My great-value road trip around southern Sweden's sauna hotspot

Times

03-05-2025

'It's like champagne in your veins,' Mia Jansson says, her eyes dancing with delight. The sensation she's describing — the blood-pumping tingling that's taken over my body — is a mix of pure elation, triumph and adrenaline. I've just survived my first dip in the cold Swedish sea. A bath, they call it, but it's not the kind I'm used to.
I'm outside a sauna at the Palsjobaden cold bathing house in Helsingborg, a coastal city in the Skane region of southern Sweden, standing stark naked next to a woman I met less than an hour ago. We're staring out to the Oresund strait, the channel that forms the Swedish-Danish border, a busy shipping route and a place of crystal-clear waters and hardy swimmers. It's a stop on the road trip I'm taking to some of the country's cold bathhouses to learn about their culture, meet die-hard fans of an icy dip and see what else the region has to offer. I'm in the hands of an expert: Jansson, 61, from the nearby city of Angelholm. As well as working as a project manager for the council, she's a passionate official ambassador of cold-bathing culture for the city of Helsingborg and my guide for the session.
When I feel ready, I signal to Jansson that it's time to heat our bodies up for the next dip. The sauna feels like a place of bodily freedom and quiet liberation, and Jansson, along with traditional cold bathers, believes three immersions is the magic number.
Cold bathhouses — piers with saunas and steps leading into the water that facilitate year-round sea swimming for devoted locals — are an unmissable feature of this coastline. Skane, encompassing the southern tip of Sweden, is filled with them, 12 public ones in all (of only 30 across the country), at which anyone can buy a ticket and bathe.
'The first time you go into the water you get rid of all the dirt. The second time you go into the water you get rid of all your worries. And the third time you start building something new,' Jansson explains, alluding to the transformative rejuvenating effects that three lots of a 15-minute sauna followed by a cold dip can have. Men and women sauna and bathe separately here, usually naked. It's part of daily life, with immunity and mood-boosting impacts and fair pricing (one trip from £6.50; annual pass £200; visitskane.com). It's an age-old tradition that's proving more popular than ever.
The primrose-yellow Palsjobaden was created in the 1800s, and is one of three in the city today: 'There is no other place in the world with three cold bathhouses,' Jansson says. 'This city is a little bit special.'
The country's latest cold bathhouse is in Landskrona, a city between Malmo and Helsingborg. Built to replace storm-lost versions (last destroyed by Storm Sven in December 2013), Landskrona Kallbadhus opened in March in the centre of the city (landskrona.se/kallbadhus). Designed by the local architects MagasinA, the matt black structure at the end of the pier has a space-age edge, with a copper-clad entrance, a smart changing area, communal showers, kitchen facilities and a sleek sauna looking out to sea, plus the usual stairs into the water and a deck for reading and relaxing. Without Jansson here to guide me I'm nervous, but the sauna gets me hot enough to find the water bearable and the champagne sensation returns.
As saunas pop up across London — the British Sauna Society estimates that the number of public sauna sites has jumped from 45 in 2023 to 147 in 2025 — I'm here looking at one of the origins for the trend. While sauna culture is largely believed to have started in Finland, in Sweden it's all about the kallbad, the cold bath, with the sauna element a mere facilitator.
Watching other women dip with ease instils infectious energy. We're a sea of bodies all doing the same thing: sunbathing, swimming, reading, meditating, showering, chatting, salt scrubbing, sauna-ing: naked and in unison.
On my road trip, heading north from Malmo, I discover that the region is as flat as a pancake, making driving and hiking a breeze. It's agricultural land where the sea and the weather are in charge. The bathing culture has helped to define the landscape and tourism offerings too and I can't drive more than 30 minutes up the coast without stumbling on another temptation to get into the sea. I stay at several hotels that lean into sea-and-sauna culture. The Maryhill Estate is a fun seafront health club hotel in the grounds of a historic castle outside the village of Glumslov. Scandic Oceanhamnen is a smart sea-facing spot in the city centre with a rooftop sauna area. And Hotel Skansen in Bastad goes for the full experience with its own cold-bathing house.
'This was the most sinful place in Sweden back in the day,' Andy Enerstedt tells me. Looking around, I'd never believe it. Enerstedt is the co-owner of Ransvik Havsveranda, a small café with a big history in Molle, where I stop for lunch. In an idyllic bay in the Kullaberg nature reserve, this café/waffle house has been operating since 1921, and has been run by Enerstedt and his husband, Mattias Grapenfelt, since 2019. It's now a place of well-heeled diners and smart organic, local, seasonal menus featuring cocktails and caviar-stuffed croissants, served with a tranquil sea view (mains from £18; ransvik.se). But at the dawn of the 20th century, workers and students made their way up to the secluded beach and shrugged off strict gendered Swedish traditions to bathe, men and women together. This café was at the centre of sensation. Enerstedt takes me inside to show me some black-and-white photos from the time, all big grins, genitals and striped bathing suits.
