How to have a ‘White Lotus’ wellness experience in Los Angeles

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Here’s what you need to know to start your day:

• How to have a ‘White Lotus’ experience right here in L.A.
• California seeks to buck President Trump’s tariffs and maintain global trade independently.
• These SoCal vintage motels have found new life. But you can’t sleep there.
• And here’s today’s e-newspaper

How to live like a ‘White Lotus’ character in L.A.

While many fans of Season 3 of “The White Lotus” are giving their own theories on who is going to die in Sunday’s finale, those who are less into murder and more into relaxation are wondering how to live like a character from the show — without the drama.

We’ve got some ideas for you.

Times contributor Rachel Kraus put together a list of 11 relaxing ways to live like a ‘White Lotus’ character in L.A.

After the first two seasons took us on a murder-mystery adventure at the White Lotus resorts in Hawaii and Sicily, the dark comedy follows hotel guests at the Thailand location this season.

Dom Hetrakul and Natasha Rothwell from Max’s “The White Lotus.”

(Fabio Lovino/HBO)

Set against the backdrop of the island of Koh Samui, characters check in at the White Lotus with an open-air lobby and villas overlooking lush mountains and the deep-blue ocean. The fictional wellness resort offers spa services, fitness analyses, gluten-free food and an assigned personal health mentor.

You can make your “White Lotus” dreams come true with a $9,000-a-night stay at a Four Seasons Resort Koh Samui villa, the actual resort where “The White Lotus” was filmed.

Or, you can re-create your “White Lotus” fantasy right here in L.A.

Lucky for us, the city has a plethora of lavish options to get your wellness on. Here are a few.

Get clued into your biometric data

Why go all the way to Thailand for biometric testing when you can do that right here in L.A.? Love.Life in El Segundo combines the tests and services to help you improve your “healthspan” into one full-service location with a gym, spa and doctor’s office that provide workout and health plans based on optimizing your biomarkers. You can also get an estimate of your “biological age” to promote longevity.

Signature assessment: $6,000
Annual membership: $50,000

(Alexander Norton)

Escape the noise in a sensory deprivation tank

You don’t need to go to Thailand to appreciate the healing powers of water. At IntoMeSea in Santa Monica, the float tanks — a.k.a. sensory deprivation tanks — provide some of the most relaxing experiences in town.

Each of the center’s three tanks is in its own private suite. One includes a eucalyptus aromatherapy steam room; the other two have a “fire and ice” setup for a cold plunge and infrared sauna experience. The tanks themselves feature 7-foot-high ceilings and contain 22 bags — about 1,200 pounds — of Epson salt each (more salt per gallon of water than the Dead Sea.)

One-hour float with 15 additional minutes for sauna steam room and suite time: $92

(Rachel Kraus/For The Times)

Cleanse your energy with a Reiki healing session

A sexual romp with a Reiki healer much like in “The White Lotus” isn’t on the menu at Akiko Hoshihara’s practice in Santa Monica, but you can get a good energy healing. During the session, Hoshihara will assess the balance of your energy centers, or chakras, and use crystals as well as Reiki hand motions to help restore balance.

One hour of Reiki: $200

Ahead of “The White Lotus” Season 3 finale, catch up with our weekly recaps and tell us your finale theories.

The week’s biggest stories

A view of the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro on Wednesday.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Bucking Trump’s tariffs, California will push to maintain global trade independently, Newsom said

• Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that California will look for ways to expand trade despite President Trump’s sweeping round of tariffs that has sent financial markets tumbling.
• Even in a Trump-friendly slice of Orange County, concerns about higher prices and uncertainty about the economy were palpable.
• Meanwhile, the cost of iPhones is expected to go up as Trump’s tariffs increase manufacturing costs for Apple, according to analysts.

The California-Mexico border, once overwhelmed, is now nearly empty

• Trump’s immigration crackdown has slowed migrant crossings to a near halt. Humanitarian aid groups, with few people to serve, are closing down operations at the border.
• San Diego, which became the top region along the border for migrant arrivals last year, has seen a 70% decrease in migrant arrests so far this fiscal year, said a Border Patrol official.

In an unprecedented payout, L.A. County will settle sex abuse claims for $4 billion

• The county plans to settle nearly 7,000 claims of childhood sexual abuse that allegedly occurred inside its juvenile facilities and foster homes.
• The settlement, which still needs to be approved by county officials, would dwarf the largest sex abuse settlements in U.S. history.

San Francisco will tie clean needle distribution for drug users to treatment and counseling

• San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said the city’s drug overdose crisis requires a bolder approach to getting illicit drug users off the streets and into treatment.
• The new policy goes into effect April 30. Though overdose numbers fell last year, preliminary data for 2025 show them creeping back up.

More big stories

• As children are pulled into immigration court, many must fend for themselves.
• The California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty convictions of one of L.A.’s most notorious gang figures.
• California officials ordered Chiquita Canyon Landfill to take corrective measures or face fines.
• Sequels, Beatles and embattled studios: What we saw at CinemaCon 2025.

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This week’s must reads

(Courtesy of Albert Jones)

A death row inmate put his San Quentin journals and art up for sale at $80,000. The inmate, Albert Jones, kept detailed journals chronicling his anxiety as COVID-19 began spreading through San Quentin State Prison in early 2020.

“I want to be remembered as, first of all, a human being that made mistakes,” Jones said. “I didn’t understand what I was going to do with the rest of my life, knowing that the state wanted to kill me, as if I wasn’t nothing. I do have worth.”

More must reads

• He was rejected by 16 colleges and then hired by Google. Now he’s suing some of the schools for anti-Asian discrimination.
• What happened to Kanye West’s Donda Academy? The school opened with great promise in 2020 but was shuttered less than four years later.
• Black L.A. social spaces flourished after the murder of George Floyd. Five years later, will they survive?
• For many Pacific Palisades residents, Traci Park is the face of the fire recovery.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@latimes.com.

For your weekend

Riverside’s Farm House Motel, constructed in 1953, has been transformed into a food hall and mini-mall called the Farm House Collective.

(David Fouts / For The Times)

Going out

• 🏨 These SoCal vintage motels have found new life. But you can’t sleep there.
• 🎤 A haven for underground music in downtown Los Angeles has reopened under new ownership.
• 🌻 Festooned with LACMA rubble, 7th Ave Garden is L.A.’s most unlikely arts oasis.
• 🥾 Here are three hikes to embrace the start of spring in L.A.
• 🌸 Now’s the time to step inside the most beautiful private gardens in and around L.A.

Staying in

• 📺 “Dying for Sex” on FX is this century’s kinky, horny “Love Story,” our critic writes.
• 👿 Kevin Bacon stars as a demon bounty hunter in “The Bondsman,” now streaming on Prime Video.
• 📚 A new Beatles book, “John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs,” offers a detailed narrative of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s creative partnership and how it ended.
• 🧑‍🍳 Here’s a recipe for breakfast pizza.
• ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, Sudoku, word search and arcade games.

How well did you follow the news this week? Take our quiz.

(Staff and wire photots)

Which blue gem was used to create the interlocking L.A. logo in the 2024 Dodgers World Series championship rings recently presented to the team? Plus nine other questions from our weekly news quiz.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor

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