The Sauna Guide to South West England & Hehku Wild Wellbeing

I'm Kerry O'Neill (there are two Kerrys in this blog, just to keep you on your toes!) and I've spent a good while researching and writing about outdoor and wild sauna businesses for The Sauna Guide to South West England guidebook. Something that jumped out at me was just how different the saunas themselves, the locations, and the people behind the saunas, are. I was expecting to find lots of similar perhaps barrel-shaped saunas on beaches around the region's coastlines but that wasn't the full story at all.

Firstly, in terms of location, it's not just on beaches that the wild sauna phenomenon is blooming. There are saunas on beaches, yes, but also on farms and in forests, at campsites and on clifftops, on the edges of cities and in surprisingly hidden urban corners. And I don't mean in gyms, for The Sauna Guide to South West England doesn't include ones 'inside buildings' as it were, it only features outdoor or wild saunas – where you step from the great outdoors straight into the sauna. But in some places, Bristol being a prime example, there are several outdoor saunas found in highly urbanised places, perhaps with astroturf on the ground and natural screening and planting used to create a visual barrier between the sauna space and the busy world carrying on all around it. It's simply not always possible to access a sauna with a calming forest view...in your 60-minute lunch break from the office!

Second, in terms of sauna style or shape, that too was full of diversity. There were homemade saunas, kit saunas, painstakingly crafted artisan-built saunas, barrel saunas, angular saunas, and tent saunas, too.

Sauna Tents: Flexible, Wild & Off the Beaten Track

Sauna tents are incredibly flexible. They can return to one spot regularly, or can pop up here and there to suit the seasons and people's requirements as needed. There are a few locations that use sauna tents featured in The Sauna Guide to the South West, such as at Oakhill Ponds Swimming Lakes in Somerset, and at destinations used by the Devon Sauna Hub team. Another small business, Hehku Wild Wellbeing, uses a PortaSauna tent, often based at the Barefoot and Bower wild swimming and camping site, in Gloucestershire.

Kerry Wheeler runs Hehku, with a PortaSauna tent at the heart of her offering. Kerry said, "As someone who has researched sauna culture deeply, I also love that sauna tents have a much richer history than most people realise. Many assume they are a modern invention, but portable sweat bathing structures date back thousands of years. The earliest sauna-like structures were temporary, simple pits dug into the ground in winter, or light wooden frames covered with hides and natural materials in other seasons, used by nomadic communities who carried the sauna tradition with them wherever they went."

Elaborating on the motivations behind Hehku Wild Wellbeing and its decision to use a portable sauna tent, Kerry said, "Setting up my business using a sauna tent rather than a more conventional horsebox or barrel sauna means I've been able to bring contrast therapy and the full sauna experience to people utterly surrounded by nature, immersed in the wild, and truly off the beaten track. It has also made the business far more accessible to set up in general.

"Having been an avid sauna user long before I discovered sauna tents, I was so impressed with just how effective sauna tents are, and how you can still deliver that completely authentic sauna experience in such unconventional settings. I loved the idea of being able to take it into spaces where other saunas simply can't reach, deep into the wild, or into people's gardens and private spaces where a fixed sauna unit would never fit."

Busting the Myths Around Sauna Tents

Personally, I hadn't been inside a sauna tent until recently, and I'll admit I'd held certain misconceptions about them. Surely they wouldn't be able to get as hot as a normal sauna? What about the steam? For anyone else who might have similar thoughts, let's go back to Kerry from Hehku, who wastes no time in putting such misconceptions to bed.

"The wood-fired stove gets the tent up to the same temperatures as any conventional sauna, 70, 80, 90 degrees. Plus, the elemental, off-grid feeling that sauna tents bring can really allow people to switch off and to reconnect with themselves and with nature. Being wood-fired also means you can still bring the löyly (the steam), which makes the whole experience even more magical. The fact that the sauna sits directly on the ground adds a grounding, nature-based element too, and the large windows mean that wherever you set it up, you feel completely at one with your surroundings. This was exactly the experience I set up Hehku Wild Wellbeing to create."

"Every single person who has come to use it has left impressed, commenting on the heat, the space inside and how back to nature it feels. Some have even said it's their favourite sauna set-up out of anywhere they've been. There is always a real sense of wonderment from first-time visitors who aren't quite sure what to expect, but they always leave happy, glowing and having had a truly enjoyable experience. I love it, and I am so proud to offer sauna tents as my main offering, giving people that wild wellbeing glow when they need it most."

The Sauna Guide to South West England

If you love the idea of getting right into the heart of nature for your sauna, or you're considering getting your own portable sauna tent, why not explore Hehku and the 130+ small sauna businesses featured in The Sauna Guide to South West England, to see what set-ups you prefer, and to talk to the people behind the saunas.

Let's give the last word to Kerry, from Hehku: "Even the Finns themselves, whose sauna culture is arguably the most celebrated in the world, are believed to have used portable sweat lodges during their nomadic years, only transitioning to permanent buildings as communities became more settled. So the idea of taking a sauna into the wild, to wherever you happen to be, is not a modern trend at all. It is actually how it all began."

To help you locate over 130 outdoor and wild saunas across the South West of England, including portable sauna tents in spectacular settings, get your copy of The Sauna Guide to South West England today.

👉 Shop The Sauna Guide to South West England

👉 Visit Hehku Wild Wellbeing

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Kerry O'Neill is the compiler and writer of The Sauna Guide to South West England, a comprehensive guide to 130+ outdoor, wild, beach, forest, and urban saunas across the region. Find it at theextramile.guide/shop.

Kerry Wheeler is a PortaSauna Ambassador and runs Hehku Wild Wellbeing in Gloucestershire, offering wild sauna sessions using a PortaSauna tent at Barefoot and Bower and beyond. Find out more at hehkuwildwellbeing.com.