Best spas in Scotland: 19 of the most luxurious, pampering spots for 2026

The Kohler Waters Spa is the crown jewel: a sleek sanctuary away from the crowds of visitors outside. Expect hydrotherapy pools, steam rooms scented with native botanicals and a menu of massages and rituals grounded in water-based wellness. A highlight from our perspective is the ‘snow and sauna cabin’, which allows you to experience the intoxicating rush from going between hot and cold. There’s even a first-of-its-kind-in-Scotland offering in the Spuro foam steam room, which imparts a gently moisturising mass of bubbles as you sit in childlike delight, getting covered in scented clouds. Whether you’re here post-round, post-walk or just in need of a full-body reset, it’s a place that makes your shoulders drop immediately, helping you to restore a little bit of calm.

Dining spans from elevated comfort food to refined seasonal dishes, while many bedrooms and suites look straight onto the legendary links. Add in the coastal trails, charming lanes and wide sandy beaches on the hotel’s doorstep, and you have the ideal spot for a Scottish weekend of recalibration.

Address: Old Station Road, St Andrews KY16 9SP
Price: From around £250/night
Website: oldcoursehotel.co.uk

Marine, North Berwick

Best for: a coastal retreat

There’s something irresistibly alluring about a hotel with history, one that comes with all the quirks of an old building and a layered reputation built over decades. The Marine is of such an ilk, statuesquely sitting above the sea in North Berwick in all its Victorian grandeur. Built in 1875, its facade is a muddle of crenellations, turrets and towers with an interior that embraces maximalism in all its pattern-clashing glory. Bedrooms are of grand proportions, with original features including deep, detailed cornicing and curved glass windows that frame the waves rolling in from the dramatic North Sea.

The hotel’s location is reflected in the downstairs spa, which uses Ishga products rooted in the science of ingredients sourced along Scotland’s shoreline. There’s a neat, all-encompassing thermal suite that squeezes in a couple of saunas, a steam room, an outdoor pool, and ice baths. Once you’ve done a cycle or two of hot and cold, you’ll want to have a treatment lined up. The team offers all the usuals (body scrubs, deep tissue massages and facials, etc) but some slightly more atypical options too, including a heavenly hot poltice massage which sees your body buffed into a state of relaxation via oil and a couple of warmed salt and seaweed parcels that not only exfoliate and hydrate but also act to detoxify deeply. As these things go, the 55 minutes felt more like 15, and we left feeling rebalanced and rested. The spa offers specialist massages for oncology patients, too, in a place that feels wonderfully welcoming to all.

Additionally, as a bonus, the spa offers beauty treatments, allowing you to top up on waxing, tinting or your nail care too. At the same time, the comfortably sized lap pool and the fully furnished gym mean even the most active of guests can tire themselves out nicely (in addition to perhaps a bracing walk along the seashore to oggle the town’s picturebook-worthy houses or a potter in the lovely local shops). On-site, you’ll also find a bar serving all-day food, as well as the Lawn restaurant, which specialises in Italian dishes like an asparagus risotto or a tomato and seafood pasta.