The Best Places to Stay in Scotland with a Sauna

Sauna culture has really taken hold in Scotland. Not the leisure-centre version. The wood-fired, outdoor, jump-in-a-loch-afterwards version. And it's the accommodation side that's caught up fastest. More and more cabins, cottages, lodges and country houses now have one tucked away somewhere on site.

Hot then cold. That's the whole ritual. Twenty minutes inside at something close to 80°C, ten seconds in water that hurts a bit, repeat three or four times. You come out feeling lighter than you did going in.

Makes sense once you think about it. Scotland and Scandinavia share roughly the same weather, the same long dark winters, the same instinct that the answer to a cold day outside is somewhere hot to sit at the end of it. The cold-water bit was never going to be the problem here. Lochs, rivers, sea, take your pick. The buildings to go in are the new bit.

What's interesting is how different they all are. A converted horsebox down by a loch in Argyll. A yurt tucked among ancient trees in the Cairngorms. A sea-view one on a Hebridean clifftop with the steam drifting off into the Sound of Taransay. Log cabins in Glen Affric where each one comes with its own. A six-seater out beyond a walled garden on the Black Isle. An Aberfeldy spot that throws in an indoor steam room too.

The places below all have a sauna on site. A few have two. Some are bookable by the hour for an exclusive slot. Others come included with the stay. Each one its own thing.