It’s our first birthday!
Exactly 1 year ago today, I opened the sauna door for the very first live Wild Sauna Club event. It was the Stoney Cove Halloween Swim night, and I was there with the sauna and heap of fear and anxiety.
Towing was terrifying. How to get the sauna up to temperature was still a bit of a dark art I hadn’t fully acquired. And I was tightly crossing my fingers that people would like the sauna alongside their swim, just like I had in Cornwall 6 months prior.
I’d completely sold out and was expecting 42 people. I’d not really slept in the lead up, running over and over every last detail in my head. I was equal parts excited and overwhelmed.
Then people came. And they loved it. They asked loads of questions. The main one being if I was going to be there again. The friends I’d been away with the week before had secretly booked in to support me, and other friends came down to work out what I’d been rambling on about, wild sauna what??!!
It was a successful launch, and it kicked off the beginning of a chain reaction I couldn’t have possibly imagined in the beginning.
Matt at Stoney Cove was so supportive and I’ll be forever grateful he gave me the chance to have the sauna there. Quickly came an invite from Swim Six Hills to take the sauna there from November. And next a tip off that Burton Farm might be keen, so in December we started going there too.
I thought sauna would be something that I always did alongside open water swimming venues, but interest started coming from all sorts of people and places. So, pop-up ‘wild spas’ were trialled around Market Harborough, at the Braybrooke Beer Taproom, and at Hermitage Offices. This put me in charge of the water element for the cold plunge as well as the sauna – twice the overthinking and not sleeping!
To this point, I’d instigated the chats with most venues. But then I started getting enquiries from venues almost weekly. Some of which were really far away!
Lots of people were also asking if they could hire the sauna for their own home but this was often a bit tricky with access and parking etc. So, I bought two sauna tents to be able to offer a private hire option. You hire a wood-fired sauna tent for a week, I come and set it up, show you the ropes, you use it, I come and take it away. This has gone down really well, with everyone who has hired one of them, loving having a sauna in their garden.
Just before I got Steamy Wonder, the sauna, but having launched online for the first event, author Emma O’Kelly, was researching her next book Wild Sauna. I was approached to see if I’d like to be in it, well, of course I did! I wasn’t going to make the photo deadline, which I am gutted about, but I was able to get a listing on page 262. The book landed in May, and honestly, you’d have thought I was the author by how excited I was to get my pre-ordered copy! My little business, that was only 6 months old, was in a book!
When I attended the 2025 British Sauna Society Sauna Summit later that May, it was amazing to meet Emma and fangirl her in person!
The main thing to come out of running the sauna that had really stuck me by this point, was the community that was being built. People at Stoney Cove booked the same session time each time they came in the hope they’d see the people they’d met in the sauna the last time. People became regulars and we all got to know each other. People follow me from venue to venue so they can sauna regularly. People send me funny sauna content. Some bring me things they’ve baked or bring me a cup of tea. I feel part of something much bigger than me, and I think everyone who comes does too.
As the water at swimming venues warmed up, the numbers booking sauna seats dropped a bit. A regular at Stoney Cove suggested I speak to Brook Meadow Holiday Site for a summer residency. After a sold-out pop-up event as a trial, we embarked on a 13-week sauna residency with chilled and filtered cold plunge baths alongside the sauna.
This was absolutely the right move, and we had a great summer welcoming regulars and campers. Also learned a lot about running the cold plunges, which is far more complicated than you’d ever think!
We also popped-up for 5 summer Wednesday sessions at Hidden Hideaway campsite with the sauna and ambient temperature cold plunge. Ellie’s site is lovely and has the most incredible far-reaching views across the Welland Valley, this was the view from the cold plunge pods and the sauna – just heavenly.
All the feedback so far has been incredible. The only slight negative was that it has been hard for people to be regulars because of being fully mobile and at a different venue each weekend. People want to visit more. To have more sauna opportunities.
This has sparked the next phase of Wild Sauna Club.
For 12 months there has been Steamy Wonder, our horse box sauna, then I added the two sauna tents for private hire. Now comes Steamy Nicks our new horse box sauna which arrives in early November.
She is going to live at our new sauna and cold plunge venue at Hermitage Works, just outside Market Harborough. We’re hoping to get open this year – fingers crossed! We’ll be open there 4 days a week to begin with, with the hope that we’ll be able to add days and sessions as it grows.
In partnership with some of our other venues, we’re also looking at how we offer more regular sauna opportunities for them too with Steamy Wonder, and maybe another new sauna!
We also have our new pop-up venue, Delapre Abbey, which will be Northampton’s first traditional wood-fired sauna offering. Our first event in November is a trial to see if we could make there a regular sauna venue too.
It’s been an amazing journey so far, and hard to believe it’s only been a year. Although, it also feels like five minutes. With so much on the horizon, I’m ready to take Wild Sauna Club into the next 12 months and I wonder how the 2-year reflection will read?
What do I love about this business?
I love watching everyone fall in love with sauna. I love the positive effect it has on people and how they feel. I love that people only have to come once to then build sauna into their regular wellness routines because it makes them feel calm and euphoric all at the same time.
What is tricky that nobody sees?
People only see the easy part of running this business – when it’s in use and I’m floating around and chatting, chucking the odd log on the stove.
But if I open at 9am, I have to light the stove by 7.30am, and often I’ve had a 1-hour drive to get to the venue, after an extra 30 minutes to pick up the sauna from where I store it – so my 9am start actually starts at 5.30am.
If it’s a ‘wild spa’ event, the pack down can take 2-3 hours too. Meaning lots of 12-16-hour days and lugging things around. I’m also replying to messages and emails every day, doing the marketing every day, the accounts, the planning, cleaning and maintenance, sauna tent hire work, plus all the overthinking and not sleeping. There’s a lot that goes into every sauna session.
Would I change anything?
No, I’m loving my new sauna life – I mean, maybe less overthinking! But I’m super excited about the next phase!!!!