How this directory is made

Where We Bathe is a free, ad-free directory of Australian venues built around heat, cold and water — bathhouses, saunas, hot springs and mineral pools. No venue can pay for a listing, for placement, or for a higher ranking. There are no sponsored entries and no advertising anywhere on the site.

Where the facts come from

Each entry starts as the venue's own published account — its website, its own descriptions of its pools, saunas, temperatures, hours and prices. That material is read, drafted into a consistent entry, and then checked line by line before publication: every specific figure has to trace back to something the venue itself has published. Nothing is invented to fill a gap. Where a venue doesn't state something, the entry simply leaves it out rather than guessing.

We do not write about visits we haven't made. You won't find first-person "on arrival" impressions or invented sensory detail in these entries — only what a venue documents about itself, tidied into a form that's quick to read and easy to compare.

How each fact is tracked

Every factual claim an entry makes — price, hours, temperatures, dress code, session policies — carries a record of where it came from and how strongly it's verified. Today, that record is honest about its limits: almost every fact is marked published by the venue, meaning it's drawn from the venue's own current materials and checked, but not yet independently confirmed with the operator.

The next step, which is underway, is operator outreach: contacting venues directly to confirm the details we hold and correct anything out of date. As a venue confirms its facts, those move to a stronger confirmed by the operator mark. We'd rather tell you exactly how sure we are than imply a certainty we don't have.

Structured, comparable data

Behind each entry is a structured record — adult drop-in price, sauna and plunge temperatures where the venue states them, drive time from the nearest capital, and the amenities and facilities on offer. That's what makes the side-by-side comparisons and regional roundups possible, and it's what lets an AI assistant cite a specific, sourced figure rather than a vague summary.

Coverage

Coverage is strongest in Victoria for now, with a growing presence in Tasmania, New South Wales, Queensland and, most recently, South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the ACT. The directory is added to steadily; a thin region reflects where the work has reached, not a judgement about what's worth visiting.

Found something out of date? Every venue page has a "claim this listing" link for operators, and corrections are always welcome.