Sauna Marathons Are Multiplying. Here Is What the Format Looks Like.

In 2007, a group of friends in Otepää, a small town in southern Estonia known as the country’s winter sports capital, decided to combine their two favorite hobbies: running and saunas. They mapped every sauna they could find in and around town, formed teams of four, and raced between them. Each team member had to sit in each sauna for at least three minutes. The team that hit the most saunas in the allotted time won a hot tub.

Eighteen years later, that improvised afternoon has a Guinness World Record, draws participants from 20 countries, and has spawned at least four offspring events across Europe. The sauna marathon is no longer a single Estonian curiosity. It is a format (start at saunamarathon.com), and it is spreading.

The Original: Otepää and the Orienteering Model

The European Sauna Marathon in Otepää runs like a sauna-themed orienteering race. Teams of four receive a map with every participating sauna marked on it. They have roughly five hours to visit as many as possible, spending a minimum of three minutes in each. A car and designated driver are mandatory because the saunas are scattered across the countryside around town.

The format has grown steadily. The 14th edition in March 2025 drew nearly 1,000 participants from 16 countries, including teams from Brazil, Japan, and six teams from Switzerland. By 2026, VIP tickets for the 15th anniversary edition sold out months in advance.

What makes Otepää work is the sauna diversity. The 2024 edition included a sauna inside a decommissioned tram car, another suspended from a crane between earth and sky, a cave sauna, and a modern smoke sauna called ÖÖ. Residents open their private saunas to competitors, and mobile saunas arrive in the shape of barrels, huts, igloos, and tents. Costumes are encouraged (the private Saturday sauna in Estonia is traditionally nude, but the marathon invites participants to dress up). Prizes go to the fastest team, the best costumes, and the best “sauna enthusiasts,” a category that rewards spirit over speed.

“Their main goal is to break the myth or tradition influenced by Germany in their countries, where saunas are silent spaces,” chief organizer Ago Arro told Euronews about the growing international contingent. “They prefer our style, where it’s fun and enjoyable.”

The event is organized by NGO Otepää Sport in cooperation with the Otepää Municipal Government, and the goal, per the organizers, is “to preserve and develop Estonian sauna culture in a unique and athletic festival format.” The Estonian smoke sauna tradition was inscribed on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2014, and the marathon has become one of southern Estonia’s signature winter tourism events.

The Swiss Adaptation: Schaffhausen Doubles the Original

In 2023, a group centered around the Rhysauna association in Schaffhausen, Switzerland (founded 2019, roughly 300 members) launched their own version. A delegation from the organizing committee had traveled to Otepää, was “warmly welcomed at Otepää Town Hall,” and returned inspired.

What they built is recognizably the same format but adapted for a dense medieval city rather than a dispersed rural setting. The key differences: Schaffhausen is walkable (no cars needed, free public transit included with the ticket), costumes are not part of the culture, the time window is eight hours rather than five, and the locations extend across Schaffhausen’s historic old town, the Rhine riverfront, the Munot fortress, a working steel foundry, and (new for 2026) the Rhine Falls in Neuhausen.

By its third edition in February 2026, the Saunamarathon Schaffhausen drew roughly 2,000 participants, double the Estonian original. The organizers describe it explicitly as “not about speed, but about socialising and enjoyment.”

The event has become a showcase for mobile sauna culture. The 2026 edition featured Thermic Vibes, which presented what it calls the world’s largest pop-up sauna tent (roughly 16 feet in diameter with four wood-burning stoves) alongside the world’s smallest (about five and a half feet), both made by Alpine Sauna of Switzerland. The Saunah association brought three mobile saunas including a glazed unit called Lasi (Finnish for “glass”). An international Banja-Team coordinated by Anton Bolilyi, co-organizer of the Berlin Banya Festival, brought two original banya yurts and three sauna tents with masters from ten countries.

