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Choosing the Tent Sauna: What Comes After the Boom
When the phrase “tent sauna” first started circulating among sauna lovers, it was seen as a slightly eccentric pastime. Sweating beside a wood-burning stove inside a piece of fabric with only so-so insulation. With proper fixed sauna rooms available, why bother with a tent at all?
The answer arrives the moment you step outside. A tent sauna is not bound to a building, so it can be pitched right beside the water. Open the zipper with your body glowing hot, and there in front of you is the sea, a river, a pool. The few steps to your cold plunge are the same few steps into nature itself. This closeness between heat and nature is the one decisive point where a tent sauna beats a fixed one.
The other appeal is that you handle the fire yourself. The amount of wood you feed the stove changes the temperature inside the tent, and pouring water over the stones brings the steam. The sense that a sauna shifts from something you enter to something you raise is much like tending a campfire. Even now, with the word “boom” spoken in the past tense, tent saunas keep multiplying at private rental stays, and I take that as proof this pleasure was never a passing fad.
The bold pleasure of a drum-barrel cold bath: R HOUSE Kamakura
A whole-house rental villa in Koshigoe, Kamakura, close to Enoshima. On the terrace of its stylish modern space it offers a tent sauna, a drum-barrel cold bath, and a jacuzzi. Sweat in the tent, sink into the drum barrel, then cool off in the Shonan breeze. A place where you can do this combination within an hour of central Tokyo is a rare thing. It also welcomes stays with your dog.
The Wakasa Bay as your cold-plunge backdrop: WALS VILLA 800 Wakasa
A private villa standing by the sea in Wakasa Obama. It offers an ocean-view private pool and a tent sauna, and with stays of up to 24 hours you can savor Wakasa Bay to the full. Repeating the three-part cycle of tent heat, pool water, and sea-breeze air bath as many times as you like, without watching the clock, is something only a long-stay private rental allows.
Southern-island heat and a heated infinity pool: ISHIGAKI HILLS
A fully private villa of just two buildings on a hill on Ishigaki Island, offering a heated infinity pool, a tent sauna, and an ocean view. A sauna on a southern island may sound surprising, but the breeze after an evening squall has passed is astonishingly pleasant. The time spent gazing, with heat-flushed eyes, at the view where the pool’s surface meets the horizon of the sea is something special.
Renting out a heat you raise yourself
The heat of a tent sauna is not heat that appears at the push of a button. You choose the wood, raise the fire, and summon the steam. The more care it takes, the deeper the calm that follows. For your next sauna trip, why not choose a heat you raise yourself over a heat already finished?
Stays in this article
KamakuraKanagawa
R.KAMAKURA(アール鎌倉)
A whole-house rental four minutes on foot from both Enoshima Station and the beach. A 20 sqm terrace holds a large tent sauna, an oil-drum cold bath and a jacuzzi, and up to two medium dogs can stay.
2 bd
Wakasa BayFukui
WAL'S VILLA 800(ウェルズ ヴィラ 800)若狭小浜
Only five units on a wide site at Obama in Wakasa, taking five groups a day. Three types are offered, villa, cottage and dome tent, and a stay can run a full 24 hours from noon to noon.
Ishigaki IslandOkinawa
石垣ヒルズ(Ishigaki Hills)
Just two fully private villas on a hill on Ishigaki. A heated infinity pool works even in winter, there is a private tent sauna, and the sea opens up below.
2 bd