Go where the steam is
Sauna Travel
Experiencing sauna cultures elsewhere in Finland, Japan and on the West Coast, and bringing back what works.
Sauna is a local practice in many places around the world. Whether you take löyly in Helsinki, use a sentō in Tokyo or enjoy a wood-fired barrel sauna in Canada, you are doing what people everywhere have made part of daily life. Our goal is to visit, ask questions and bring what we learn home.
Where we are headed
Sauna has many names
Wherever the winters are long, someone worked out that a hot room and cold water make them easier. The Finns call it sauna, the Swedes bastu, the Norwegians badstue, the Estonians saun, the Latvians pirts and the Lithuanians pirtis. In Russia it is the banya, in Japan the onsen and the sentō.
Each of them arrived at the same idea and then made it their own, with their own rules about heat, water, timing and what you say to the person beside you. The map below marks the places we hope to visit over time. It is not a checklist and it is certainly not complete, but it is a decent picture of how much there is to learn before Canada settles on a version of its own.
