Why Saunaroots
exists.

My grandfather built his sauna himself. Wood, stones, a proper stove — the kind you heat for an hour before anyone goes in. Growing up, sauna was never something you booked or planned or optimized. It was just what happened on a Saturday. You showed up, you sweated, you jumped in cold water, you sat around a table with people you liked. That was it.

I've been going to sauna my whole life and never once thought of it as a wellness ritual. It was just — normal. How you reset. How you caught up with people. How you ended a good week or survived a bad one.

Then I started looking at New York. One of the most extraordinary cities in the world — a place that has absorbed every culture, every tradition, every idea worth having. And this one, somehow, hasn't landed properly yet. There are hot rooms. There are infrared boxes with Nordic branding. There are spa suites with "Finnish sauna" signs above radiators you're not allowed to pour water on.

That's not sauna. And New York deserves the real thing.

A culture built around heat, cold, and honest company — that belongs in the greatest city in the world.

Saunaroots exists to close that gap. Not to lecture anyone, not to be precious about tradition — but because this thing is genuinely great and not enough people there know what it actually is. The communal side of it. The fact that it's one of the few situations where nobody checks their phone, where conversation happens naturally, where you end up closer to people than you expected.

The site covers the culture — where sauna comes from and what makes it worth caring about. It covers the city — the real spots in NYC that understand what steam actually means. And it covers the home — because a proper Finnish cabin in a Brooklyn backyard is more achievable than most people think.

New posts every Thursday. Newsletter once a month. No fluff in either.

— Tarvo