Hot springs occur where groundwater meets heat from the Earth’s interior and returns to the surface, which is why they cluster along volcanic belts and fault lines. What differs enormously is what people have built around them. Here are fourteen worth travelling for.
1. Blue Lagoon, Iceland
Milky blue silica-rich water in a lava field on the Reykjanes peninsula, and the country’s most visited attraction. It is not, strictly, natural.
The water is a by-product of a neighbouring geothermal power plant, which does nothing to diminish the experience of floating in warm blue water surrounded by black rock. Booking well ahead is essential. The Blue Lagoon is the hot spring that made geothermal bathing a mass tourist activity.
Like our content? Follow us for more.
2. Beppu, Japan
A city on Kyushu producing more geothermal water than almost anywhere else on Earth, with thousands of vents and an enormous concentration of bathhouses.
Beyond conventional soaking there are sand baths, where you are buried in naturally heated sand, and steam baths built over vents. The variety is the appeal. Beppu is the hot spring destination where an entire city is organised around geothermal water.
3. Grutas Tolantongo, Mexico
A canyon in Hidalgo state where thermal water fills a river and dozens of pools built into a cliff face, stacked in tiers above the valley floor.
The turquoise water arrives warm from within the mountain, and there are caves and tunnels behind the falls that can be walked into. It is enormously popular with Mexican visitors and largely unknown abroad. Grutas Tolantongo is the hot spring complex that looks engineered and is mostly geology.
4. Chena Hot Springs, Alaska, USA
A remote resort northeast of Fairbanks with an outdoor rock lake kept warm year-round, popular precisely because of the contrast with the air temperature.
In winter the surrounding forest is deep in snow and the aurora is frequently visible overhead while you are in the water. Hair freezes. Chena is the hot spring where the extreme cold is the entire point.
5. Terme di Saturnia, Italy
Sulphurous water cascading over limestone into a series of natural terraced pools in the Tuscan countryside, free to access and open at all hours.
The Cascate del Mulino pools sit beside a road with no gates and no admission, which makes them busy at popular times and remarkable at dawn. Arrive early. Saturnia is the hot spring that costs nothing and still ranks among the finest anywhere.
6. Hot Water Beach, New Zealand
A stretch of sand on the Coromandel Peninsula where geothermal water rises directly beneath the beach, and visitors dig their own pools at low tide.
Bring a spade, time it with the tide table, and you can excavate a private bath a few metres from the surf. The water can be surprisingly hot in places. Hot Water Beach is the hot spring you have to build yourself.
7. Széchenyi Baths, Hungary
An enormous neo-baroque bathhouse in Budapest, fed by thermal springs, with indoor and outdoor pools and a famous scene of people playing chess in the steam.
Budapest sits on an unusual concentration of thermal water and has a bathing culture running back to Roman and Ottoman periods. It is a city institution. Széchenyi is the hot spring experience wrapped in a palace.
8. Hverir and the Mývatn Area, Iceland
The north of Iceland offers a quieter alternative to the Blue Lagoon, with the Mývatn Nature Baths overlooking a lava landscape and the steaming, sulphurous mud pools of Hverir nearby.
The mud pools are for looking at rather than entering; the bathing is elsewhere and substantially less crowded than the south. The smell is part of it. Mývatn is the hot spring region for people who want Iceland without the queue.
9. Ma’in Hot Springs, Jordan
Thermal waterfalls tumbling down a desert gorge below sea level, near the Dead Sea, where heated mineral water falls directly onto bathers.
The setting — hot water cascading over rock in an arid canyon — is unlike almost any other spring on this list. Access is via a resort. Ma’in is the hot spring where the water arrives as a waterfall.
10. Takaragawa Onsen, Japan
A traditional riverside onsen in Gunma Prefecture, with large open-air rock pools set directly beside a mountain river and forest.
It is particularly famous in winter, when snow banks the surrounding rocks and the contrast is at its most dramatic. Onsen etiquette applies strictly. Takaragawa is the hot spring that shows what Japanese open-air bathing does best.
11. Puritama, Chile
A series of small terraced pools in a canyon in the Atacama Desert, fed by a thermal stream and reached by a walkway at high altitude.
The water is warm rather than scalding, and the setting — green reeds in a gorge surrounded by extremely dry desert — is startling. Altitude affects some visitors. Puritama is the hot spring hidden inside the driest desert on the planet.
12. Banff Upper Hot Springs, Canada
A historic bathhouse high in the Canadian Rockies, with a single large pool looking out over mountains. It was the reason the national park was created.
The discovery of the springs prompted the protection of the surrounding land in the 1880s, making this modest pool the origin point of Canada’s national park system. Views are the draw. Banff Upper is the hot spring that accidentally founded a national park.
14. Deception Island, Antarctica
A flooded volcanic caldera where geothermally heated water warms the shallows, occasionally allowing visitors from expedition ships to bathe at the edge.
Conditions vary and access depends entirely on the operator and the day, so this is opportunistic rather than reliable. The novelty is considerable. Deception Island is the hot spring furthest from anywhere else on this list.
15. Hveravellir, Iceland
A remote geothermal field in the highland interior, reached along rough tracks, with a simple bathing pool beside steaming vents and fumaroles.
There is no resort and very little infrastructure, which is the appeal; historically it was a hideout for outlaws. Access requires a suitable vehicle and the right season. Hveravellir is the hot spring for people who want the highlands to themselves.
Warm Water, Cold Places
The pattern across this list is that the best hot springs tend to sit somewhere inhospitable — a glacier, a desert, a volcano, a polar caldera — which is exactly why sitting in warm water there feels so good.
One practical note worth stating plainly: water temperatures at natural springs vary and can be truly hot, conditions change with weather and season, and some sites have specific rules or require booking. Check current local guidance before visiting, follow any posted instructions, and test the water before getting in. Do that, and these are among the most restorative places travel has to offer.
Like our content? Follow us for more.
