Sauna culture is a big deal in Finland. Almost everyone has a sauna in their home (John went to a work off-site last week and had a sauna in his hotel room). There are estimated to be 3 million saunas in a country of just over 5 million people.
Unfortunately, our apartment complex sauna isn’t available to short-term tenants. I get it, but it would have been incredibly convenient to access the one in our building. Still, I didn’t feel like I could leave Finland without trying at least one quasi-authentic sauna experience.
I say “quasi” because I think most Finns would argue a truly authentic sauna experience is done in the nude. This is completely normal in Finland, and there’s nothing sexual about sauna culture to Finns. (In general, Europeans have a much more relaxed attitude toward nudity and body image.)
The “mainstream” public saunas tend to be mixed gender. The two best-known options in Helsinki are Allas Sea Pool and Löyly, and both require swimsuits. If you don’t bring one, you’ll have to rent one.
John has been to saunas multiple times for work, so I decided this could be a fun mother-daughter outing for Belle and me. I decided to go to Löyly which, translated literally, is Finnish for steam. In 2018 it was named one of TIME’s 100 Greatest Places in the World.
While the sauna itself is clothed, the dressing rooms are not and the ones at Löyly are narrow. I found them cramped, and being surrounded by women in various states of undress felt awkward from a North American perspective. There was one private bathroom, and that’s where Belle chose to change. (We wore our swimsuits under our clothes to arrive, but obviously didn’t want to leave in soaking wet suits.)
Once we got past the locker-room nudity situation, though, it was a great experience.
I left my phone in the locker for most of our two-hour sauna session and only grabbed it at the end to snap a few photos before we left.
It was a lovely evening (our 2-hour slot was from 7:30-9:30; you have to book your visit in advance as they limit the total number of people at any given time).
The saunas get hot, but I never found the heat oppressive. That said, as much as I usually hate cold water, it actually felt good to dip into the Baltic Sea.
Well, maybe not good. But definitely refreshing!
The water was freezing, and I can’t imagine doing this in the winter. (I overheard a Finn in one of the saunas telling a tourist that they break holes in the ice in the colder months. Brrr!) Still, I braved the water at least four times. I wanted to swim, but couldn’t convince my brain to commit to it. I did put my head under twice, though, which took a tremendous amount of willpower. And going into the sea definitely made the whole experience feel more authentic.
The good news is that after a few minutes back in the sauna, you’re thawed right to your core.
I think the most surprising thing about a Finnish sauna is how incredibly hot it gets. When someone throws water onto the coals (or, in the case of the wood-fired saunas, adds more wood and water), the steam singes your nostrils. It’s hard to describe because there’s really nothing else like it. I happened to love the sensation, but I can see how it could feel overwhelming.
Of course, with Finland’s famously good tap water, there was free drinking water readily available, and staying hydrated helped offset the heat.
Sometimes, instead of heading back into the Baltic, we just lounged outside in the cool air.
While it’s not something I feel particularly drawn to do regularly, I’m so glad I experienced a Finnish sauna. It was a uniquely Finnish experience.
(A couple of practical notes: At Löyly, your entry fee includes a towel and a seat cover. At Allas Sea Pool, you either need to bring your own towel or rent one. Both places require swimsuits, the locker rooms are gender-separated, and the saunas themselves are mixed gender. At Löyly, the showers have shampoo and body wash, and the changing rooms have hair products and a hairdryer.)
En route home, while sitting on the tram, Belle and I came across a receipt from someone who had to pay a fine for travelling on public transit without a ticket! We talked about it, almost joking about how awful that would be, when I realized that I had never put our transit passes into the bag we brought to the sauna.
My blood ran cold! I had spent so much money on the transit passes and if we got checked, I would NOT HAVE THEM. (It’s a €100 fine, so for two of us, that would be €200, which is about $320 CAD. OUCH!!!!)
As soon as I realized my oversight, we got off at the next stop and walked the rest of the way home, which wasn’t such a bad thing, because the evening views were lovely.
At 10 pm.
This is how light it is at 10 pm in Helsinki these days!
Ironically, we haven’t had our transit tickets checked a SINGLE time on public transit since arriving in Europe in early March. (I am still loving the honour system here.) You know where this is going, right?
Two days after our trip to Löyly… John and I were checked! Thankfully, we had our passes with us and all was well.
Your turn.
- Have you ever been to a traditional sauna?
- Cold-water swimming: yes or no?
