Men's Journal

Texas's Lake Austin Resort Photo credit: Courtesy Lake Austin Spa

February 14 isn’t intended for men — what with the flowers, the chocolates, the jewelry, the edible underwear (well, maybe those are for us) — but that doesn’t mean a romantic getaway has to be a rose-scented overload. At these four retreats, you can impress your better half while still getting your adventure fix, whether it’s skiing or conquering a hot tub. (Assuming, of course, that you aren’t busy in Portland’s Worst Day of the Year Ride or the Yukon Arctic Ultra.)

By Hunter Slaton

Just west of downtown is the Lake Austin Spa Resort, a 40-room Hill Country hideaway set amid 19 lakefront acres. Ask for garden cabins 19 or 20, both of which have fireplaces, private gardens, and outdoor hot tubs. Enjoy a swim in the junior Olympic-size pool — housed in a rustic barn — and a couples’ massage performed with rosemary, ginger, and black pepper to soothe muscles. Three meals a day in chef Terry Conlan’s locavore dining room are included, but it would be shameful to come to Austin and not eat at Ruby’s. It’s not traditionally romantic (read: paper-lined trays), but tell your lady to trust you. If she doesn’t, the beef brisket is worth breaking up over ($736, including $140 spa allowance; lakeaustin.com).

With the Pochuck Creek segment of the Appalachian Trail just five miles away and Mountain Creek Ski Resort’s 46 trails even closer, the new rough-hewn Grand Cascades Lodge is the ideal base for 48 hours of pure sport. But don’t tell your girl that; instead talk up the lodge’s 32 romantic suites, equipped with indoor and outdoor gas fireplaces (the latter on balconies overlooking championship golf courses and New Jersey’s Kittatinny Mountains) and a kitchen you’ll use to whip up a romantic breakfast — the morning after a seven-course wine-pairing feast at the resort’s four-star Restaurant Latour. If that’s not enough, the lodge’s heated pools and new spa should help seal the deal (from $216; grandcascadeslodge.com).

Fifty miles north of San Francisco is Sonoma’s Asian-inspired Gaige House, a tranquil 23-room inn that’s more than a century old. But its 2006 additions, the eight “Zen suites” — each with a granite soaking tub, a shower big enough for two, and a private Japanese-style garden, all built around a glass atrium — are what make it a romantic getaway. For a rough-and-tumble intro to the surrounding wine country, take a jeep tour of Jackson Park, where grapes are grown for the acclaimed Matanzas Creek Wineries’ Jackson Park Merlot. Top it off with dinner at Sonoma’s The Girl & the Fig, an elegant brasserie with an aphrodisiac Valentine’s Day prix-fixe menu for $52 apiece (from $325; gaige.com).

If the Alps are out of reach, the Arrabelle at Vail Square might be the next best thing. The 36-room hotel was modeled after European Alpine villages like Innsbruck and Salzburg. Rooms are decked out in rich reds and leather, with flatscreen TVs, fireplaces, and canopies over the beds. Just outside the hotel the Eagle Bahn Gondola whisks you up Vail Mountain to the private Game Creek Restaurant, open to the public for dinner. The gondola is also how you’ll reach world-class skiing and boarding on the mountain, which has three terrain parks, seven bowls, and a whole mess of black diamonds that will become your new best friends (from $750; arrabelle.com).

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