In this week’s Just the Tip, Kim takes you inside Spa World, a Korean-style spa and sauna in Katy, Texas (just outside Houston). From a wide array of detoxifying saunas and rejuvenating bath pools to cozy nap rooms, bubble tea, and Korean comfort food, Spa World is the perfect escape for stress relief, relaxation, and self-care. We share insider tips, what to expect, and why this Houston spa is worth spending the whole day exploring.

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Spa World Review – Episode Transcript

0:35

And get ready to embark on a new adventure with us around the globe.

Hey, Squatty’s Travel Squad Podcast is back with Just the Tip, our Friday mini episode series where we give you quick travel stories, hacks and recommendations to set you off into the weekend.

Right today you have me, Kim to bring you another amazing spa review.

0:55

Spa World is a Korean style spa and sauna located in Houston, TX.

Technically it’s in the suburb city of Katy, TX, but basically Houston.

The benefits of a Korean style spa are detox, skin rejuvenation, pain relief, stress reduction, better sleep, boosted circulation, improved skin elasticity, it eases muscle tensions, and it promotes deep relaxation.

1:23

I’m going to get into what the facilities are that produce those types of benefits, But first let me just tell you about the cost.

The cost to visit the spa facilities at Spa World is about $45 on weekdays, $55 on weekends and holidays.

1:39

And that price gets you access to all the facility that I’m going to talk about.

But it does not include any extras like massage, scrubs, facials, or any of the restaurants and drinks that you can get here.

Those are all add-ons.

Now, it does get a bit busy on the weekends and the holidays, of course.

1:57

So if you want a more relaxing, quiet experience, I would recommend going during the week or in a Sunday.

It can be kind of hit or miss.

It could be really busy or it could be a bit slower.

I actually went on a Sunday.

I got there at 9:30.

AMI left around 2:30 PM and I don’t think it was busy.

2:15

There were definitely people there and a lot of the times in the sauna rooms I was by myself.

Occasionally there were a couple other people in there, but it definitely was never crowded.

Tips for visiting spa world?

Bring your own bath towel.

You will get two hand towels, but you will not get a full size bath towel.

2:33

So if you’re planning to shower before you take off, which you probably are, then you will want the bath towel.

The entire facility is no shoes.

It’s either socks or barefoot.

In the facility, you’ll actually remove your shoes before you even check in at the front desk and put them in your own locker.

2:50

So that’s pretty cool.

And unlike some spa, I found that spa world was not very strict about phones, which I really like.

You know, of course, it was still a very peaceful experience.

And when I’m at a spa, I always have my phone on airplane mode because I don’t want the distractions, but I still like to have my phone.

3:08

I like to take some pics and maybe some videos.

And a lot of people actually saw were just kind of browsing on their phone or taking care of business.

I mean, if you’re going to be there for five, 6-7 hours, you might want to take care of something on your phone.

So I appreciated that about it.

There are so, so many different parts of spa world.

3:26

There’s saunas, there’s the bath areas, there’s an area for treatments, there’s upstairs rooms, there’s a cafe with really, really good bubble tea, smoothies, coffee.

There’s even a Korean restaurant upstairs.

And throughout the entire facility, there are tons of different couches and chairs and mats that you can sit on or lay on and just relax throughout the building.

3:47

The spa experience is inside and outside health.

And part of that is just the relaxation of it all and I really appreciated that.

This facility is pretty interesting because on top of it being a spa facility, it also has a virtual golf area and karaoke rooms.

4:05

So you can actually add those on for an additional cost.

You can get food and drinks at the Korean spot upstairs and you can have yourself a whole day on top of the spa experience or separate from the spa experience too.

So there really is something for everybody here.

On my first visit here, I just used the facility pass.

4:22

I did not do a treatment.

They do offer a lot of really cool Korean scrubs, body treatments and massages.

I would absolutely go back.

Spoiler, I loved it.

I would go back here if I was in Houston and I would do a treatment along with the whole experience.

4:39

When I visit a new spa, I like to do the experience without the treatment first.

I was already there for five hours and so if you’re going to add on an hour treatment, you could really expect a 6 to 8 hour day.

So plan for that.

I will be back though.

I just like to fully immerse myself in all of the amenities and not feel rushed and not, you know, have to take a break and go do my treatment and come back and like try to plan things out in my head.

