A pilates holiday on Koh Samui: classes from your hotel, or a retreat?

There are two ways to build a holiday on Koh Samui around pilates. You can book your own room and fit classes around it, or you can book a retreat, where the room, the classes and the rides come as one thing. Both work well. They suit different trips, and the difference is less about price than about how much you want to arrange yourself.

Option one: your own hotel, and the timetable

You choose where to stay, and you book classes one at a time — or as a pack — from the timetable. Nothing is committed beyond the classes you book, and a pack’s days count from your first booking rather than the day you buy it, so there is no penalty for buying before you land.

It suits you if:

• your accommodation is already booked, or chosen for reasons that have nothing to do with pilates;
• you want a few classes across the trip rather than one every day;
• you are staying on the north or east coast, where the studio is a short ride away;
• you like to decide each morning what the day is for.

The cost is the logistics. Every class is a round trip you arrange, morning classes are the ones that fill, and on a short trip the organising can take more of the holiday than you expected. It works best for people who are good at it, and who are staying close.

Option two: a retreat

the Isla retreat turns the same studio into the shape of the holiday. Every night you stay includes:

• a room you choose — a studio apartment a short walk from the studio, a seaview villa studio, or a suite at a beachfront resort;
• one group reformer class a day, booked before you land, so you never arrive to find it full;
• your ride to the studio and back each day, and both airport transfers;
• breakfast at the villa and the beachfront suites; the apartment has its own kitchen instead.

Anything else — a private one-to-one, massage, lunches at the café, a scooter — is an add-on, priced on its own, so you see exactly what it adds. It runs on the dates you pick, from three nights, and nothing is charged until a person has checked that your room is free.

It suits you if you want a class most days without arranging any of them, if you are travelling alone and would rather not negotiate taxis and timetables, or if pilates is the reason for the trip rather than something fitted around it.

How to choose, quickly

• Fewer than three nights, or a hotel on the far side of the island: book classes, or ask for a private class where you are staying.
• A class most days and nothing to organise: a retreat.
• A long stay with a flexible plan: a room near the studio and a pack of classes is the middle path.
• Not sure yet: take one class first. It tells you more about whether you want a week of them than anything you can read.

If you want the distances before you decide where to sleep, the guide to reformer pilates in Koh Samui lists the drive from each part of the island, and the packs and prices shows what classes cost on their own.

Do it somewhere warm, for as long as you like

the Isla retreat is a reformer class every day on Koh Samui, on the dates you choose — from three nights, with your ride to the studio and back included and a room you pick. Nothing is charged until a person has confirmed your room. If you would rather start with one class, the timetable is the place.