The Best Saunas in Seattle: Waterfront Saunas, Banya and Korean Spas

Seattle’s sauna scene is really a cold water scene. Almost every new operation in the city is a hot room parked next to water you can actually get into: Puget Sound off the Alki boardwalk and Lincoln Park, Lake Union from a dock or a boat, Lake Washington from a floating deck in Kirkland. Choose the water first and the sauna sorts itself out.

Below are the venues worth booking, with each one’s own published prices as of September 2026. Small operators change rates, seasons and locations constantly, so treat every number here as a starting point and confirm on the booking page before you show up.

The short list

• Sauna plus a Puget Sound dip: Bywater Sauna or Sauna Moon at Alki Beach, Good Day Sauna at Lincoln Park.
• Sauna plus a lake plunge: Wild Haus floating sauna boats on Lake Union, or Von Sauna at Carillon Point in Kirkland.
• Indoors, year round, no weather risk: Banya 5 in South Lake Union.
• Korean spa: Olympus Spa if you are a woman, Q Sauna & Spa if you are not.
• Private room for a group: Hothouse Spa & Sauna on Capitol Hill.

Puget Sound: sauna on the beach

Three operators run hot rooms within walking distance of salt water, and all three treat the sound itself as the cold plunge. That is the whole appeal, and also the reason these sessions sell out on clear winter evenings.

Bywater Sauna is the one you’ll see most often. It runs communal 60 and 75 minute sessions (the length is in the session title when you book) on the Alki Beach boardwalk just west of the Alki Beach Bathhouse, and in the North Meadow at Golden Gardens. Two more sites are seasonal: Old Stove in Ballard runs October to June, and the Leschi location on Lake Washington is currently listed as closed. Weekday sessions are $35, weekend sessions $40. Booking works like a fitness class, with a waitlist when slots fill, and there are memberships if you plan to go weekly. Under-18s are allowed with prior notice when accompanied by a parent or guardian. The house rule everyone quotes: towels between all bums and benches.

Sauna Moon, run by Hot Rocks Sauna Club, parks a wood-fired 16-foot cedar barrel at Alki Beach Park, Thursday through Saturday, with plunges straight into the sound. Sixty minutes is $35, thirty minutes is $20, and unlimited membership runs $100 a month, which makes it the cheapest way to sauna often in this city. Bring towels, a water bottle, a swimsuit or modest cover, and a robe. Sessions depend on Seattle Parks permits and can be cancelled for weather, so check before you drive over.

Good Day Sauna is a wood-fired mobile sauna that sets up at Lincoln Park in West Seattle, Friday to Sunday, between the evergreens and the water, with what the operator calls a brisk plunge for the brave. It doesn’t publish a session price, so book through its site to see current rates. Private rentals are available by enquiry.

Lake Union and Lake Washington: the floating saunas

Seattle Sauna docks a double wood-fired cedar sauna at 2401 N Northlake Way on Lake Union and runs guided 90 minute social sessions year round, rain or shine, which in Seattle is mostly a technicality. Prices start at $49 per person, with up to 10 guests in a social session and 12 in a private booking. Note the one thing people get wrong: there is no lake plunge. All social sessions are dock-side, and cold exposure comes from a 5-liter bucket shower and an outdoor shower. Towels, water, changing rooms and a rooftop deck are included, and cancellations need 48 hours.

Wild Haus is the boat. Wood-fired floating saunas leave from 10 E Allison St in Eastlake for communal 90 minute voyages of up to six people, plus private voyages of 90 minutes or two and a half hours, with open-water plunges into Lake Union when conditions allow and a bucket shower on board when they don’t. The operator says guests can set the heat anywhere from 104 to 200°F (40 to 93°C), which covers everything from a warm bath to a proper Finnish room. A bathing suit is recommended, minimum age is 13, and minors need a parent or guardian plus a signed waiver. Prices aren’t published on the site, so check the booking widget. Bookings are nonrefundable and rescheduling needs seven days’ notice.

Von Sauna sits at Carillon Point in Kirkland, about 20 minutes out of the city on the Eastside, with a wood stove and a ladder dropping straight into Lake Washington. Social 75 minute sessions hold up to nine people at $40 peak or $32 off-peak. Private two-and-a-half hour sessions are $700 peak and $550 off-peak. Slots run 7am to 7pm, Wednesday to Monday, closed Tuesdays. The venue puts its sauna at 170 to 195°F (77 to 91°C), asks for a bathing suit in the room, two towels and a water bottle, and has no showers on site. It’s 18+ unless you’re with a legal guardian. It has historically operated as a cold-season venue, so check the booking calendar rather than assuming it’s open in August.