5:02

I just want to be there and just be present and enjoy it.

Hey, squaties, you know, we’ve been doing a ton of spa reviews.

So if you’re interested in more Korean spas, Nordic spas, cultural spas, we’re just spas here in the United States that you can visit for yourself.

Head on over to our website, travelsquadpodcast.com/episodes.

5:21

Type spas into the search bar and you will get all of our best spa reviews.

You can also look at our Instagram Travel Squad podcast and see our spa reel storytelling videos right there.

Upon entering, getting checked into my locker room, receiving the spa outfit that is provided.

5:40

I put all of that in the locker and I headed straight to the bath areas.

After the bath areas, I moved on to the saunas.

But first bath area.

It is accessible through the gendered locker room.

So there’s bath area for women and there’s the bath area for men.

In the bath area, it is completely nude.

5:55

You are not allowed to wear clothes.

No one’s wearing clothes, no one’s wearing a swimsuit.

You know, you may feel a little hesitant about that, but really don’t.

It’s actually just a relaxing and freeing experience here and you’ll enjoy it.

So in the bath areas, there are several different things that you can do.

6:11

There are public and private showers, so you’ll shower before you get into the baths.

There is various different baths of different temperatures and different sizes, so there’s some that range from the high 90s up into the 109°F.

6:27

These baths are fantastic for just getting into relaxation mode, relaxing your muscles.

Especially if you’re going to do a scrub or a treatment.

You want to spend some time in these baths to really soften your skin before you go into that scrub.

There is a jet pool that has harder water jets.

6:44

There was a cold pool as well.

So the cold pool is fantastic When you go between hot and cold, it is really good for your immune system.

And so I recommend you do some time in the hot pools or there’s also a hot dry sauna and a hot steam sauna room here.

7:01

So spend some time in there, then come cool off in the cold pool.

What I really liked about the cold pool here is that it was only 65°F, so it’s actually not too cold.

When you consider cold plunges, they’re typically somewhere in the low 50° range.

This one actually felt perfect even before going into the hot areas.

7:19

I went in this pool and I could handle it and I enjoyed it.

So it’s even better when you come from one of the hot rooms or the hot pools into here.

If you are going to do a Korean body scrub and I do recommend you do it.

I’ve done them at other places before.

You leave feeling like baby skin.

7:34

It’s amazing.

There is certain rooms that are blocked off for those Korean body scrubs that you’ll do there.

How that kind of works is you book it at the front desk.

You will book us particular time when your time is called, the attendant who will be working with you will call out your number.

7:51

Your number is on your wristband.

Your wristband has the key to your locker.

So that’s the number they’ll call out.

There was even a point at the end of the day where I was showering to leave and they were calling numbers looking for the person and they were like standing outside the shower calling the number wondering if it was me.

So they will come looking for you.

8:08

But just be mindful of the time that you have booked and give yourself enough time before your treatment to enjoy the steam room, sauna and the bath areas here in the gendered area.

You can also buy sheet face masks here in the locker room, which I did.

It was only $2.00 and they’re Korean face masks.

8:25

And I knew at some point during the stay I wanted to lounge, relax and put that face mask on.

So I took that with me and I went out into the sauna rooms.

Now the sauna rooms are on the 1st floor.

There’s several different saunas that are almost in a circle pattern.

8:41

And between the circle, there’s the cafe and tables where you can sit and eat.

But each sauna room is very different and provides various different health benefits.

So I’ll go through a few of them and talk about what I liked about them.

The first is a Himalayan salt room.

8:59

So you’ve got these big Himalayan salt bricks.

They have tons of benefits with Halo therapy.

It’s just a beautiful room to start with.

It’s pretty hot, so I didn’t last that long in here, but it’s it is one of the hotter sauna rooms.

There’s also the jade room right next to it.

9:15

This room is beautiful along the walls.

They have multi colored gemstones and Himalayan salt rocks and jade on the walls in a designed art shape.

So the room is really beautiful as soon as you walk in.

There’s also Himalayan salt rocks on the entire ground of this room.

9:31

And then there’s like jute rug mats laying on the ground which you lay on.

So you’re laying on this mat but it’s on rocks.

And you would think how could laying on rocks be relaxing?

But it actually is.