• Read our full guide to Sweden
From marinated salmon to the softest new potatoes I've ever tried, the food here is refreshingly simple, scattered with homegrown herbs and absolutely incredible. Looking across the bay from my hotel in Molle later, it seems unimaginable that this spot would garner international attention. But at the height of its popularity, people came from across Europe and there was a direct train from Berlin to Molle to transport keen, free-spirited bathers. It wasn't long before the wealthy classes wanted a piece of the action and so along came smart accommodation, including the Grand Hotel. Perched at the highest point in the former fishing village, it looks like it has been transported straight from a Victorian seaside tale and keeps me happily hostage for the night.
Nearby, Molle Krukmakeri is a similarly charming and free-spirited pitstop with a house, café, pottery studio and shop. The owner, Lisa ​​Wohlfahrt, a ceramicist, and her partner bought the land in 1997 and kept building their liberal haven; the latest additions include beautiful dining yurts and accommodation. 'When we started this in the village, we wanted it to be a meeting place for people, so our mission was to force people to talk to each other,' she says.
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There is much to explore, from vineyards to gardens and hiking trails, and wellness in many forms, and people talk of making the area on the Bjare peninsula in the north of the region a 'new Napa'. It sounds like a bold ambition, but after spending a couple of hours at the biodynamic and organic Thora Vingard, I'm sold (tour with tasting £30pp; thoravingard.com). Foraged herbs and flavours from the wilds of the nearby Hovs Hallar nature reserve speckle the dishes in the sleek, contemporary Flora restaurant, surrounded by 53,000 vines (mains from £15; thoravingard.com).
Skane has a talent for making you leave your worries behind. The food is wonderful, the sea beckons you in and the land urges you to explore and relax. I leave refreshed: I've left my stress in the sea and fallen in deep for the cold bathing culture.
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Josephine Price was a guest of Visit Sweden (visitsweden.com); Visit Skane (visitskane.com) of Maryhill Estate, which has B&B doubles from £120 (maryhillestate.com); Scandic Oceanhamnen, which has B&B doubles from £79 (scandichotels.com); Grand Hotel Molle, which has B&B doubles from £223 (grandhotelmolle.se); and Hotel Skansen, which has B&B doubles from £170 (hotelskansen.se). Fly to Copenhagen or Malmo
By Sarah Turner
The smorgasbord of sauna options just outside the Arctic Circle includes sweat lodges, dry-heat cabins and a wood-fired sauna that fits up to 60 people, as well as hot tubs. The accommodation encompasses rooms, cottages and, in summer, about 80 good-value camping pitches, some of which come with their own sauna huts. Run by the Spolander family, who have lived here for six generations, Kukkolaforsen lies on the banks of the Torne River, which marks the border with Finland and offers everything from ice-breaker trips in winter to fishing using traditional nets when the ice melts.Details B&B doubles from £161 (kukkolaforsen.se). Fly to Lulea
The wraparound landscape of Gullmar fjord, a nature reserve on Sweden's west coast, is showcased here by the architect Gert Wingardh's minimalist design. Panoramic windows are partnered with low-key granite swimming pools — six in total, indoor and out — and treatment rooms. There are three different saunas, including one on the fjord, but there's also cycling, hiking and woodland to explore. Elsewhere the 156 rooms and suites are on-point Scandi, with plenty of blond wood and clever lighting plus extraordinarily expensive Carpe Diem beds.Details B&B doubles from £325 (vann.se). Fly to Gothenburg
This spa hotel at the start of the Stockholm archipelago has been dispensing Japandi serenity since 1997. It might sound prescriptive — guests all wear the same black swimming costumes and yukatas (simplified kimonos) to immerse themselves in Japanese bathing culture while feasting on sushi and teppanyaki — but it's also thoroughly delightful. Treatments include reiki, and further relaxation comes from steaming outdoor tubs and a light-filled indoor swimming pool, but the size — there are 191 futon-filled rooms — means that the price isn't as rarified as you might fear.Details Half-board doubles from £309 (yasuragi.se). Fly to Stockholm
In southern Sweden, this hotel has been providing Swedish-style R&R since 1897. The spa extends to an indoor swimming pool, sauna (of course) and treatment rooms, but regulars also tend to head along the wooden jetty to swim in the Baltic. Built on a dune-fringed beach, the hotel now has 140 rooms and suites. Their floral vibe is matched by a convivial New England feel in the restaurants and bars, which partner crayfish with plenty of prosecco.Details B&B doubles from £242 (ysb.se). Fly to Copenhagen
Rarefied and very isolated, there are just 12 rooms and suites here, six of which float on the Lule River in summer and rest on ice in winter. The others are on land and are surrounded by birch trees in a tundra landscape. In summer it stays light for 24 hours a day, facilitating midnight swims. The spa and restaurant are housed in the striking circular building that's also on the river. A hole is cut in the ice in winter so guests can take a swim after their sauna. The food is foraged in the warmer months, while treatments also use local berries and herbs.Details B&B doubles from £542 (arcticbath.se). Fly to Lulea