the world’s best.

Yoroushi Onsen, Nakashibetsu, Japan

The 2025 SAUNACHELIN Grand Prix winner: a riverside onsen inn in eastern Hokkaido where hot spring water pours over the stones and the cold plunge is the river.

Takeo Onsen, Japan

Three straight SAUNACHELIN No. 1s (2019–2021) and a Hall of Fame place: hojicha löyly, two wood-fired rooms and a bonfire rooftop beside an Edo-era garden.

near Sigulda (Gauja National Park), Latvia

A design-award-winning pirts retreat in Gauja National Park: three saunas including a spruce smoke sauna, four-hour rituals led by trained pirts masters, and four glass guest cabins.

Skodsborg (Rudersdal), 18 km north of Copenhagen, Denmark

Denmark's best-known sauna-and-sea hotel: saunagus at 80–90 °C led by a gusmester, then a dip in the Øresund from the hotel's pier.

Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki's waterfront design sauna: a smoke sauna and wood-heated rooms with the Baltic as the plunge, on SAUNA37's first list.

Tampere, Finland

Tampere's best-loved lakeside folk sauna since 1929, open every day of the year with an ice hole into Näsijärvi in winter.

Vantaa, Finland

The only place with several public smoke saunas heated every day, now with two new architect-built smoke saunas (2025), 20 minutes from Helsinki.

Oslo, Norway

A nonprofit with over 18,000 members running architect-built sauna rafts on the Oslo waterfront; its Trosten raft made TIME's World's Greatest Places 2025.

Sanbornton, NH

Off-grid, solar-powered A-frame on 24 acres with a barrel sauna out front.

Appleton, ME

A treehouse 40 feet up on 120 acres, with a wood-fired hot tub and sauna.

Hunter, NY

Ski-country house near Hunter with a standalone outdoor sauna for après.

Shaftsbury, VT

A converted Vermont schoolhouse with a barrel sauna and hot tub.