The Best Spas in the World

What is counted as a spa

This page holds the venues the list files as day spas, hotel spas and Nordic spas. All of them sell entry to pools and saunas for the day. A hotel spa is on the list when people who are not staying at the hotel can buy that entry.

Canada

Seven of the 26 are in Canada, six of them Nordic spas: hot pools, saunas and cold plunges outdoors, in a forest or on a river. La Source Bains Nordiques in Rawdon has a natural cold spring and strict silence rules. At Scandinave Spa Mont-Tremblant the Diable River is the cold plunge. Nordik Spa-Nature in Chelsea runs scheduled Aufguss rituals and keeps quiet zones apart from social ones.

Europe and beyond

The Netherlands and Belgium are represented by large sauna and wellness resorts such as Sweet Lake Wellness in Zoetermeer and Elaisa in Dilsen-Stokkem. The British venues are spa gardens with heated outdoor pools: The Woodland Spa in Burnley and the Manor House Thermal Spa Gardens near Alsager. Rogner Bad Blumau in Styria was built by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, with grass roofs and no straight walls. At Tabacón in Costa Rica a volcano-heated river runs through the pools.