The best saunas in the NYC metro

The original 2019 Bathhouse and the biggest of three NYC locations: eight thermal pools including a rooftop, one of the largest stadium-seating saunas in the city, steam rooms, a hammam, daily aufguss and a restaurant. The moody industrial design set the template the rest of the country copied.

A 50,000-square-foot Brooklyn megabath that bills itself as the largest banya in the country. Eastern European banyas, Finnish saunas, Moroccan and Turkish hammams, a Himalayan salt room, a snow room and a contrast onsen circuit — you move between rituals, then collapse by the fireplace lounge.

Still run by two owners on alternating weeks, so the rules and mood shift week to week. The circuit is a Russian radiant-heat parilka, Turkish steam, a redwood Finnish sauna, an ice plunge and a roof deck — walk-in only, gritty and communal, with oak-leaf platza treatments and borscht in the cafe.

A four-storey, four-season jjimjilbang in College Point with themed chambers — Himalayan salt, gold, jade, halotherapy, colour therapy — plus an ice room, indoor and outdoor hydrotherapy pools, a restaurant and pool bar, and a Kids Castle that makes it explicitly family-friendly. Walk-in admission.

An Italian-style day spa in three restored 1934 army barracks on Governors Island, reached by ferry. Twenty-plus amenities indoors and out — thermal baths, multiple saunas, an ice room, a salt room and outdoor pools facing the Manhattan skyline. Adults-only, with timed entry.

The Manhattan sibling of the Williamsburg flagship, on West 22nd Street: the same menu of hot pools, cold plunges, sauna, steam, hammam and daily aufguss, scaled to a tighter Flatiron footprint, with the same low-lit industrial design.

The third Bathhouse site, in Boerum Hill — the same thermal-circuit format as Williamsburg, sized for a neighbourhood crowd rather than a destination, with the brand's industrial Brooklyn look carried through.

A modern Korean jjimjilbang across the Hudson in Edison, with five themed dry saunas — clay, rock salt, charcoal — an ice sauna, four hot soaking tubs, a sleeping room and a Korean body-scrub program. All-day admission with loungewear and on-site Korean food.