UNESCO put sauna culture in Finland on its intangible heritage list in 2020, and its count is 3.3 million saunas in a country of 5.5 million people. You do not need the statistic once you have lived here. There is a sauna in the basement of the block of flats, in the office, in the summer cottage, at the swimming hall, and on the ferry to Stockholm. The sauna is not a spa treatment in Finland. It is closer to a bathroom.
That changes how you should approach one. Nobody is performing anything. You go in, you get hot, you cool off, you do it again, and you talk or you don't.
What actually happens in there
A Finnish sauna is a wooden room with a stove (kiuas) topped with stones. You sit on the benches (lauteet); the higher you sit, the hotter it is, and the difference between the top bench and the floor is large. The Finnish Sauna Society recommends 80 to 100 °C (176 to 212 °F). Most public saunas run a little below that.
The point is the steam, löyly. Water thrown from a wooden ladle onto the stones turns into a wave of heat that rolls down from the ceiling a second or two later. The air is dry until you do that, so the temperature on the thermometer tells you less than you would expect. A 70 °C sauna with generous löyly feels hotter than a 95 °C one without.
A normal visit goes like this:
- Shower first. This is not optional anywhere, and in a public sauna it is the one rule everybody watches.
- Take a small towel or a paper seat liner to sit on. You sit on it, not on bare wood.
- Stay in for as long as it is pleasant. Five to fifteen minutes is typical. There is no prize for staying longest, and the Finns who treat it as a contest are not the ones anybody admires.
- Cool off: a cold shower, the balcony, the lake, the sea, or a hole in the ice.
- Sit down, drink some water, and go back in. Two or three rounds is ordinary.
The ladle etiquette is simple. If there are other people on the benches, ask before throwing water: "Saako heittää löylyä?" ("May I throw steam?") A nod is enough. If someone else asks, you can say no, and you can also just step down to a lower bench.
What you do not do: film, take photographs, have loud phone calls, or stay in the sauna while you are ill or have been drinking heavily. A beer on the balcony between rounds is a common sight at a cottage. Getting properly drunk and then sitting in 90 °C heat is the one combination every Finn will warn you about.
Swimsuit or not
This is what visitors actually worry about, and it has a clear rule.
- Separate men's and women's saunas are naked. That includes most old neighbourhood public saunas and every swimming hall. At Kotiharju in Helsinki the rule is written down: no swimming trunks and no underwear in the sauna. A towel around you on the way in is fine.
- Mixed saunas are swimsuits. Löyly, Allas Sea Pool and Kuusijärvi are all mixed, and they all ask for a swimsuit. Allas specifies swimwear fabric, not shorts.
- A few places are mixed and clothing optional. Sompasauna says so explicitly.
Among family and friends in private, the rule is whatever that family does. Finnish families go to the sauna together, and parents with children always have. Nobody will think anything of it if you keep a towel on.
Public saunas in Helsinki
Prices below are single adult entry, checked on 27 September 2026.
Kotiharjun sauna, Kallio. The one to go to if you go to one. Kotiharju was built in 1928 and describes itself as the only remaining public wood-burning sauna in Helsinki. It is a neighbourhood sauna at Harjutorinkatu 1, a short walk from Sörnäinen metro. Men's sauna on the ground floor, women's upstairs, both the same size. Entry is €16, towel rental €4, and a birch whisk (vihta) €8. On Thursdays and Saturdays an attendant will wash you for €15. It is open Tuesday to Sunday 14:00–20:00, with bathing until 21:30, and closed on Mondays. The cooling-off happens on the pavement outside, in a towel, which is the most Helsinki thing you will see all week.
Löyly, Hernesaari. The architect-designed one on the waterfront, with a restaurant. Löyly has a smoke sauna and a wood-burning sauna, each holding about twenty people, and a ladder down into the sea all year round. It costs €29 for two hours, with a towel, seat liner, shampoo and shower gel included, and €12 per extra hour. It is mixed, so swimsuits are worn throughout. Book ahead, especially at weekends. The hours change by day of the week and it is simpler to look them up than to trust a printed table.
Allas Sea Pool, Katajanokka. Next to the market square and the ferries, and the easiest to fit into a sightseeing day. Allas has two pools: a warm one at 27 °C (81 °F), and one filled with sea water at around 14 °C (57 °F) in autumn. There are five saunas at 70, 80 and 90 °C. The Panorama and Corner saunas and one of the floating saunas are mixed with swimsuits. The other two floating saunas are separate for men and women, where swimwear is optional. Tickets are €19 on weekdays and €24 from Friday afternoon to Sunday, and last two hours. It opens 06:30–21:00 on weekdays and 08:00–21:00 at weekends. Towels are €8.90 to rent, so bring your own.
Kulttuurisauna, Merihaka. A small wood-heated sauna on the shore, opened in 2013. Kulttuurisauna runs walk-in morning shifts on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and booked evening shifts from Wednesday to Sunday. Adults pay €17. There are no towels to rent: bring a towel, a seat towel and a water bottle.