International Aufguss talent also showed up. Tobias Johansson, founder of Bastupaus and organizer of the festival near Malmö, and Roger Huerta, the 2025 Swedish Saunagus Champion, both traveled to Schaffhausen for the event. The Friends of Finland group cooked sausages on the sauna stove using the traditional makkarapussi method.

Registration teams have come from as far as North Vancouver. “The international resonance confirms that the format and the idea behind the sauna marathon appeals to people around the world,” co-organizer Manuel Gruber told Schaffhausen24.

Finland’s Grassroots Variants

Finland, where the sauna tradition runs deepest, is developing its own grassroots sauna marathons, though at a smaller scale.

The Kerkonkoski Saunamaraton in central Finland launched in 2023. The 2024 edition attracted roughly 70 participants who walked between 10 saunas in the village, with a ferry carrying groups across Niinivesi lake to reach three of them. Unique saunas included a caravan sauna and a boat sauna. Registration filled so quickly the organizers had to close it early. The event explicitly frames itself as non-competitive: the point is to “enjoy the löyly of as many saunas as possible, pleasant company, and the scenery of a beautiful village.”

The Sarvenperän Saunamaraton near Kuohu in the Jyväskylä region takes a different approach: a roughly six-mile walking route through 13 to 15 saunas, including shoreline saunas, tent saunas, and mobile saunas. Scheduled for August 2026, it includes breakfast, soup lunch, and dinner, and issues certificates of completion. It is designed for first-timers.

Then there is the Nordic Saunathon, which took the “marathon” concept in an entirely different direction. On March 20, 2026 (International Day of Happiness, and the year Finland was named the world’s happiest country for the ninth consecutive time), 150 participants at Hanken Business Lab in Helsinki rotated through a single sauna in shifts of five to ten minutes, with handoffs under ten seconds, for 24 hours and six minutes. A Guinness World Records adjudicator verified the attempt on site. The event was framed as a celebration of collective wellbeing rather than a race.

What the Format Has in Common

Despite the variations, every sauna marathon shares a core structure. Teams or individuals move between multiple saunas within a defined time window. There is always a map. There is always a minimum time per sauna. The competition, where it exists, rewards strategy and endurance (choosing the best route, managing transitions) rather than raw speed inside the sauna.

The format also doubles as a mobile sauna showcase. In Otepää, residents and builders bring their most creative saunas to the event. In Schaffhausen, professional mobile sauna makers like Alpine Sauna and the Saunah association use the marathon as a product demo. The Aufguss scene has noticed: the Schaffhausen event now draws named performers from Sweden and Denmark.

For the host towns, the economics are straightforward. Otepää (population roughly 4,200) absorbs 1,000 visitors on a single winter weekend. Schaffhausen draws 2,000. The organizers of both events recommend that out-of-town visitors stay the full weekend. Hotels, restaurants, and local producers benefit directly. The Schaffhausen event includes a local producers’ market on the central square, and the ticket includes free public transit, Rhine Falls boat trips, and entry to a closing afterparty.

Where It Goes From Here

Guinness World Records already recognizes the format as a category, recording both the “longest running annual sauna marathon event” (Otepää, since 2007) and the “longest sauna session marathon relay” (Helsinki, 2026). The record page notes that “similar events are now held in Switzerland and Finland, among other countries.”

The Winter Sauna Carnival at Ikaalinen Spa & Resort in Finland, while not branded as a marathon, follows a similar logic: a weekend where attendees move between dozens of mobile saunas, vote for their favorite, and attend Aufguss rituals. It drew nearly 1,000 attendees in January 2026 and is expanding for 2027. The World Sauna Forum in Jyväskylä (June 2026) runs concurrent sauna tours across the region during its week-long program.

The format’s growth trajectory suggests more events are coming. The Swiss delegation that launched Schaffhausen literally flew to Estonia to learn the playbook. The Finnish village events are springing up independently. The Banja-Team’s appearance in Schaffhausen hints at Eastern European adaptations. And the Guinness infrastructure around “sauna marathon” as a recognized record category means any new entrant can benchmark against established events from day one.