Bathhouses: how a session works, and what to bring

Three years ago, a cold plunge meant a bin of ice at the back of a CrossFit box. It is now a category. Purpose-built bathhouses have opened in every city with a serious training culture, and they have converged on a similar format: a hot room, a cold pool, somewhere to sit between them, and a membership model.

If you have not been, the first session is slightly awkward in ways nobody explains. This is the explanation, with a map of two cities that have added venues faster than most — Singapore and Hong Kong. Other cities will follow as we get to them.

What a session actually looks like

Book ahead. Most venues run timed slots of 60 to 90 minutes, and the good ones sell out at 18:30 on weekdays.

You arrive, change, and shower before entering anything. That first shower is not optional anywhere and it is the main etiquette rule people get wrong.

Inside, the pattern is heat, cold, rest, repeat. A typical session is two or three cycles: 12 to 15 minutes in the sauna, one to three minutes in the plunge, then five to ten minutes sitting down with water. Ninety minutes is enough for three unhurried rounds and a shower afterwards.

Most venues provide towels; almost none provide a second dry one you would want to take home. Bring your own anyway — see the list at the end.

The three formats

Social sauna. A large Finnish sauna, often with communal plunges, sometimes with hot magnesium baths, and an explicit culture of talking to strangers. This is the dominant format in both cities, and it is the one that people either love or find exhausting.

Private pod or suite. A booked room with your own sauna and plunge. More expensive, no small talk, and the right choice if you are running a specific protocol rather than having an evening out.

Gym recovery room. A plunge and a sauna attached to a training facility, usually included in membership. The least atmospheric option and, for anyone training seriously, often the most practical, because using it costs you no additional trip.

Singapore

Venues open and close, so treat this as a map rather than a directory, and check current opening hours and pricing directly.

Dempsey Hill — Nowhere Baths, the most design-forward of the group, with hot pools and cold plunges.

River Valley and Robertson Quay — Hideaway on Kim Yam Road, infrared saunas and cold plunges in a small club format.

Chinatown and the CBD — The Plunge Club on North Canal Road runs a traditional Finnish sauna with two ice baths and a listening lounge. Cold Plunge SG sits on the rooftop at The Working Capitol in Maxwell and does exactly one thing.

Multiple locations — The Ice Bath Club operates in East Coast, River Valley and Duxton, pairing ice baths with hot magnesium baths and a social sauna. Shelter by ReFormd runs recovery spaces including Raffles Link and Kim Tian Road. Sochill Bath Club is the newest of the group.

Attached to gyms — Trapeze Rec Club and a growing number of premium gyms include sauna, plunge and compression in membership.

Hong Kong

Central — ACME Wellness on Duddell Street introduced contrast therapy pods to the city and remains the most private option. ASAP, also Central, keeps it to a large Finnish sauna and a plunge and nothing else.

Admiralty — 10x Longevity runs a structured circuit built around contrast cycles, with hyperbaric and red-light add-ons for people who want the full protocol.

Kennedy Town — The Ice Bath Club, communal plunges around 3 to 10°C, a hot sauna and a magnesium bath.

Etiquette, briefly

Shower before you get in. Every time, including between rounds if you have been in the sauna.

Sit on a towel in the sauna. This is the point of the first towel.

Phones stay in the locker. Most venues ban them outright. The ones that do not still expect you not to.

Learn which rooms are quiet. Many venues run a social sauna and a silent one. Assume silence until you can tell.

Do not occupy the plunge. Three minutes is a long time when four people are waiting. Nobody is impressed by eight.

Shoes off, slides on. Bare feet on a wet public floor is how you collect a fungal infection you will spend two months treating.

Do not go in after drinking. Both heat and cold plus alcohol are genuinely risky rather than merely frowned upon.

What to bring

• Two towels. One to sit on and get soaked; one that stays dry for afterwards. This is the single most useful thing on the list.
• Slides.
• A dry change of clothes, including underwear.
• A waterproof pouch or dry bag for the wet towel and wet kit on the way home. In a humid climate, a damp towel sealed in a bag for three hours is a laundry problem and, eventually, a bag problem.
• Water. More than you think; you will lose fluid in the heat.
• Nothing valuable. Lockers are lockers.

How hard to go

If you are new: two rounds, short cold exposures of 60 to 90 seconds, and stop while you still feel good. The cold shock response is at its worst in your first few exposures and it settles quickly with familiarity.

If you are training seriously, the more important question is not how to enjoy the session but whether it fits what you are training for. Cold immersion straight after a lifting session appears to cost you a little adaptation; heat has a better case on that day. Both of those arguments, with the numbers, are in the ice bath piece and sauna for athletes. If you are choosing an order for the session, four rules decide it.

Venue details last checked August 2026. Bathhouses in both cities are opening and relocating quickly; confirm before you travel across town.