A naked sauna or, to put a finer point on it, a mixed gender nude sauna is as Austrian as schnitzel, striking mountains and glacier lakes and wonderful hiking – but are we all ready to strip off?
It was on one of my early visits to the country’s Tirol region that I discovered this aspect of Austrian life and realised I knew nothing about their spa mentality. Or that spas in Austria are pretty much all whip-all-your-clothes-off naturist spas.
You may not be ready to reveal all and join the people of all ages, shapes and sizes in the spa just yet, but hopefully, after reading of our experience you’ll feel a little more relaxed. I also have a number of tips and do’s and don’ts below to help you go bare in the spa with confidence.
It was while Sarah and I were in the town of Alpbach that we visited the sauna at our traditional Alpine hotel, the Romantik Hotel Boeglerhof, and I was surprised to see a ‘no bathing costumes allowed’ sign. The spa had mixed sex nudist saunas and as people went between them and the different steam rooms there was a lot of naked flesh around. I only saw two people wearing costumes and they actually stood out as a bit of an oddity.
For my part, I take quite a liberal view of social norms and conventions, so I was content to remove my clothes and go with the flow. Even as a first time naturist I didn’t feel too uncomfortable. However, as I sat among my fellow naked sauna users, I started to think about social norms in different countries and wondered if people visiting from different corners of the world would be comfortable going au naturel.
Why go bare at the spa?
It’s usual to wear swimming costumes at the spa in the UK of course, and in all other countries I’d visited up to then (although Germany and, as I was later to discover, Netherlands also have a nudist sauna culture). So what was it about Austrians, which differed from many of their fellow Europeans?
Over the next few days, I stayed in a number of hotels and as I love to let off steam in the sauna, I also went to a lot of the saunas and spoke with fellow bathers. How come Austrians were so relaxed about nudity at the spa? Were other nationalities equally unperturbed? According to a succession of Austrians I spoke to using the spa in this way was simply a way of life and completely natural. For them, it was nothing out of the ordinary, but for some visitors stripping off with the locals is a step too far.
I was told the three nationalities that are most reluctant to strip off in naked saunas were Americans, Brits and Italians. I wondered what is it about these three nationalities that caused a more reserved response.
One Italian tourist thought it was “wrong to display the naked body”. I asked gently, trying to better understand her thought processes: “Is there virtue in body modesty?”
“It’s probably because of what we’re taught,” she said. “But I’d find it impossible to show myself like that.”
Yet by no means did everyone I meet have difficulty with Austria’s mixed gender nude sauna culture. One first time naturist, a Swedish ski instructor we spoke with, said her first Austrian sauna experience was a bit of a surprise but after a couple of visits it became very natural and she felt at ease. A local couple said when people visit the sauna there for the first time they tend to look at other users, but after the second or third visit that stops and it becomes a very normal experience.
In Austrian spas I found there were mature naturists and young naturists – aged from 18 to 88, each at ease in their surroundings. I must say I found it a very relaxed environment, where no one stared at fellow users, and easy conversations took place in what is a surprisingly social setting.
Interestingly for us, the spa hotels we stayed at meant that you would also see the people you shared the spa with over breakfast or at the bar in the evenings. Once again there was no awkwardness or any inappropriate references to our sauna experiences. It was just mature responsible people going about their normal business and holding sociable conversations with fellow hotel guests.
One experience Sarah and I had which we thought was very positive was meeting a very elderly lady at dinner one evening. We assumed her to be about 80-years-old. She clearly took a liking to us and waved and smiled each time our eyes met. The next day we met up with her in the spa and it was only after seeing her a few times that I noticed she’d had a double mastectomy. No one took any notice of the obvious scarring and equally importantly she was relaxed in that naked environment. I took this as a very positive sign. There is no need to feel body conscious nor to cover up if you have what could be perceived as bodily imperfections.
Why use a naked sauna?
