Spa hotels

These properties have a spa or wellness area on site. The label covers two very different things: a treatment room where you book a massage by appointment, and a full wellness complex with saunas, steam rooms and thermal pools you can use all day. Which one you get makes an enormous difference to whether the hotel is worth its premium.

Before you book, check

• Whether use of the sauna and pool area is included in the room rate or sold as a day pass.
• Whether treatments need to be booked in advance. In smaller hotels a single therapist can be fully booked for your whole stay.
• Bathing culture. In parts of Central Europe and Scandinavia saunas are mixed and textile-free; elsewhere they are not. Hotels rarely mention this and guests are regularly surprised.
• Age limits. Many wellness areas are adults-only, or restrict children to fixed hours.

Worth it for: Off-season travel, cold or wet destinations, and any trip where the hotel is the point rather than the base.