Our Story

Where it began

Near Wild Saunas started the way a lot of good things do - outdoors, unplanned, among friends who had no idea what they were getting into.

In 2023, Joe, Alex and Brad were away on a family camping trip. It had everything a good weekend needs: fresh air, muddy boots, tired children and the easy calm that comes from being outside. And then they found a sauna.

All three had used saunas before, but this one was different. The heat was generous, the steam sat just right, and everything slowed down.

A lakeside scene with tall pine trees, a wooden cabin with a deck, and a dock extending into the calm water, surrounded by greenery under a bright blue sky.

Finland and the löyly

For Brad, it ran deeper. Through family, friendships and his work as an architect, he'd spent years travelling to Finland, drawn back again and again by Finnish design and by Alvar Aalto in particular. Those trips gave him more than inspiration. They gave him a real understanding of sauna culture - the simplicity, the respect for materials, and at the centre of it all, löyly, the living spirit of the steam.

A group of five men wearing gray hats and towels around their shoulders, sitting on a wooden dock next to a frozen lake on a sunny winter day. They are smiling and shirtless, with a forest in the background.

The long search

That shared curiosity turned into something more. We travelled to Finland to explore Finnish sauna culture, and came home with ideas we wanted to bring back to the UK.

Back home, we went looking for the same thing closer to home. We found plenty of good saunas in beautiful settings, run by thoughtful people. But something was always missing. The build, the setting, the feeling - and above all the quality of the löyly - never quite came together.

Three men standing on a ledge outdoors, smiling, with city buildings and trees in the background during winter.

The Realisation

Eventually the conclusion was obvious. If we wanted the sauna we'd been searching for, we'd have to build it ourselves.

That was the spark for Near Wild Saunas - saunas rooted in nature, crafted with care, and built around the things that matter most: authentic heat, beautiful surroundings, considered design and true Finnish löyly.

We exist for one simple reason: to bring everything we love about real Finnish sauna culture to the UK, and to share it properly - so that more people can step back out into the air afterwards feeling the way we did on that camping trip in 2023, like something has quietly shifted for the better.