Like there’s something so grounding about being around Himalayan salt rocks and in this room it wasn’t too, too hot in this sauna, so I could stay quite a while.

9:52

I think I stayed in here about 20 or 30 minutes.

That’s about the time I tried to spend in most of the rooms 20-30 ish minutes, knowing I wasn’t going to stay for 8 hours necessarily, but I was not trying to rush through any room.

One of the coolest rooms that Spa World has is the Archer clay rooms.

10:10

They have two different ones.

One is your traditional room you go into, you sit along the wooden benches on the sides.

It also has some Himalayan salt bricks in here and they actually have like wooden stumps you can sit on.

So it’s, it’s a pretty cool room.

It’s actually a great one to start with.

But the other clay room they have is actually what initially attracted me to the spa.

10:29

I saw some videos on a big sauna room that was filled with little yellow ocher clay balls.

Ocher clay is really known for its detoxing properties and you can almost imagine it like a ball pit when you’re a child.

Although the balls are not that big, they’re more like Pebble size.

10:47

You lay in this little ball pit of heated clay beads made from this yellow ocher clay.

Oh my gosh.

Like you will feel like a kid in the ball pit.

Like heal your inner child.

Just relax.

Do snow angels in there.

11:02

Lay in there.

Cover yourself with it.

It gets in between your toes.

When I was in pretty much all of these rooms, I was by myself, so I was actually by myself in this room.

There’s no one else in there and I’m just fully immersing myself in that ball pit.

It was so fun.

I probably could have stayed here all day, but there’s many other sauna rooms that I wanted to get to.

11:21

And when I talk about sauna rooms, they’re not small.

These rooms could probably fit 20 people, maybe more in them.

They’re big rooms.

They’re like bedroom size or office size and so they’re not like the typical tiny sauna that you may be used to at home or at the gym.

11:38

This next one is actually a little bit smaller.

It could probably fit like 5 to 10 people. 10 would be a little bit cramped, but this is the gold pyramid room.

I love the gold pyramid rooms at Korean spas because you just feel like magic.

You feel like royalty.

11:53

You feel rich when you’re in there.

It is what it sounds like.

It is a gold pyramid structure.

You go inside the door when you’re inside, you’re inside of a pyramid shaped building and it’s covered in gold.

The walls are gold and they’re beautiful with like this one had a beautiful cultural styled rug on the bottom.

12:13

There’s usually some type of art painted on to the gold surrounding you.

The thing about gold is it it’s meant to reflect and harness energy for relaxation and wow, do you feel relaxed here.

They have some really comfortable thick mats and pillows that you can pull into this room and lay on so you have that added comfort.

12:33

I loved this room.

I always love being in the gold pyramid rooms at Korean spas are amazing and this ones not too hot either.

In fact you could definitely take a nap in this room and it would be a glorious nap.

Now this next 1 you would not take a nap in unless well, I’m sure someone’s probably done it, but I couldn’t handle it.

12:54

I think I stayed in this one maybe 5 minutes.

And that is the fire Dome.

It’s a traditional Korean Bulgama and this sauna reaches up to 185°F.

It is insane for detoxification and improved circulation, skin elasticity, health benefits.

13:13

I felt like a spiritual experience.

So it looks like a big Gray Dome.

It’s shaped like a big round Dome and it almost has like like a chimney looking thing at the top.

The door is small, it’s like maybe 3 feet tall.

So when you open it you kind of have to Crouch in.

13:29

You crawl in through this almost like little hallway and then it gets into the Dome area, almost like igloo but fire Dome.

It is so immediately hot in there that you will start sweating beads immediately.

It’s dark in there and it smells like fire.

13:45

So I sat in there and there was someone else in there who’s like face and body was just covered in a towel, like soaking up all of the sweat and I’m just box breathing and trying to survive.

And I’m telling you, it feels like a spiritual experience.

So I did that.

I went in there, I enjoyed that.

14:00

I wanted to go back after lunch actually, but I didn’t make it back in here.

So if you can’t last say 20 minutes, then maybe just do 5 and try to come back later.

What felt really, really good is the last room I’ll talk about, which is the Arctic Room.

It’s about 40 to 45°.

They have a whole ice wall in here and then benches that you can sit on.

14:19

It’s so perfect for cooling down in between between the hot sauna sessions.

So I went into this Arctic Room many, many times.