Sompasauna, Mustikkamaa. Free, run by volunteers, with no staff at all. You heat it yourself. Sompasauna is always open, mixed, and clothing optional. You cannot drive to it; park at the Mustikkamaa sports ground or at the Kulosaari end of the bridge and walk. Bring a towel, drinking water, and a padlock for the lockers. Leave it cleaner than you found it and put a few euros in the donation box. It is the closest thing in the city to a lakeside cottage sauna, full of locals, and it is at its best on a weekday evening in winter.
Kuusijärvi, Vantaa. Twenty minutes out of the city by car, on a lake. Vantaa says Kuusijärvi is the only place with public traditional smoke saunas heated every day of the year. The saunas are mixed, so swimsuits are compulsory. Adults pay €13, and you can rent a towel or a swimsuit for €4 each. The smoke saunas open every afternoon and ticket sales stop at 20:00. In winter there is a hole in the ice. If you want one smoke sauna in the Helsinki area without paying Löyly prices, this is it.
Tampere, the sauna capital
Tampere was named the world's sauna capital in 2018 by the International Sauna Association and the Finnish Sauna Society. The region has nearly 70 public saunas, more than anywhere else in Finland. If you are in the city for a day, go to Rajaportti.
Rajaportin sauna, Pispala. Opened in 1906, and by its own history the oldest public sauna in Finland still in use. It is a working-class neighbourhood sauna on the ridge between the two lakes. The men's and women's sides are separate, each for 15–20 people, and share one enormous stone stove built into the dividing wall. The stove is heated once a day with metre-long logs and holds more than a tonne of stone. That is why the löyly is soft and lasts all evening. It opens on Monday and Wednesday 16–22 and on Friday and Saturday 14–22. Adults pay €8 on Mondays and Wednesdays and €12 on Fridays and Saturdays. Twice a month there is a mixed Thursday evening with swimwear optional. There are no reservations: first come, first served. The cooling-off yard is shared, and so is the conversation.
Tampere's other famous names are the lakeside saunas at Rauhaniemi and Kaupinoja, where winter swimming off a jetty is part of the visit. The Tampere daylight page is worth a look before an evening visit in November, when the lake is dark by four.
Smoke sauna
The savusauna is the old form, and to a lot of Finns the real one. It has no chimney. The wood burns under a large mass of stones for hours, and the smoke fills the room and leaves through a vent. Once the fire is out, the room airs: the Finnish Sauna Society allows at least an hour for the embers to die and the smoke to clear. The whole process, from lighting to the first bather, commonly takes most of a day. The stones then hold enough heat for a whole evening, at a gentler 60–80 °C (140–176 °F), with a smell of tar and wood smoke that stays in your hair until the next morning.
The walls are black with soot, so do not lean on them in anything you care about. In the Helsinki area you can try one at Löyly and at Kuusijärvi. In the countryside, many cottage rentals and farm stays have one. Ask when you book, because the owner has to start heating it in the morning.
Avanto: the hole in the ice
Winter swimming (talviuinti) in a hole cut in the ice (avanto) is common enough that Helsinki has around twenty winter swimming spots. They are run by clubs and companies that lease them from the city. Some are for members only; in the 2025–26 season Iso Kallahti, Kruunuvuorenranta, Munkkiniemi, Uunisaari, Rastila and Vartiokylänranta took single visitors. Several have a sauna next to the hole, which is the combination you want.
The safety advice from Suomen Latu and the Finnish lifesaving federation is short and practical:
- Wear something on your feet and keep a hat on. The ladders and the ice around the hole are slippery.
- Warm up first, and go in slowly.
- The cold makes you gasp. Breathe out slowly and deliberately for the first few seconds, and keep your head above water.
- Keep the first dips short: in and out is a complete swim.
- Not when you are ill, and never after drinking.
Nobody who does it regularly stays in for long. The effect comes afterwards, in the sauna, and it is the reason people who try it once tend to come back.
What to bring
- A towel, and a small seat towel if the place does not give out liners. Towel rental runs €4 at the neighbourhood saunas and €8.90 at Allas.
- A swimsuit for any mixed sauna.
- Flip-flops, and something for your feet if you plan to go out onto ice.
- A water bottle.
- A padlock for self-service places.
- Cash is rarely needed now. Card works at every staffed sauna above.
Take off jewellery before you go in. Metal gets hot enough to burn, and a wedding ring in a 90 °C room is uncomfortable within minutes. Glasses will steam up, and contact lenses dry out.
When to go
Any time of year works. Winter is when it makes the most sense, because a sauna at 16:00 in December, in the dark, followed by snow or cold sea, is the reason Finns put up with December. Helsinki also has an occasional Sauna Day, when private and community saunas open to anyone who turns up with a towel. Some ask you to book a slot. The city's events calendar is where to look for it and for anything else on during your visit.
If you are heading north afterwards, almost every hotel and cottage in Lapland has its own sauna. Lapland's version of the cold plunge is a roll in the snow, and the Rovaniemi winter guide explains what the temperature outside is likely to be. In Helsinki, the city's light through the day tells you how early to go if you want to see the water from the bench.