We are seeing the revival of bathing as a wellness trend and for so many good reasons. Visiting a communal bathhouse in Australia or hot springs surrounded by nature offers a place to take time out, soak away the aches and pains and calm the mind.
Bathhouses offer a mini-retreat you can fit into your week regularly or an experience to add to your next well-being adventure. Utilising steam rooms, mineral pools, saunas, and fire pits, soaking tubs and spas, along with cold therapies, bathhouses are a place for preventative health care.
Bathhouses popping up all over Australia but current hot spots are Victoria and Queensland. Below we share some of the best bathhouses in Australia today – and keep an eye out for more over the coming months.
Soak and sweat while you unplug and unwind. Grab your partner, friends, or family and embrace the community!
Aurora Spa & Bathhouse – Sorrento, Victoria
We begin on the Mornington Peninsula at the new Aurora Spa & Bathhouse located in the Continental Sorrento. This subterranean bathhouse offers visitors a refined retreat with an array of curative water therapies, magnesium mineral bathing and immersive contrast therapy in creatively designed contemporary comfort. Merging evidence-based remedies with ancient bathing traditions and a modern twist, Aurora Spa & Bathhouse offers you a complete regenerative wellness destination.
Their therapeutic experiences aim to deliver deeply restorative and high-impact wellness outcomes with meaningful spa rituals, the powerfully regenerative benefits of hot and cold contrast therapy and a team that knows how to help you achieve peak wellness.
A new level of luxury and calm sophistication for year round bathing in comfort and serenity definitely a must try bathhouse in Australia
Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa – Hepburn Springs, Victoria
Also located in regional Victoria, Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa (one of the first bathhouse in Australia) is an historic bath house which has been providing traditional wellness bathing to Australians and international visitors since 1895.
Drawing mineral-rich waters directly from the natural source, Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa is an iconic bath house that reconnects you with an array of mineral wellness experiences including indulgent 100% pure private mineral baths and a selection of specifically designed wellness packages.
Situated in the middle of Australia’s largest concentration of mineral springs, Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa is an essential wellness stop on your travels through the Daylesford countryside.
Saint Haven – Collingwood, Melbourne, Victoria
Also in Collingwood, Saint Haven is a member only, private wellness club and sanctuary. Expect to feel like you are in Italy, with the interiors inspired by those in Northern Italy’s wellness retreats and bath houses.
Saint Haven features a bathhouse of hot and cold thermal pools enriched with pure and unpolluted Himalayan rock salts and minerals. Other treatments include vitamin infusions, massages, breathwork, lymphatic compression and red light therapy.
These offerings are complemented by a series of recovery, anti-ageing and biohacking experiences including cryotherapy, infrared saunas, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, IV infusion therapies, vitamin C-infused showers.
Saint Haven is an example of the social wellness club trend, where members can meet, learn and connect with others, with added luxury and personalisation.
Comma – Richmond, Melbourne, Victoria
Also in Melbourne, Comma bathhouse is located in a laneway in the bustling, trendy district of Richmond. A boutique bathhouse, they encourage visitors to bath, sweat, surge with a cold pail shower, and repeat.
The cosy, small size of this bathhouse is also conducive for a speedy but effective retreat for busy city dwellers – pop in to escape for an hour, even on your lunch break!
As you step into Comma, its minimalistic design, a sense of darkness and calmness, invites you to pause and immerse yourself in ‘The Art of Bathing.’
The Banya – Mullumbimby, NSW
Built upon the sun-baked bricks of a 1920’s bank in the heart of Mullumbimby, The Banya is a modern experiential twist on a traditional European bathhouse.
Tanya Bathhouse features a marble tiled lap pool, two hot mineral pools, a wood-fired sauna, a steam room and a cold plunge. There are also 5 massage treatment rooms and a rooftop sundeck for post-treatment relaxation.
To enhance the bathhouse experience, you are encouraged to stay for a long lunch or enjoy a few drinks with friends at their on-site bar and dining area focused on casual refinement with small share plates and nutritious staples.
The Banya is an immersive social, bathing and dining experience not to be missed!
Native State – Kirra, Southern Gold Coast, Queensland
Nestled on the Kirra beachfront on the Southern Gold Coast, Native State offers a bathhouse and studio gym. It’s where luxury, wellbeing, and peak performance coexist in perfect harmony.
