Community Sauna Experience

Spring 2026

26 May 2026

Every so often I find that I’m accidentally hip again. An friend invited me out to a “community sauna”: an outdoor, mixed gender, bathing suits type experience that was altogether quite nice and I rather liked it.

It seems I’m not the only one because it turns out that in fact, you can’t move in this city for tripping over a community sauna. I’ve tried two so far, the one in St Anne’s House, which has very chilly dipping pools, and the one on Horfield common, which is less chilly, but wood fired and has a lovely outdoor chill space.

Of course, a sauna is a sauna, but sweating out last week’s sins while chatting with some well-meaning strangers can be enjoyable. Even if you’re not talking, you get to overhear some fun exchanges, such as the earnest young woman telling her beau about the first time she entered into a relationship from her womanhood (she was 21). But private chuckles and pretentious tattoo stories aside, at £10, taking an hour to sweat and chill simply for the sake of your own wellbeing is the kind of affordable luxury I could do with more of.

The audience is on average quite a bit younger than my 46 years, but I’m not a lone outlier and it feels like a welcoming space.

All in all, delightful way to spend an afternoon, Would recommend.