- How comfortable are you with public nudity? My answer: NOT COMFORTABLE! I still remember years ago walking along the harbour in Denmark and seeing old ladies walking around in the buff on the swimming platform with full confidence and being wildly impressed with their confidence.
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The northern light! Gorgeous.
Sauna- a big no for me. I think I tried one at a pool in grad school- not exactly comfortable. ( which given how much I like hot showers is surprising).
Public nudity- also no. I’m mostly very modest and have strong feelings about not needing to see anyone else’s private parts. I’d be changing in the bathroom.
The light feels so unusual. I have a hard time figuring out the time of day right now because it’s always SO LIGHT!
I’m definitely not a fan of the public changing spaces, but there was only one bathroom so… needs must. I let Belle have it instead 🙂
How fortuitous that you and Belle saw that fine and were able to disembark!
The sauna culture fascinates me and I loved reading about your experience. I really vehemently dislike being hot and sweaty, so it doesn’t appeal to me. But I do love a nice cold plunge into a lake! The lake we have vacationed to since I was a kid is glacier-fed, and I find it so refreshing and exhilarating to swim in it. At least, after getting up the courage to jump in.
Gorgeous photos as always! How have you all adjusted to the long hours of daylight?
I think the key is having easy access to something incredibly cold. It makes getting hot and sweaty feel like part of the process since you want to be hot before going into the Baltic. If the sauna was the whole routine, I wouldn’t like it too much!
I mostly hate cold water, but maybe the solution is to have a piping hot sauna right beside any cold body of water and then I’ll contemplate getting in.
My sleep has been a bit “off” and I wonder how much of it is my circadian rhythms being messed up by the long days. I do wear an eye mask to sleep but even still, I think having it light so late just generally impacts our schedule and my own readiness for sleep.
It’s so funny because yesterday I listened to SHU’s podcast and she mentioned you and the Finnish sauna, and I wondered when we would hear about it! I log on this morning AND THERE IT IS. What a cool experience. There is a Nordic spa out in Kananaskis that has the hot and cold pools, but that is nothing compared to COOLING OFF IN THE BALTIC SEA. I mean. How amazing!
I don’t have any problems with open change rooms, remembering someone saying when I was about 5 or so at swim lessons “we’re all girls here!” But I think I’d feel VERY awkward if it was a mixed-gender nude situation. Mostly I don’t want to see a bunch of men’s junk.
Oh! The transit thing! The LRT in Calgary is similar in that you buy your ticket/ pass and maybe you get checked, maybe you don’t. It’s kind of the honour system but there is a fine involved if you get checked and you don’t have a pass or validated ticket. It’s not THAT much but it’s something. Anyway, years and years ago my in-laws visited us and because they were from some hick town called Kelowna (ha) it was a real novelty for them to ride the train. But they didn’t realize you needed tickets! So they would literally ride for hours, and one day they got checked. The officer was very nice and let them off with a warning since they were so confused (you need to pay to go on transit, what?). You were smart to get off right away and walk! Those super light northern evenings! Imagine what it will be like a month from now.
Definitely NOT co-ed naked change rooms (at the mainstream ones at least; there are some free community saunas where it’s a free for all).
All the laugh emojis about your in-laws riding the train for hours (I mean, it is fun).
There is almost no darkness here at the solstice. It’s wild!
The Finns really do love their saunas! Wearing swimsuits on the way in was a smart move – at least it means you only have the awkwardness of changing once. It doesn’t fully spare you from the “everyone else is changing” situation, but having gender-separated changing rooms definitely helps.
And of course the ONE time you forget your transit passes is the time you immediately stumble across a fine receipt, ha! 😅 At least the walk home was a beautiful bonus.
Imagine if the only time I’d forgotten our passes we had gotten checked. I would have been FURIOUS with myself. Thankfully, everything ended well. I didn’t feel guilty (like I was riding illegally) because I knew I had all our passes and had paid lots of money for the transit… but I’m not sure if I could have convinced a ticketing officer of the same thing 😉
Gah, forgetting your transit passes must have been the worst feeling. The walk home looked beautiful, though! I can’t believe how much light they have at 10pm!
I have never been to a sauna. I’ve been at a sauna at a spa or gym but have not really enjoyed it to be honest. I am not good at things where you are meant to sit and relax and stay off into space, if you know what I mean. I’m kind of a “let’s get on with the day” sort of person. And I cannot handle cold water. I am such a wimp. But in this case, I would have forced myself to dip into the Baltic because when in Rome! Last night Phil and I watched the first episode of Rooster on HBO and there is a scene where Steve Carrell saunas and then gets into an ice bath. He hated it and Phil was like – this is so how you would handle this situation.
