After my trip to Norway and Finland, saunaing and trying a Viking bath* in the Baltic Sea, I am feeling inspired and motivated to lean in to some elements of a wellness journey.
*I’m choosing to interpret a Viking bath as a cold water plunge done after a session of heating your body up, typically in a sauna, but it could be from a hot tub, hot springs, or steam room. I’m not sure how accurate that is, as there didn’t seem to be a lot of sources describing it. Per the link above, I did not do a full Nordic cycle, though I considered dipping a second time but the sun had set and it felt much colder.
(This is not to be confused with a Nordic bath, which seems to be quite the opposite, and more of a hot tub in nature, powered by just a crackling fire. That sounds pretty awesome and something I’d be interested in trying another time.)
In contrast to this, one of the most relaxing things I tried many years ago as part of an MBA class was float therapy (how cool is that! it was an actual assignment for a course I took). Funny enough, while floating isn’t anything like the sauna + plunge that a Viking bath entails, it was the first thing that came to mind when I thought about something rejuvenating. Plus, many locations also have infrared saunas, cold plunges, and other trendy things like cryotherapy and hyperbaric chambers. Alternating hot to cold is known as contrast therapy and I can still do that if I wish, but my primary goal here is self-care that feels healing, which floating gives me too.
Sadly, one I had tried and was planning on visiting again, Newport Float Therapy, looks like it actually just went out of business last month. I liked them because they had actual rooms, like the first one I went to (below, and unfortunately also closed now), and not just pods like most seem to have. And so the search was on, for the next one I can try, which led me on quite the comparison journey. Ultimately I found one that I really like and ironically, it looks like it just opened last month. Such timing! See below for my comparison and how I landed on this one.
| Business | Location | Pricing | Other Services |
| Urban Float | San Juan Capistrano | unknown, seems to be out of business too | N/A |
| Pause Studio | Newport Beach | $75/hr $60 per with monthly membership | contrast therapy, infrared sauna, cryotherapy, compression, IV, LED light therapy & more |
| Culture OC | Newport Beach | $65/hr (with 20 min buffer time) $52 per in bundle of 5 | cold plunge, infrared sauna, hyperbaric chamber, acupuncture & more |
| Newport Body Works | Costa Mesa | $65/hr $50 per with monthly membership | cold plunge, infrared sauna, cryotherapy, compression, IV, massage & more |
| Awaken Float Lounge | Orange | $79/hr ($59 first time) $100 monthly for unlimited + guest! | none |
| Float Therapy Spa | Huntington Beach | $79/hr ($49 first time) $42.25 per in bundle of 4 | infrared sauna, massage with add-ons, craniosacral therapy (CST), facial cupping |
I liked Awaken for the float rooms, but it’s the furthest and it only has floating. Culture OC felt a bit hardcore for me, plus they’re not open Sundays, which would be a common time I’d want to go. Float Therapy doesn’t have cold plunge for when I do want to mix it up.
Thus I was left with Pause Studio and Newport Body Works — aaaaand thank goodness I did this grid, because I somehow overlooked that NBW has everything I’d want yet is cheaper than Pause. Originally I was thinking Pause was the one, and this location is brand new as I referenced above. But now I see that NBW should meet my needs for less! They are just a stone’s throw from each other, so it’s easy enough to try them both to compare how I feel with their offerings. It’ll likely come down to the comfort of their facilities and how customer-service oriented they are.
P.S. – All this reminds me of this cool 7-step “ritual” that I read about at Sky Lagoon in Iceland. I didn’t get a chance to try them out yet and went for Blue Lagoon when I was there, so the next time I go visit Reykjavik, I’ll be sure to put it on the itinerary.
