I am packing my suitcase the night before flying to Oslo for a spa break at The Well when my phone rings. It’s my plus one, Shireen, who doesn’t bother with any preamble: “Mads, are you packing swimming costumes?” I reply in the affirmative, to which she says, “Don’t bother. Look at the website — they are all naked! It is all naked! You are taking me to a naked place!”
I immediately cease folding clothes and look at the website. Shireen isn’t lying; a plethora of photos attest to the mandatory nudity at The Well, with everyone in them looking free and very happy indeed to be completely relieved of clothes. I phone her back for crisis talk. “It’s fine,” she tells me, “we won’t go naked — we’ll just arrange a towel over ourselves and scuttle around with the particulars shielded from view.”
Fixed on our plan of remaining at least semi-clothed, the next day we arrive at The Well after a fifty-minute drive from Oslo airport and are immediately impressed by the setup. Nestled in Nordic forests, it is home to the biggest spa in Northern Europe, and they didn’t just max out on square metre footage but also on the variety of offerings: 11 pools and hot tubs, 25 treatment rooms, 15 saunas and steam rooms, and many other areas in which to recline (nude), have a snack (nude), or go on a forest walk (also nude — I’d strongly advise you to beware of pine needles if you sit on a bench during your stroll).
Scandis unsurprisingly love this place, and we are told they’ve taken to it with gusto since it opened in 2015 as a spa, but the addition of the 104-room hotel in 2021 means it’s been drawing a crowd from further afield who may, like us, not be as culturally used to the whole naked thing.
After lunch on the first day at the Brasseriet (the baked polenta with caramelised carrots was exceptional), we head into the darkest room in the spa, a womb-like enclosure flooded with deep red light, clutching our little peshtemals provided by The Well like life vests. Everyone is unclothed, and when we leave for a sip of water, we have a chat and decide that covering ourselves feels more conspicuous. We resolve to brave it, and start by releasing our bodies from the waist up.
At this point, I steal a glance around me and realise that the crowd is motley; vastly ranging in age, size, colour, and texture. Oddly, these differences seem much less pronounced with everyone divested of their clothing, and nobody seems to care one iota about being naked; they walk around, converse, and enjoy the facilities precisely as other people in spas do — only they don’t have clothes on. Even more oddly, I feel less aware of the male gaze in there because the atmosphere isn’t charged in that way. It feels like everyone has collectively agreed that this is a place where the body isn’t an object to be admired or lusted after but rather to respect one another’s right to enjoy the experience.
Our perceptions changed, we find ourselves fully nude by the end of the day, albeit with an agreement to keep our eyes averted from one another’s forms for the sake of our friendship.
Over dinner at Scandi-Asian restaurant Mori, where we have the tasting menu complete with wine pairing, we decide to go for it for the remainder of our stay and that what happens at The Well will remain at The Well. The next day, we are both much less bashful, and immerse ourselves in hopping starkers from sauna to steam room and experience things like a woman putting scented ice balls on the hot stones for a shot of invigorating lemongrass or calming lavender to expand throughout the sauna.
One hurdle remains: daylight nakedness. It was a fear to overcome if we were to enjoy the icy outdoor swimming pool for cold plunging, jacuzzis, and the aforementioned forest walk. Even though we’d found out that there were areas in which you could wear The Well’s own-brand costumes, by that point we felt we’d crossed the rubicon and might as well challenge ourselves.
Reader, there are lovers who’ve seen me less naked than Shireen did that day. But there I was, one of the many fleshy forms just enjoying the water and forest, surprisingly unfazed.
On the flight home, we both remarked on how very dressed we were, and how small a deal being fully naked had been — and how liberated we'd felt by not worrying about which shoes went with which jeans and whether we needed another layer in which to brave the weather. We still talk about the incredible spa facilities and are planning another trip together, but we both emphatically agree that this is a trip to undertake only with someone you implicitly trust. Choose wisely, and you may, like us, be surprised to find you rather enjoy parading through a forest in the nude.
5 naked truths we learned at The Well
- Go with someone you trust implicitly. In this situation you either want someone to be a complete stranger, or quite close to you.
- If you can't bring yourself to shed all your clothing, ask the spa if they can provide a covering to preserve your modesty. Like Shireen and I, you might find you need something to help ease you in.
- Stick to the hygiene rules, which will probably mean showering a lot. Nude spas rely on compliance in this regard.
- Take a book. It does do to stare at other people in the nude when relaxing.
- No mobile phones is usually a strict rule, and for obvious reasons, you don't selfie in a nude spa (my pictures were taken outside regular hours, with permission from The Well).
