destination. Sometimes it’s about putting yourself in a place where excellence is the only thing happening. Surrounded by people doing the same thing, at a higher standard than you’d hold yourself to alone.

Last June, we built a trip for a member who took three friends to Mallorca for that exact purpose. Five days at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Manacor, training daily on the academy’s red clay courts, followed by a transition to a coastal hotel for two days of recovery before flying home. The trip wasn’t about sightseeing. It was about coming home in better physical condition than they left.

Here’s how it ran.

The Rafa Nadal Academy. 

The Rafa Nadal Academy is in Manacor, on the eastern side of Mallorca, about an hour from Palma. It was founded by Rafa Nadal in his hometown in 2016, partly as a player-development pipeline, partly as a public-facing tennis facility for adults serious about the game. The on-site Rafa Nadal Residence handles accommodations: simple, well-designed rooms attached directly to the academy complex, the way a serious athlete’s living quarters should be.

Our member and his three friends checked in on a Wednesday afternoon. Tennis training began Thursday morning. Three full days, 8:30am to 6:00pm, with a structure that includes individual instruction with academy coaches, group drills, video analysis, fitness work, and full court time. The level is serious, adapted to each player’s ability, but with the intensity of a real training program. The coaches who work with adults at the academy are the same ones who work with the academy’s competitive players. By the end of the first day, our member said his serve was already different.

The body, after. 

Tennis at this level, three full days, on clay, in early June is genuinely demanding for adults in their 30s or 40s. The trip was designed with that in mind. We arranged daily recovery work alongside the training: massage therapy in the evenings, ice and stretching protocols, and access to the academy’s recovery facilities, which include cold plunges and a serious approach to post-training treatment. The point of training at this intensity isn’t to grind through it. It’s to come back stronger, which means the recovery is as important as the training.

For the meals, we planned around the work. The on-site dining at the academy is built for athletes: clean, high-protein, designed for performance. For one evening off-campus, we recommended a dinner at Andreu Genestra, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Capdepera using almost entirely Mallorcan ingredients, with a tasting menu structured around what’s growing on the island that week. A serious meal that didn’t undo the work of the day.

The transition. 

After Saturday’s final training session, the group transferred to Cap Vermell Grand Hotel, on the northeast coast of the island. Quieter than Palma, more remote than the southern resorts, with a spa that takes recovery seriously. The hotel sits on a cliff above the Mediterranean, surrounded by pine forest and very little else.

Sunday was a full spa day. Massage, hydrotherapy, time in the thermal circuit, time outside doing nothing. By the time the group sat down to dinner that evening, the soreness from three days of tennis was starting to lift. We’d recommended Es Fum, the Michelin-starred restaurant at the St. Regis Mardavall, about forty minutes away, for the final dinner of the trip. Eight courses, paired wines, the kind of long meal that closes a week properly.

The flight home, Monday. 

A morning flight from Palma to Barcelona, then Barcelona to Toronto. Our member arrived back in Toronto by mid-afternoon, slept hard, and was on his courts at home the following weekend, demonstrably better.

Why a Rafa Nadal Academy trip works

Our members care about their physical capacity at this stage of life understand that improvement doesn’t happen at home. The home routine is maintenance. Real progress requires concentrated time in a place where the standard is higher than your standard, around people who hold themselves to it as a default. A week at the Rafa Nadal Academy isn’t a vacation. It’s a deliberate investment in capability, physical, mental, and the kind of discipline that travels home with you.

We’ve now planned this trip in two formats: the four-friend version we ran last June, and a smaller two-person version for couples. Both are sorted months ahead because the academy fills early for the high season weeks, and the right rooms at the residence are not interchangeable.

If a serious training trip: tennis, golf, fitness, or longevity-focused, is something you’ve been thinking about, your concierge can begin the planning. The earlier we start, the better the trip gets.