In 2022, the hospitality group Wake first emerged onto the scene in Medellín with a seemingly impossible promise: to transform what travel to Colombia’s second city would look like. In less than four years, it already has.

Wake got its start with Wake Living, a collection of upscale, apartment-style accommodations in the heart of the city’s popular El Poblado neighborhood. Now, it has expanded even further with the debut of Wake BioHotel. After opening in August of last year to much fanfare, the luxury hotel has quickly garnered praise from everyone from locals to celebrities, even welcoming the likes of Lionel Messi and the Inter Miami team earlier this year.

With tourism in Medellín growing by double-digit percentage points year over year, Wake BioHotel is far from the first new hotel to open in the city in recent years. However, it feels immediately distinctive from all the rest. “I think what stands out most is its location, views, and what it promises as a brand, which makes it both distinctive and appealing to travelers,” affirmed Simon Piedrahita, founder of Vaciaggio, a boutique luxury travel agency based in Medellín.

“Wake reflects both the reality of the city and its challenges, namely that, without major global luxury hotel brands, many tourists still hesitate to visit Medellín,” said Piedrahita. “Wake has a major advantage over others by being ‘curated’ and tied to the Design Hotels category within Marriott Bonvoy, which gives it a level of excellence in service and facilities that other hotels don’t have.”

To step inside Wake BioHotel is to instantly intuit why the hotel has so quickly set a new standard for luxury travel for the city. Sweeping views from nearly every window remind you that you’re in the heart of the city, and a beautiful one at that. Yet the property curates a space where the noise of the city floats away almost instantly, leaving guests with a sense of silence and solitude, the deep breath they likely didn’t realize they so desperately needed.

It is this feel makes the hotel’s wellness and longevity travel focus seem like such a natural fit. As wellness travel booms into to what is expected to be a $1.4 trillion industry by the end of 2027, many destinations tepidly embrace additions that feel like an afterthought, perhaps converting an unused conference room into a “retreat space” with the edition of a few yoga mats. That is not the case at Wake.

“We want wellness to feel naturally integrated into every aspect of a stay at Wake BioHotel,” said Sebastian Vallejo, commercial manager of Wake. And that it does. In addition to a small but high-tech fitness center, the property has an expansive yoga and pilates studio that offers everything from group classes to sound baths and private energy healing sessions.

It also boasts a spa and its own longevity club, Sastra. To tour Sastra is to encounter all manner of high-tech machinery and medical-grade equipment designed to optimize every aspect of a guest’s wellbeing. Soon, guests will even be able to book an appointment with an on-site doctor, who will be able to use tools like a body competition machine and diagnostic tests to recommend wellness-enhancing treatments.

The truly wellness-minded will love the property’s tech-powered BioRooms, which feature everything from red light panels to circadian rhythm-tuning lights that help regulate sleep cycles. Hatch machines can wake guests to the sound of birdsong rather than an alarm, while grounding mats use quartz to help bring the body back to center after a long day.

Delightfully, Wake BioHotel is far from a place where wellness means deprivation. No where is that more clear than at Silo, the hotel’s all-day restaurant lofted high above the city for sweeping views.

Silo prides itself on using fresh, local, and traceable ingredients to create healthy, longevity-optimizing meals, but there is plenty of comfort food here. At breakfast, guests can grab for champagne to make mimosas, or stick to ultra-fresh protein shakes. The dinner menu is just as friendly to those counting macros and micronutrients it is to those looking for a cool cocktails and an oversized cheeseburger, made mindfully with local ingredients.

Herein lies a core principle that has helped make Wake BioHotel so immediately successful with such a wide range of visitors: wellness means many different things to many different people. It can look like meditation and sound healing sessions, or getting buzzed on the locally-harvested Colombian coffee from Pergamino that is provided in every room. It can also be as simple as a deeply plush bed and the ultimate luxury of returning from a day spent in such a vibrant city: silence, space, and peace.

Wake BioHotel manages to do all of these things thoughtfully. “I believe what Wake is achieving marks an important step forward, helping pave the way for major hotel chains that will undoubtedly elevate the city to the next level in tourism, hospitality, and luxury,” said Piedrahita.

Wake is far from done when in Medellín, with what may be its most impactful project yet still to come. In June, it will debut Wake Medellín, a multi-use space featuring even more luxury apartment-style accommodations, and something different: an outsized culinary and cultural offering that is already the talk of the town.

It will debut as the new home of some of the city’s most popular culinary concepts, including Krudo Viches y Vinilos and Chef Adolfo Cavalie’s TEST Kitchen Lab, both of which will relocate to the space. It will also welcome new arrivals like Osso from Lima, Peru and a cheeky new wine bar named Glu Glu. The most hotly anticipated opening of all is Boro, the newest restaurant from Colombian chef Jaime Rodriguez, whose Cartagena restaurant Celele is among the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

Wake is not alone in reshaping Medellín into an increasingly attractive destination for travelers. The city has benefited from the blossoming of an entire ecosystem of culinary, cultural, and hospitality projects that has earned it recognition by the likes of National Geographic and Condé Nast Traveler as one of the best places to travel this year. But for now, Wake BioHotel is certainly doing what it promised: remaking what it means to visit Medellín.