The plains have one commodity the crowded world increasingly craves: quiet, uncluttered space. A new kind of enterprise has begun to trade on it — the rural wellness retreat, which invites guests out of the city and into the deep stillness of the countryside for a few days of unwinding far from any noise, screen or crowd. The region's very emptiness has become its selling point.

Selling Stillness and Space

Fictional retreats such as Meadowlark Wellness, set on a restored farmstead outside Bismarck, pair the simple pleasures of the country — big skies, dark nights, birdsong and silence — with the offerings of a modern spa. Guests hike the prairie, soak in the quiet, and rediscover a pace of life the plains never entirely abandoned. The stillness that once drove settlers to loneliness is now sold as a cure for the frazzled.

From the almanac's reckoning:

• Rural retreats trade on the plains' quiet, uncluttered space.
• They pair country pleasures with modern spa offerings.
• The region's emptiness has become a marketable asset.

It is a fitting turn for a region long dismissed as empty, finding value in the very quality outsiders once pitied. The almanac counts the rural retreat among the more imaginative of the plains' new trades — the business of selling stillness to a world that has run short of it.