I probably spent 20 minutes in a sauna, then two minutes in the Arctic Room, 5 minutes in the fire Dome, and then two minutes in the Arctic room and it was the perfect way to cool off in that center of the big sauna area here.

14:39

They do have that Cafe.

I got a mango bubble tea here.

This was my first time having bubble tea and Oh my God it was so good.

I cannot believe I’ve been living my life without bubble tea.

So it is recommended.

I’m recommending it to use bodies to get the bubble tea.

14:55

It’s also really great to cool off after a sauna and kind of hold you over until you have lunch.

When you do go for lunch, you’ll likely go upstairs.

There’s a Korean restaurant upstairs.

They had so much good food on the menu.

I ended up getting the honey garlic, popcorn chicken and a little side of white rice.

15:12

But they had bulgogi, they had BIM and Bob.

Oh my God, I could have ordered everything on there.

So next time I come back I’m going to get a more robust meal.

But after that bubble tea, I didn’t have as big of an appetite as I did before.

So next time I’m getting something bigger.

15:27

The food looked amazing that everyone was ordering that came out and my food was very delicious.

Upstairs in this area, there’s two other rooms. 1 is a far infrared sauna room, and it’s not your typical sauna.

It’s not hot when you go in, but there’s two sides of it, and along the sides they’re very wide platforms, essentially.

15:47

And then you’ll see a big square in the middle of the bed area.

So it’s like big long platform.

There’s probably four or five red squares signifying bed spaces.

That Red Square is the infrared sauna for each of the bed space.

So there’s probably like 10 available spots in here.

16:04

You’ll go in there, lay down, let the infrared red sauna enter your body, relax, detoxify.

It helps with muscle tension and pain.

It’s so good.

You can also like position your body to put your face right there.

It’s really, really good for fine lines, wrinkles.

I always feel like my skin looks so rejuvenated after I do an infrared sauna.

16:23

On one side, they’re a little bit warmer.

On the other side, they’re not as warm.

So you can pick your poison there.

But essentially the infrared sauna lamps, It doesn’t necessarily need to be super hot to do what it needs to do.

Then there’s one other room right next to that, which is called the Forest room.

16:38

I haven’t seen this at any spa I’ve been to, which was a pretty cool experience.

I think this would be a great place to take a nap.

It’s not a sauna room.

It’s not heated.

It’s actually a little chilly.

They had a air purifier in there.

It’s very dark.

There’s a huge projection screen and it’s simulating that you’re walking through a forest.

16:57

There’s the sound playing of birds chirping.

There’s some mats on the floor that you can lay on, or there’s these wooden rocking chair beds.

We’re super comfortable.

So this would be a place that I would go to after you have lunch, go lay down here on one of the mats and just take a little nap.

17:14

The room is perfectly dark with the birds chirping, and then you’re looking at the trees in the forest room.

Yeah, definitely recommend that.

I actually, I stayed in here for quite a while.

I thought about doing my face mask here, but I already had my eye on a nap spot, and that nap spot happens to be back downstairs sort of near the fire Dome.

17:33

There’s this little row of maybe 6 little rooms, and there’s a little entrance to them that was probably 4 feet tall, 3 feet wide, a little gate on the outside that you can put in front of the entrance to block to let someone know you’re in there.

And there’s a light for each room that you can turn off so you can have a little darkness in your room.

17:51

And it’s just about, yeah, like 3 or 4 feet wide, just enough to lay on the mat that’s in there.

It has a curved top.

It feels very cozy.

And they’re very private.

And so here is where I unwrapped my face mask, I put it on, I laid down for like 20 minutes and just relaxed and it was lovely.

18:12

Before I left, of course, I went back to the locker room, I took a shower.

I always like to bring my own shampoo, conditioner, hair cream, moisturizer, all that stuff and just really fix myself up before I leave and reenter the world.

They had blow dryers here, they had hair brushes here and some lotion and some like Q-tips and things.

18:28

So I did all that and then I was on my way and that was about 5 hours in here.

Now I was being a bit mindful of time because I had to drive back to Boston, 3 hour drive.

But if you are in Houston, do not miss Spa World.

I will 100% be going back when I’m in Houston again and I will be doing the Korean scrub next time.

18:48

All right, Squadies, thank you so much for tuning into just the tip.