International and USA Land Sale: Health, Wealth And Real Estate

As the adage says, if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. This way, you can have your health and the real estate, too.

In Pictures: Healthy Living Communities

The Cliffs Communities, where residents are a 65/35 mix of retired homeowners and vacation homeowners, according to Beville, offers one- to two-acre homesites. Steps away are golf courses, fitness centers with weight-management and nutrition classes, restaurants where menus include organic ingredients grown on-site, groomed hiking trails and equestrian centers. Residents can take continuing education classes as nearby Clemson and Furhman universities.

In Pictures: Healthy Living Communities

If you're looking to get--or stay--in shape, reduce stress and clear your mind, you can stick a treadmill in your basement, find a yoga instructor and spend 45 minutes a week downloading your worries to a therapist.

Or, for a little more cash, you can move to one of the countless residential "wellness communities" cropping up across the country.

Designed to maintain and even improve the physical and emotional well-being of homeowners, these developments offer a wide range of amenities--fitness, relaxation and nutrition classes; therapeutic spa services; organized hikes and bird watching expeditions; and often a golf course or two. Some of the more well-rounded feature such extras as wildflower excursions, meditation gardens and health fairs.

Why not just go to your local gym or book a week at the spa? These days, everyone from young families to retirees wants to have healthy ways of life right outside their doors, experts say.

"I think that we are seeing three major things," says Susie Ellis, president of Spafinder, a New York City-based spa marketing and media company. "One is baby boomers. It really is a huge wave of people who are getting older who do not want to think about retirement, who want to stay healthy. Secondly, the increase in stress. There is so much more stress, and people are looking for ways to de-stress and relax--having some of the spa elements where you live is most convenient. And also there is the medical part of it. People need to take care of themselves."