How a Health Crisis, a Divorce, and a Thai Monk Led Her to Create the #1 Spa in the World: Meet Diana Stobo of The Retreat Costa Rica

How a Health Crisis, a Divorce, and a Thai Monk Led Her to Create the #1 Spa in the World: Meet Diana Stobo of The Retreat Costa Rica

From Behind the Stays by Zach Busekrus

April 7, 2026 · 58 min · Episode 351

About this episode

Diana Stobo shares her journey from a health crisis to founding the world's number one spa in Costa Rica.

Explore The Retreat Costa Rica: https://www.theretreatcostarica.com/Connect with Diana: https://dianastobo.com/Connect with Zach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/Apply to join the Journey Alliance: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zacharybusekrus/ In just a moment you'll meet Diana Stobo, the founder and visionary behind The Retreat Costa Rica — a 25-room luxury wellness destination and healing center with three farm-to-table restaurants, about an hour west of San José. Condé Nast just named it the number one destination spa in the world.But rewind about 25 years and Diana is 34 years old. Three kids at home. Husband travels Monday through Friday. And she's alone, projectile vomiting blood, calling a friend because she can't leave the house to get to the hospital. The doctors tell her she's raw tissue from one end to the other and hand her a prescription she'll need for the rest of her life. She never fills it.Instead she eliminates six foods, loses 100 pounds, reverses every condition her doctors said was permanent, pioneers the raw food movement, writes 15 books, and sells 65,000 copies out of the trunk of her car.Then comes the divorce. And on the same day it's…

People in this episode

Host: Zach Busekrus

Guest: Diana Stobo

Topics covered

  • wellness
  • entrepreneurship
  • health crisis
  • personal transformation
  • luxury spa
  • raw food movement

Keywords

  • Diana Stobo
  • The Retreat Costa Rica
  • wellness
  • spa
  • raw food
  • health transformation
  • entrepreneurship

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Retreat Costa Rica, Condé Nast

Places: Costa Rica, San José

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