So what are the arguments in favour of mixed gender nude saunas? For me, and obviously a whole nation of Austrians, they are an improvement on clothed spas because:
- You don’t have to wear sweaty swimwear – this is also a hygiene issue and the main reason why Austrians go bare.
- We’re all born naked – it’s completely natural.
- We all know what the human body looks like – so it’s not shocking.
- Only learned behaviour causes us to be embarrassed about showing our bodies.
- A naturist spa promotes equality. We’re all equal when naked – be you a millionaire or a pauper, we all look the same without clothes.
- It reduces body consciousness and many of the hang-ups falsely propagated by today’s culture.
- The more you see something the less impact it has.
- Liberation – it offers up a true sense of freedom.
Embracing the spa culture
Here are a few tips if you are new to Austrian saunas – naked or not. First of all, if you are a little bashful fear not! Many spas have “textile” areas or sections of the spa where you can wear your swimwear. These are usually much smaller. Tauern Spa, for example, has one textile sauna and steam room out of 12.
Here are some other things to do:
- Shower before entering the sauna.
- While you do have to be costume free outside of textile areas, it is acceptable to have a towel around your waist.
- Also always carry a towel with you to sit on.
- Use the water hoses in steam rooms to wash down the benches first.
- Remember to close the sauna/steam room door – it’s very much frowned upon if you let the hot air out.
- If you want to talk do so but quietly so you don’t disturb the relaxation time of other bathers.
- Start on a lower bench, heat rises so the temperature increases the higher up you sit.
- Flip-flops are useful but take them off before entering the sauna.
A few don’ts:
- Don’t wear metal jewellery as it gets hot and can burn you.
- Don’t shave in the sauna – it’s not hygienic (really though, who would do that!?).
- Don’t stay in too long and always leave if you feel faint. It is not an endurance task, so build up your time slowly and stay for as long as you are comfortable.
Our favourite spas in Austria
So where should you go to the spa in Austria? Hotels are a great place to start, as most luxury hotels have spas and many are expansive. In the past few years we have visited a wide array of them – here are a few of our favourites:
Tauern Spa
Tauern Spa, in Kaprun, near Zell-am-See has great views out over the countryside, the mountains and of the Kitzsteinhorn glacier. The hotel itself has an indoor-outdoor pool, plus a steam room and two saunas – one known as the Eagle Nest – facing onto the glacier. But it doesn’t end there – the hotel is also connected to a huge public spa with 12 saunas and steam rooms, and multiple swimming pools. It’s enough to keep every member of the family happy.
Aqua Dome
Owned by the same hotel group as the Tauern Spa, the Aqua Dome in the Ötztal Valley, Tirol is surrounded by a relaxing alpine landscape of mountains and meadows. It has the two spas, the SPA3000 area, which is solely for hotel guests and a public area with unusual saunas such as one with hay and another with an oven at its heart.
Stanglwirt Hotel
The Stanglwirt hotel has fabulous spa facilities in two distinct areas, one for clothed spa-goers and another nude. Their wellness section provides some of the best treatments we’ve ever had. I had a Shanti peeling and relaxing massage and Sarah revelled in a butterfly facial with diamond microdermabrasion.
Gartenhotel Theresia
It has a beautiful bio green spa area, while the nude sauna has the lovely name of the ‘whisper zone’. There is also a textile sauna area.
Das Central Hotel
The Das Central hotel has a charming Venetian themed spa and wellness centre. We also tried out three of the hotel’s signature facial and massage treatments and they all got the LiveShareTravel seal of approval.
Map of Austria’s best spa hotels
What are your thoughts on sauna time – would you dare to go bare? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.
Lee says
As a long time naturist I have never understood the necessity to wear a swimming costume in a sauna, it completely defeats the object of entering a sauna in the first place.
The whole point of a sauna is to sweat and allow the pores to open to cleanse the skin. With a swimming costume the material next to the skin prevents the pores opening properly and when the body begins to sweat that is then absorbed by the swimming costume, to then be put back on to the skin.
John Clark says
Wearing a costume in a sauna makes as much sense as wearing socks when washing your feet. Only someone with mental problems would consider it.
