Naturist sauna and spa culture: Germany, Finland, Korea and Japan

Naturist sauna and spa culture is the part of the world where nude bathing is simply how bathing is done, not a special-interest activity. Germany, Austria, Finland, the Nordic countries, Korea and Japan each have a version, and the etiquette differs enough from place to place that a regular at one can get it wrong at another.

Germany and Austria: textilfrei

The German word is textilfrei, textile-free, and it applies to the sauna zone of nearly every Therme (thermal spa) in Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. The pools and slides outside the sauna zone are textile; cross the line into the Saunalandschaft and swimwear comes off, for everyone, mixed, with no eyebrows raised. The reasoning is hygiene: sweat soaks into a swimsuit and goes into the next pool with you.

Therme Erding, outside Munich, describes itself as the largest thermal spa in the world. Its sauna world is textile-free, admits guests from 16 and up, bans phones and cameras throughout, and asks for a sauna towel under you and a towel or robe on when you are walking between saunas; its brine pools are nude on most days with swimwear allowed on Wednesdays and Sundays. Vabali Spa in Berlin, a Balinese-styled complex by the Hauptbahnhof with sister sites in Düsseldorf and Hamburg, puts it bluntly in its house rules: swimwear is never allowed anywhere in the sauna facility, and a robe is required in the restaurant and lounges. Rules at any given Therme are posted at reception and on its website; the Germany listings note which venues are textilfrei and which have textile days.

Etiquette specifics worth knowing: the Aufguss is a scheduled ritual where a sauna master ladles scented water onto the stones and fans the heat around the room; you do not enter or leave once it has started. Sit or lie entirely on your towel, feet included. Shower before every sauna and before every pool. Keep your eyes where they would be in a lift. And do not be surprised by the crowd: on a winter Sunday a large Therme holds thousands of people of every age from 16 up, and nobody is paying attention to anyone else.

The Netherlands

Dutch sauna culture follows the German model, and the big complexes are mostly nude. Thermen Bussloo, near Apeldoorn, is textile-free in its sauna and bathing areas on most days, with designated swimwear days a couple of times a month and more often in high summer; it is also adults-only. Dutch venues are good at publishing their badkleding (swimwear) days in advance, so check the schedule on the venue's site or the Netherlands listings before driving, because arriving on a swimwear day in a nude-only mindset is as awkward as the reverse.

Finland

Finland has roughly 3.3 million saunas for a population of 5.5 million, and UNESCO inscribed Finnish sauna culture on its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity on 17 December 2020. The Finnish sauna is domestic first: a hot wood-lined room at home or at the summer cottage, used nude, with a plunge in the lake or a roll in the snow between rounds. Families sauna together; mixed groups of friends often split by gender or go in turns. Public saunas in Helsinki vary: some are gender-separated and nude, some mixed with swimsuits, and the newer lakeside and seaside saunas usually say which on the door. Finnish etiquette is quieter than German: no scheduled rituals, a bundle of birch (vihta or vasta) for whisking the skin in summer, and silence or low conversation.

Nordic sea baths and winter swimming

Denmark, Sweden and Norway have a winter-bathing culture built around the cold sea and a hot sauna. Almost every Danish coastal town has a winter swimming club, membership waiting lists in Copenhagen run for years, and Skagen holds a winter swimming festival each January. Clubs set their own dress rule; some are nude, some swimsuit. Sweden's kallbadhus tradition is best seen at Ribersborgs Kallbadhus in Malmö, a wooden pier bath open since 1898 where nude bathing has been the norm since the 1930s, with separate men's and women's sections, saunas on each side and a monthly mixed day. Norway tends toward swimsuits in the water and nude showering beforehand.

Korea: the jjimjilbang

A jjimjilbang is a 24-hour bathhouse complex: single-gender bathing floors with hot, cold and herbal pools and scrub tables, plus mixed common floors with dry saunas, heated rooms, a restaurant and a sleeping hall. In the bathing areas you are fully nude; you scrub thoroughly at the seated showers before entering any pool, and the ajumma scrub attendants will remove skin you did not know you had for a fee. On the mixed floors everyone wears the cotton shorts and T-shirt handed out at the entrance. Tattoos are generally no problem in Korea.

Japan: onsen and sento

Japanese hot-spring baths have been separated by gender since the Meiji period, and in the bathing areas swimwear is not allowed. Wash sitting on the stool, with soap, before you go near the water; the small towel comes into the bath area with you but not into the water (on the head is traditional). The hard rule for Western visitors is tattoos: many traditional onsen still refuse visibly tattooed guests, some accept small ones covered with a waterproof patch, and a growing number of sento (neighborhood baths) and tourist-oriented onsen advertise themselves as tattoo-friendly. Check before you travel. Some onsen aimed at international visitors offer private baths for couples or families.

The United Kingdom and the United States: naturist swims

Where there is no public nude-bathing tradition, naturists create one by hiring pools. British Naturism's directory lists more than thirty regular swims, typically a council pool or leisure center hired by a local club on a Sunday afternoon or a weekday evening. The Potteries club meets on alternate Sundays at a municipal pool; Glasgow's Sunday Swim takes over a pool with a Turkish suite and saunas. In the United States the same model runs through non-landed clubs, which rent YMCA and swim-school pools after hours; the events calendar and groups are where those sessions get posted, and our guide to nudist gyms, swims and yoga covers how they work.

Etiquette that changes by country

Wherever you are, the constants hold: shower first, towel under you, no phones, no staring. The club directory lists spas and swim venues alongside naturist clubs, and the resort and club etiquette guide covers the hot tub and sauna rules that apply everywhere else.