Shui Spa

Shui Spa operates in Provincetown, at the very tip of Cape Cod, in one of the most distinctive towns in the United States.

Provincetown was a Portuguese fishing port that became an artists’ colony in the early twentieth century — Eugene O’Neill’s first plays were staged here — and then one of the country’s most established LGBTQ+ destinations. Its population of roughly three thousand multiplies many times over in summer.

The name draws on shui, water in Mandarin, which suits a town surrounded by it on three sides. The Atlantic beaches at Herring Cove and Race Point face open ocean within the Cape Cod National Seashore, and the water stays cold enough through most of the year to serve the cold half of a sauna circuit without any equipment.

A spa in Provincetown works two quite different seasons: an intense summer serving visitors, and a long quiet winter serving the several hundred people who stay. Both have their appeal, and the off-season is when a facility like this matters most locally.

Provincetown is two hours from Boston by car or ninety minutes by fast ferry. Book ahead in season.