The Bathhouse offers intimate bathing sessions in the meticulously crafted European-inspired bathhouse, with state of the art facilities. Join for casual sessions or immerse yourself as a member. A heated vitality pool, traditional cedar sauna, steam room, cold plunge pool, infrared sauna and meditation lounge, along with meditative scents and sounds create an unrivaled wellness experience.
If you live locally and can embrace the wellness experience Native State offers for individuals invested in achieving their potential, this bathhouse and its connected gym offers an opportunity to cultivate infinite personal growth by harnessing the power of holistic practices and modalities.
Soak – Brisbane & Gold Coast, Queensland
SOAK offers an urban bathhouse experience in the heart of the Gold Coast and now in central Brisbane on a rooftop!
Move between open-air hot spas, communal mineral baths, cold plunge, steam room and sauna, or unwind with one of their signature treatments developed to target specific concerns.
SOAK bathhouse offers a modern, welcoming environment, with a focus on making wellness accessible to the locals offering tiered memberships to suit all budgets and encouraging people to look after their body and mind regularly.
Be sure to visit a SOAK bathhouse on your travels through Queensland!
Soak are now expanding into other States including Sydney and Melbourne so keep look out on their website for upcoming announcements.
The Bathhouse Albion – Brisbane, Queensland
A luxurious wellness experience has just arrived in Brisbane. The Bathhouse Albion opens end of June 2024
A completely immersive world to energise and restore. Expansive ceilings, atmospheric lighting, and an abundance of travertine stone create a space akin to the luxurious European bathhouses in centuries foregone.
5-star amenities are adorned with the finest materials and include: Heated vitality pool, 12° cold plunge, 6° ice bath, tiered steam room, float room, traditional sauna, Finnish sauna, infrared saunas, refreshment & tea lounge, and luxurious change rooms.
Intimate session sizes, Sans[ceuticals] body products, calming fragrances, meditative sounds, unlimited cotton towels, and a phone free environment all create an unrivaled wellness experience.
Tank Riveria Bathhouse – Mooloolaba, Queensland
Tank Riveria Bathhouse is a day club, waterfront restaurant and bar, river cruise, bathhouse and day spa all wrapped into one! The have six concept tank baths, five with different temperatures (and enticing aromas like peppermint and lavender) and one cold plunge pool.
Visit the bathhouse (or become a member) for total relaxation and all the therapeutic benefits offered by bathing in their tanks and steam rooms, or choose a package that offers unique entertainment options including a degustation meal, spa treatments or even a cruise on the river.
This luxe bathhouse offering lends itself to a special day with a loved one or group for a special occasion and they now have a new offering for those who love to bath the countryside – TankFarm in Bli Bli.
Nature’s Energy – Inner West, Sydney, NSW
Explore Nature’s Energy bathhouses and day spas in Sydney’s inner west. Their bathhouse offerings are a rare sanctuary of calm where you can surrender to complete relaxation, and experience the rejuvenating benefits of hydro and contrast therapy.
Choose from three locations in Glebe, Balmain and Newtown. All offer a hot spa, steam room, and traditional sauna. Glebe also has two ice baths and an infrared sauna, and Balmain has a cool spa.
You can also book rejuvenating beauty services, curated day spa packages, and spiritually enriching reading and healing services.
Capybara Bathing – Surry Hills, Sydney, NSW
Capybara Bathing is a new wellness sanctuary nestled in the Sydney city’s vibrant core of Surry Hills. The Capybara animal imbues the spirit of this bathing and wellness sanctuary – a social and harmonious wate-loving creature.
This is a beautifully designed shared space for communal bathing where locals and visitors from afar find respite and look after self.
Facilities include a magnesium infused thermal bath, a traditional hot stone sauna, a handcrafted cold plunge, a hammam and a gently heated lounge with an ice well.
The vision of Capybara Bathing is to take moments to slow down for yourself, and unfurl with others.
UPDATED JUNE 2024
Heading to the Gold Coast?
We share three bath house options to enjoy HERE.
Want to enjoy bathing in Mother Nature?
Discover hot springs across Australia HERE.