Indoors all year: Banya 5 and Hothouse

Banya 5 in South Lake Union, at 217 9th Ave N, has been running since 2004 and is the closest thing Seattle has to a full bathhouse. The centerpiece is a Russian banya steam room built from concrete and basalt brick, alongside a eucalyptus Turkish steam room at 113°F (45°C), an 87°F (31°C) salt water pool, a 103°F (39°C) hot pool and a cold plunge. Regular two-hour entry is $70 before tax and includes a locker, towel and sandals. It drops to $53 when booked with a 60 minute or longer treatment, there’s a five-entry pass at $280, and a Wednesday and Thursday early bird rate of $48 with a service. Swimsuits are required, it’s coed, and it’s 18+ with ID. Hours are Tuesday 3pm to 10pm and Wednesday to Sunday 9am to 10pm, closed Mondays, by reservation only, with groups capped at six.

Hothouse Spa & Sauna on Capitol Hill, at 1019 E Pike St with the entrance on 11th Ave, works differently: the whole place is rented privately, one group at a time. You get a sauna, steam room and hot tub, all genders welcome, bathing attire optional. Weekday daytime rates are $190 for 90 minutes, $220 for two hours and $300 for three. Evenings and weekends run $240, $270 and $350. Extra guests are $25 each, 90 minute rentals take up to four people and the longer slots up to eight, and there’s a $100 deposit. Minimum age is 14. The building has stairs and no ramp.

Korean spas: north and south of the city

The Korean spa cluster is not in Seattle proper. Both of the ones worth your time sit off I-5, one north in Lynnwood and one south in Lakewood, and both are a different proposition from a 60 minute beach session: you pay once and stay most of the day.

Olympus Spa is women only and nude. The Lynnwood location at 3815 196th St SW, Suite 160 charges $58 for an all-day pass, walk-in only, with hydrotherapy pools, far-infrared rooms and saunas. The second location, listed as Tacoma but actually at 8615 S Tacoma Way in Lakewood, is $53 all day with the same format. Both are barefoot and nude facilities where swimwear isn’t allowed in the pool area, robes go on in the dry rooms, and the minimum age is 13. Hours at both run Monday to Thursday 8:30am to 9pm and Friday to Saturday 8:30am to 11pm; Sunday hours are not listed on the site, so check before you go.

Q Sauna & Spa at 17420 Hwy 99 in Lynnwood is the one to book if you’re not a woman, or if you’re coming as a mixed group. It’s a jjimjilbang (a Korean bathhouse with a shared, clothed relaxation floor): the wet baths are gender-separated, and the coed sauna area is a set of themed rooms including yellow clay, rock salt, charcoal and jade. Admission is $48, everyone wears the provided uniform in the communal areas, and there’s a cafe on site. Open Monday to Thursday 9am to 10pm and Friday to Sunday 9am to 11pm.

Seattle sauna comparison

How cold the water actually is

The NOAA coastal water temperature table lists no Seattle station, but Tacoma is the nearest Puget Sound reading and it’s close enough to plan around. August and September peak at roughly 55°F (13°C). February and March bottom out near 47°F (8°C). That August figure is the warmest water the sound offers all year, and it is still cold water by any plunge standard. Von Sauna tells its own guests that Lake Washington runs 39 to 49°F (4 to 9°C) through winter and spring, which is colder again.

Treat that seriously. The cold plunge is where the risk in this whole activity lives, not the hot room. Enter slowly and let your breathing settle before you go deeper. Never swim alone or without supervision, and stay where staff can see you. Von Sauna’s etiquette page tells guests not to swim inside the marina and states plainly that all swimming is at your own risk, which is the correct framing at every one of these venues. Sauna Moon, Hot Rocks and Hothouse all ask anyone pregnant or with a heart condition to talk to a doctor first, and that advice is worth following whether or not the venue asks.

Why the city suddenly has all these saunas

In October 2025, Seattle Met declared the city in a sauna boom, pegged to the first Seattle Sauna Festival. The Seattle Sauna Festival returns to the National Nordic Museum in Ballard on November 7 and 8, 2026, at $79 general admission and $189 VIP, fees and taxes included.

Ballard is the right address for it. The neighborhood took in a wave of Scandinavian immigrants during its mill-town years, and the National Nordic Museum, founded in 1980 as the Nordic Heritage Museum, moved into a purpose-built home in 2018 and took its current name in 2019. If you’re working through the country’s sauna cities, Seattle has moved up the list fast, mostly on the strength of having cold water at the bottom of nearly every hill.

Common questions

Hero photo: Joe Mabel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.