Shanghai 24-Hour Spas & Bathhouses: The Viral Wellness Trend Foreigners Are Obsessed With (2026)

If you have spent any time on TikTok or Xiaohongshu in the past year, you have seen the videos. Foreigners in matching pajamas, wandering through what looks like a wellness theme park, pointing cameras at buffet tables piled with crab legs. The comment section is always some version of: “Wait, this is $40?”

Yes. It is roughly $40. And it is not a scam, and there is no catch. Shanghai’s 24-hour spas are just genuinely, unreasonably good value. I need to explain what they actually are, because the word “spa” is doing some heavy lifting here.

What even is a 24-hour spa?

Forget what you know about spas. This is not a white-robed lady offering you cucumber water in a quiet room. A Shanghai 24-hour spa is more like an indoor resort crossed with a Korean jjimjilbang crossed with a very comfortable airport terminal where nobody has a flight to catch.

You pay one entrance fee. That fee gets you access to: a bathing area with multiple hot spring pools and soaking tubs at different temperatures. A sauna zone with dry saunas, salt rooms, and steam rooms. Towels, slippers, and a set of pajamas. A sleeping lounge or recliner room. Often a cinema room, a gaming area, a reading nook, and karaoke. Some have children’s play areas. Many include a buffet. All of this, for as long as you want to stay, up to 24 hours.

You check in, get a wristband, change into their pajamas, and then just exist there. Eat when you are hungry. Soak when you are cold. Nap when you are tired. Leave whenever you feel like it. It is the most relaxed I have ever been inside a commercial establishment.

What you get for 200 to 400 RMB

Let me put this in context. A single 60-minute massage at a mid-range spa in New York, London, or Sydney will cost you $150 or more, before tip. In Shanghai, for roughly 200 to 400 RMB ($28 to $55), you get 24 hours of access to everything: the pools, the saunas, the sleeping area, the entertainment. Massage costs extra at most places (60 to 200 RMB for a session), but the gap in overall value is comical.

Most entrance tickets include: unlimited use of all bathing pools, sauna rooms, the lounge and recliner area, pajamas, towels, slippers, lockers, and often a buffet meal or meal credit. Some venues throw in a basic foot massage. The higher-end tickets (350 to 400 RMB) usually include a full seafood buffet with unlimited soft drinks.

And yes, you can buy discounted tickets on Meituan or Dianping. Always do this. The walk-in price is the sucker price.

Where to go

Shanghai has dozens of these places, and new ones keep opening. Here are the ones I have been to or that friends have vouched for, with realistic price ranges based on mid-2026 Meituan listings.

• Shuiguo 水裹汤泉 (multiple locations, Pudong and Xuhui). Probably the most popular chain among both locals and foreigners right now. Clean, modern, solid buffet. Expect to pay 298 to 398 RMB depending on location and day. The Pudong Lujiazui branch has a rooftop soaking area. Weekday afternoons are the quietest.
• Tangland 汤连得 (Putuo, Baoshan, Pudong). The food at Tangland is genuinely good, which is not always the case. Crab, sashimi, grilled meats. The bathing area is spacious. 268 to 358 RMB. If you are going primarily to eat and soak, this is the one.
• Cheersum 浅深 (Changning, Jing’an). Japanese-style, quieter vibe, slightly more polished than the big chains. They lean more into the relaxation side and less into the theme-park-in-pajamas energy. Around 298 RMB. Good choice if the idea of karaoke rooms gives you anxiety.
• Young Space 漾 (Minhang). Newer, trendy, popular with younger crowds. Good design, solid pool variety. Around 328 RMB. They do themed events and late-night DJ sets in the common area, which is either a selling point or a warning depending on your personality.
• Yide Hotspring 易德温泉 (Baoshan, Qingpu). The reliable budget-friendly option. Nothing fancy, but the pools are hot, the beds are flat, and the price is right: 198 to 268 RMB. Great if you want the experience without the premium.
• Budget picks under 200 RMB: Smaller neighborhood bathhouses (search 洗浴中心 on Dianping) offer basic soaking, sauna, and rest areas for 98 to 168 RMB. The facilities are older and the English signage is nonexistent, but the hot water is the same temperature and the value is hard to argue with.

First-timer survival guide

Bring your passport. This is non-negotiable. All venues require ID registration at the entrance. Chinese citizens use their national ID card; you use your passport. A photo on your phone sometimes works, but do not rely on it.

The bathing area is nude, and it is gender-separated. This is the part that catches most Westerners off guard. The wet area, with the soaking pools, showers, and saunas, is split by gender and everyone is nude. It works exactly like a Korean bathhouse or Japanese onsen. Nobody is staring. It is genuinely unremarkable once you are three minutes in. If you have ever been to a gym locker room, you have the relevant skills.

Here is the flow: Check in at the front desk with your passport. Receive a wristband and a locker key. Go to the locker room, store your stuff, shower (required before entering the pools), use the wet area as long as you like. When you are done soaking, dry off, put on the pajamas they provide, and head to the common areas. Eat. Nap. Sing. Read. Repeat. When you are ready to leave, go to the checkout counter and they will scan your wristband and tally everything.

Tipping is not a thing. Do not try. It will be confusing for everyone involved.

Buy tickets on Meituan or Dianping first. The app discount is usually 30 to 80 RMB cheaper than walking in cold. You can also check reviews, see photos of the actual facilities, and figure out which location is closest to you. Both apps work with WeChat Pay and Alipay.

The food situation

Let me be honest: the food is a significant part of why people keep going back. Many of the larger spas include an all-you-can-eat buffet in the ticket price, and these are not sad hotel breakfast buffets. We are talking crab legs, grilled shrimp, sashimi platters, noodle stations, fruit towers, and unlimited soft drinks.

Shuiguo and Tangland are particularly known for their food. The late-night crowd (after 10 PM) tends to go hard on the seafood and congee. It is a whole vibe: grown adults in matching pajamas, loading up a plate of king crab at 1 AM, watching a movie on a massive screen. Nobody judges you. This is the social contract.

Some venues charge separately for food, usually 68 to 128 RMB for the buffet add-on. Check the Meituan listing before you book. The packages that include meals are almost always better value than buying food on-site a la carte.