Dan Evans says
thank you for a very interesting reading – do you have details of mixed saunas in the inner city area of Vienna please?
hope to hear from you sometime.
Dan.
Terry Lee says
We don’t know of specific saunas in Vienna, however all the hotels we have visited in Austria had mixed saunas.
Pavel says
Not only Austria.
I am from Czech republic, I have been also in Germany, Slovakia, Finland, Russia and nudity and mixed saunas were not big deal anywhere.
Civilization only connected nudity with sex and especially western part of world are mostly just hypocrytical prudish people. Why hypocritical? When you will see video containing nudity ony Youtube, you will be warned, you have to be over 18 etc. But videos containing gore, blood and actual death of people is totally free to watch. Same works for TV (just real death is banned, still … you can see movie with 50 dead bodies, but no tits alloved before 22hrs.)
You should relax in sauna. Ban for swimsuit has reasons (humidity, sanitary,…). Wrapping towel aroud your whole body is not banned, but it’s just stupid. If girls believe they will avoid looking from others by this move, they will achieve very opposite result – normal people will be curious what crazy being walked in. If there would be 50 naked people and 2 in swimsuit, who will get most attention? Second thing – I don’t get why someone want to relax in sauna and brings all his/her paranoid ideas and panic fear of someone seeing him/her naked there.
I understand different cultures and raising, but if you want to go somewhere, you should behave by their rules, othervise – go away. Same thing works for nudebeach. You can try it, but don’t break rules and don’t try to change their habbits.
JR says
In 2015 my wife and I were in Vienna and went to a spa in a small town nearby on her birthday, where she had free entry because of the. Bonus! The spa had a naked sauna for which you paid extra but we went as a couple, nudist virgins, though I’d been naked in a hotel pool in the Netherlands before. I found the experience very liberating indeed as many people have said here.No hang ups about body image to type of swimwear so for me it was very enjoyable and I’m looking forward to my next experience.Not sure about my wife; I think she has mixed feelings but has agreed to accompany me again. I fancy Europe where people seem to be more laid back about nudity.
Gareth says
Im a young British bloke in my 20s Currently on a hiking holiday in Seefeld and came across this for 1st time in my hotel today. Well and truly out of my comfort zone the whole mixed sex thing, probably due to the reserved Brit in me also felt a bit weird that I was travelling with my dad and had to show myself to him , though not sure why as we are sharing a hotel room and like most British blokes I guess, we sleep completely naked and I have done from a young age. Nevercreally thought about nudexsleeping until today and the sauna experience caused me to reflect on that and can’t quite work out, if its just some kind of alpha male thing, a hygiene thing or a result of social conditioning. Anyway back to the sauna experience. I don’t normally feel self conscious but i did today, even as a young bloke with a good masculine body. Dad was man enough to go completely nude from the start. I initially kept my towel round my waist but dad said I needed to have another towel to place my feet on, something I never do when using a sauna back in the UK I kept my towel on for 1st 10 mins but then a member of hotel staff came in to perform some kind of heat ceremony that involved throwing loads of scented water onto the sauna then throwing a towel around d to create even more heat!!! Was quite an experience like nothing else! To embarass me further still he firmly but politely asked me to remove my towel and stated that my genitals must be fully exposed while I am in the sauna!!! This felt all too much but I complied only because I did not want to ve perceived either as uncanny or a silly foreigner. While Dad has teased me a little over the experience I am going to give the hotel sauna another go before I leave, having now mastered most of the rules and ideasyncranues, hope my next sauna experience will be less stressful, more natural and chilled. I did not try out the steam rooms. I felt good in myself afterwards and the smell in the sauna was certainly much fresher than my usual at my gym in UK and felt much newer.
Terry Lee says
Hi Gareth, it is a little unusual the first time, but the more you do it the easier it becomes. You will soon see that no one is taking any notice of other sauna users and all are there to enjoy this relaxing experience. So go ahead confidently, it is only societal conditioning that puts some people off.