What to bring to a sauna

One towel for sitting on the bench, one towel for drying off between rounds. Some people add a third — a smaller hand towel — for the face. If the venue provides towels, fine; if it's a small barrel outfit, bring your own and assume you'll need them.

Microfibre dries faster and packs smaller than cotton. For long sessions, quick-dry matters more than plushness.

Outside of single-sex Finnish saunas, assume swimwear. Bring a dry spare if you're staying out after the session — putting wet togs back on in a winter car park is the most preventable discomfort in sauna.

Shared wood decks, cold concrete between cabin and plunge, occasionally sharp shingle on a beach sauna — any of these reward a pair of cheap sliders. They also protect your feet from the hot bench edge on a poorly designed barrel.

You'll sweat hard. Most venues sell water, but on a remote or outdoor sauna there may not be anywhere to buy it mid-session. A 1 L reusable bottle, sipped between rounds, is a straightforward baseline.

On UK or Irish coastal saunas — and any continental outdoor setup in winter — the walk between cabin, sea, and car turns on whether you have a warm cover layer. A dryrobe or heavy towelling robe is the single biggest quality-of-life upgrade for outdoor sauna.

Phones: they cook in the heat and nobody on a shared bench wants to be in your reel. Jewellery: metal conducts heat. Contact lenses: the room dries your eyes out quickly — glasses are fine, but fog up. Smelly cosmetics and strong perfume: löyly amplifies them, and the room is shared.