I am not comfortable with public nudity. I am such a prude! I don’t want people to see me naked and I don’t want to see others who are naked!
It’s so light. The other night I took a picture at 10:44 pm and I could have literally been outside reading a book it was so light.
I think I liked the sauna better because Belle was with me; I don’t think I would like to do it alone. But having someone else to brave the Baltic with (and whisper with occasionally) really added to the experience.
I also don’t like public nudity! But I WISH I had a more European feeling about it. They are so much more confident about their bodies which I love.
This looks like SUCH a cool experience! Unfortunately being hot makes me angry these days, so I don’t know if I would be able to enjoy it. I do like the feeling of being very cold and then warming up- so I would probably spend the whole time jumping between the sauna and the sea.
About public nudity- I’m kind of a “when in Rome” person. If it’s appropriate, then I don’t have a problem with it. I remember going to a spa once in Switzerland, and (it was all women) everyone just walked around nude from one pool to another. Once I got over the strangeness of it, I liked it. Well- not necessarily the walking around nude part, but the feel of the water on my body, without any clothes, was nice.
Okay, Jenny, I had to laugh: “being hot makes me angry these days.” NOT ideal for a woman who runs ultramarathons in Florida.
I think you’d love the sauna. Maybe we’ll end up in Helsinki together some day?!
I went to a Korean spa once and hated everything about it.
Love the late evening light, impressed by your willingness to get into cold water and to even go to the spa at all!
Haha. Then definitely DON’T go to this sauna if you ever visit Helsinki 😉
When in Finland… no regrets about going and I am also glad I put my head under, even if in the moment it was torturous! SO COLD.
Ha at Jana’s comment about the Korean spa. I was reading this thinking it sounded like my worst nightmare! I’m impressed you were happy you tried it – I am not sure I would have been convinced that I needed that particular authentic Finnish experience.
I think I could really come to enjoy it, given the right circumstances. But it’s definitely not for everyone. Temperature extremes to be sure: the coldest water I’ve ever been in. I literally cannot imagine how people survive going into it during the winter. I feel like my heart would stop on contact!
What a great experience! Plus the great “oops we don’t have our transit pass” bonus walk at the end.
The only sauna that I’ve ever been in are small ones at gyms, but they felt nice. Not as nice as being able to dip into the sea to cool down though!
Brief locker room nudity is fine, but I’m not sure how I would do in a nude group situation, even a non-sexual one. There is only one way to find out, but I’ve got other goals on my bucket list to check off first.
I think you’d really like the sauna and I’d definitely cold plunge into the Baltic with you.
I would be a HARD pass on nudity in the sauna. It was bad enough when I could go to a corner with a towel.
I love saunas! I’ve done them in the traditional sense lots of times – I am very relaxed about swimming in the nude here in general.
The first time I noticed people being comfortable in the nude was… in Denmark!
Yes! Definitely not the norm where I grew up. Public nudity is really great for body image – you realise bodies just are, and there’s no single type, despite what it pushed on us through diet culture and advertising..
That looks beautiful! I love saunas. I’ve done them in Budapest which is more bathes but do include saunas. I loved it. I also hate cold water but the cold plunge is essential to the whole experience. Dipping into the sea is next level though!
Same: cold water is THE WORST, but it is also the key ingredient to the whole experience.
This sounds like a lovely experience! Especially for someone who has a hard time staying warm, like yourself! I have only experienced a sauna once at a friend’s house and we went outside in the snow intermittently which felt pretty amazing. The whole experience was much more relaxing than I expected, but this spa type atmosphere sounds amazing!
I am mesmerized by the 10 pm sky: Gorgeous!
Ok, I read almost to the end, wondering if you meant a dry sauna or a wet sauna, and figured out by the water on coals it was a dry sauna, which is not my favorite. I, too, would have given it a try, though, when in Rome and all.
I don’t care for cold water, but how many chances does one get to plunge into the Baltic after a traditional Finnish sauna?
The spa I go to for my massages has a women ‘s-only changing room, and I had no issue changing in the open with other women around.
You got lucky with the transit ticket situation: YAY!!
I’m sorry I’m still stuck on their being saunas in hotel rooms, WHAAAT?! That sounds so fancy!!
You know how people sometimes ask what things did you think were super fancy as a kid? Saunas. If we were staying at a hotel with a sauna I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Still love them as an adult, and rarely get to have one, but they’re much more common at hotels nowadays haha.