Soulshine yoga retreat, Bali
Part wellness retreat, part party pad, Soulshine dances to the beat of its own drum.
Utopia looks different for everyone, but paradise is usually... tropical. For musician Michael Franti and his jewellery designer wife, Sara Agah Franti, heaven is a place on Earth, in Bali, that’s a little bit country and a whole lot rock ’n’ roll. In an organic process that began in 2011 with just a handful of rooms and a dedicated yoga studio (one of the first in Ubud), Soulshine has blossomed into a funky luxe compound with 17 new suites replete with record players, cocktail bars and, naturally, guitars on the walls. Yogis, guitar strummers, rambling families, rockers and barefoot billionaires are all welcome.
The heartbeat of the 33-room hotel is music and guests are invited nightly to Togetherness Lounge to drum, dance, swirl about with a mocktail in hand and often hear Franti perform. Just like the name of his famous band, Franti is a spearhead of creativity whose 12th album, Follow Your Heart, shines a light on positivity. Altruism and good vibes are the modus operandi of Soulshine, too. Stay Human, the newly minted restaurant serving vegan and organic dishes, is open from 7am to 11pm to nourish the downward-dog dawn brigade and the hungry ravers dancing under the moon. Diners can choose from new-age classic bowls, comfort fare like crisp chicken bao buns, as well as more regional delicacies such as jackfruit tacos and pandan panna cotta.
Soulshine operates like a retreat that’s attuned to personal dreams and desires. So if you want to rip up the road on a mountain-bike ride to a volcano crater, roast marshmallows after watching a fire ceremony or bliss out in a private sound-healing session, it’s your choice. The couple say their idea of wellbeing is to deep-dive into über-health 90 per cent of the time and rock hard for the other 10. It’s a sybaritic equation that’s complemented by decor that’s polychromatic, young, and strangely kindred with the local artisans who have sculpted, tiled and painted a unique hybrid aesthetic that appears to both radiate out of and fuse into its environment. “Bali is a land of creative geniuses,” says Franti.
Among the most head-turning design flourishes are traditional limestone carvings fixed on a wall, a waterslide to the pool studded with lime-green tiles and the cylindrical lounge bathroom whose lighting installation recalls a mini disco. The lounge also features stained-glass windows, a terrazzo and brass bar and a playful DJ station etched from Timorese wood. The couple seem to live inside their own concept album and it’s contagious. During the pandemic they elected to stay in Bali, as opposed to retreating back to San Francisco, with Franti performing his live music on Zoom concerts. “We started asking ourselves what is the joy of wellness?” he says. “It’s not the austerity of eating one pita bread a day while plunged into silence! We go deep on our yoga mats in the morning and then we come together and dance to a jam. We have green juice in the morning, then maybe splash a little tequila in that juice in the evening.”
For Franti, major upheavals have served as turning points. He took up yoga the day after the 9/11 attacks on New York and went full throttle on the future of Soulshine during the pandemic. After all that he was forced to ask himself “What can life be?” The answer to that is the way they live now. It’s a balance, the couple say in unison. Sara adds, “It’s the naughty but nice thing.” What’s naughty about Soulshine is the level of high-design encased within the wholesome surrounds. The Frantis collaborated with Australian designer Shelley Norman Claire of My Shrine in Denpasar. The jewels of the hotel are the Panorama Rooms, which feature infrared saunas, plunge pools, baronial-scale dining tables (for group feasts) and outdoor showers. What’s nice is the intense privacy. Some rooms gaze over rice paddies, others have full bars with infused alcohols – herbal, of course. The thoughtful touch of in-room DJ stations deepens the groove.
The Frantis are canny to the fact that the modern traveller needs healing at a five-star level. “We’ve stayed in a lot of great hotels and we want our service to be A-list, but without the formality,” says Sara. As hosts, the Franti style is like family. You never know who will be banging out a chord. The couple are also the driving forces behind charity foundation Do it for the Love, which provides live music and event tickets to unwell children and wounded veterans. But there’s a vision wrapped up in all the feels. On the drawing board are 10 additional residences, a fitness centre and perhaps a sister property by the sea. Before that, Franti is psyched to play Bluesfest this April in Byron Bay and “partnering with Wanderlust, a yoga festival where I’ll perform live for hundreds of yogis”. It sounds very Bali, but these are ideas answering a universal thirst. The rolling caravan of creative living, fuelled by crazy levels of positive energy, is the DNA of Soulshine.
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