paying for community

WATER WELLNESS

Notes on hydration culture and rituals, distilled weekly.

Splash of the Week

The price of belonging. When connection becomes commodity.

A theme that keeps bubbling up everywhere: Social Wellness Clubs. From sauna raves to cold plunge parties, thermal gathering attendance is up 1,105%, per Eventbrite.

Take 1: Coffee Clubbing

• Events: +478%,

• Attendance: +150%

• Local Highlights: Merging specialty coffee culture with live music and community, these upbeat café takeovers are thriving in Houston (+1,800%), Austin, and Seattle.

Take 2: Morning Dance Parties

• Events: +20%

• Attendance: +13%

• Local Highlights: High-energy gatherings that start the day with movement and music, gaining traction in Denver (+343%), Austin, and Nashville.

Take 3: Thermal Gatherings

• Events: +256%

• Attendance: +1,105%

• Local Highlights: From sauna raves to cold plunge parties, these sensory-rich events are exploding in New York City (+900%), and making waves in Atlanta and Dallas.

What is happening?

Wellness has long been marketed as private, exclusive, and product-heavy, but a new wave is changing that. From floating saunas to public river pools, the future of water wellness (because that's what it is, there is no wellness practice that does not rely on healthy water in your cells and around you), is increasingly being promoted communal and accessible.

But here is the thing: Water has always been at the center of healing and community.

A Brief History of Thermal Wellness

The ancient Greeks and Romans didn’t just “take to the waters” for health. They built entire bathhouses as social and cultural hubs. These thermal springs weren’t just about hygiene or therapy; they were where people gathered to share ideas, relax, and restore.

Across cultures, from Japanese onsens to Finnish saunas and Turkish hammams, communal bathing has been a way to strengthen both body and social bonds.

Hydrotherapy, using hot, cold, or mineral-rich water for circulation, recovery, and relaxation, has centuries of tradition behind it. Now you will see it advertised as “contrast bathing”, which just means moving between hot and cold water. Physically, it boosts circulation. But more importantly, it’s a ritual of balance: heat and cool, expansion and contraction, effort and ease.

So while “sauna raves” and “cold plunge parties” might feel like the latest wellness trend, they’re really a return to something timeless: water as a public good, wellness as a shared ritual.

What is community?

A friend recently challenged me: are wellness initiatives really building communities, or are they just selling an idea of connection: “pay for community”?

By definition, a community is “a social group whose members share a location, governance, and often cultural or historical ties.” (dictionary.com)

Historically, that was free. You were part of a village, town, or neighbourhood, and community happened because life was shared. You didn’t pay admission to belong. You shared life, space, and responsibility.

On the other end, it makes sense to pay for structured memberships: a tennis club, a swim team, or a co-working space where you’re buying access to a facility or service. Clear value, clear exchange.

But what about this new middle ground the wellness economy is selling us?

“Community experiences,” “wellness villages,” and pop-up retreats promise belonging, but only for a price. It’s community as product, curated and commodified.

As the wellness industry balloons, it is time to ask ourselves:

Are we building genuine community, or just renting the feeling of connection?

The Wellness Economy

To make sense of where all these “community wellness” trends are heading, it helps to zoom out and look at the big picture. Two organisations lead the conversation with data-driven insights: McKinsey and the Global Wellness Institute (GWI).

1. McKinsey
McKinsey’s consumer research shows that wellness has shifted from niche to lifestyle priority. They frame the wellness economy across six dimensions: better health, fitness, nutrition, appearance, sleep, and mindfulness. What stands out is the move from products to experiences: consumers want services that make them feel connected, recharged, and balanced.

• In their Future of Wellness report, McKinsey notes that Millennials and Gen Z are driving this growth. They’re not just spending more, they’re spending differently. One of the fastest-growing categories is personal care products, especially skin and hair care, making it the biggest spend-up among younger consumers. Read more at McKinsey →

2. Global Wellness Institute (GWI)
The GWI is a nonprofit think tank that tracks the global wellness economy. They valued it at $5.6 trillion in 2022, forecasting it to reach nearly $8.5 trillion by 2027, outpacing global economic growth overall. They break the wellness economy into 11 sectors (see image below).

• Among these, wellness real estate is the fastest-growing. From 2019 to 2023 it more than doubled, rising from $225.2 billion to $438.2 billion, growing about 18.1% annually—far above global construction’s 5.1% pace. GWI projects it will continue expanding at 15.8% per year through 2028, reaching nearly $913 billion. See the full GWI report →

The wellness economy is booming, but scale and speed aren’t the same as depth.

A trillion-dollar market can tell us what people are buying, but not what they’re truly finding.

We are investing in products and experiences that signal care.

But underneath the growth charts is the same question we started with:

Are we creating spaces that nourish real belonging, or are we learning to buy connection, one membership at a time?

Here are three trends I’m following:

1. Thermal Spring Tourism

Thermal springs have been the backbone of wellness for centuries, and they’re booming again. The global thermal springs tourism market hit $57.8B in 2024. Governments and developers are catching on:

• Georgia is reviving its former Soviet spa towns like Tskaltubo, investing millions to attract international wellness travelers. (bbc.com)

• In Canada, Fairmont opened Basin Glacial Waters at Chateau Lake Louise, two decades in the making. (thebasin.com)

• Japan’s surge in onsen tourism has left some running low on water. (cnn.com)

Takeaway: Nature-based bathing is not just leisure, it’s business strategy.

2. Sauna to the People

Wellness doesn’t have to be hidden behind spa walls or $500 day passes. Cities are bringing water wellness to the public:

• Oslo Sauna Association has launched 25 floating saunas in the harbor, transforming how locals interact with the waterfront.

• Berlin is reviving public swimming culture as part of a broader nature-connection movement.

• New York’s +POOL is a plus-shaped floating pool in the East River and aims to provide free public swimming and environmental education.

Takeaway: These projects redesign urban life, making rivers and harbors communal playgrounds, wellness as a right, not a luxury. There is no wellness without waters that are well.

3. Wellness Real Estate & Lifestyle Communities

Wellness is no longer just a service or a vacation, it’s where we live. Wellness real estate is one of the fastest-growing segments of the global wellness economy. These aren’t just homes; they’re curated lifestyle environments:

• Neighborhoods built around thermal springs or waterfront access.

• Apartments with cold-plunge pools, yoga decks, and circadian lighting.

• Members-only “wellness villages,” where social life is programmed into the real estate package.

The branded residences market is booming, bringing wellness amenities into high-end developments across the globe. And in parallel, co-living communities are rising, offering a social layer to residential life.

Takeaway: The built environment itself is becoming a wellness product.

In many ways, what we’re seeing in the wellness economy is a paradox. People are hungry for connection: for community, ritual, belonging.

But our social structures no longer provide it the way villages, neighborhoods, or public commons once did. Into that vacuum, the market steps in: memberships, retreats, branded residences, “wellness villages.”

We buy connection because we don’t know how to live connected anymore.

The critique isn’t that these spaces are bad, often, they’re beautifully designed, and they do meet a real need. The problem is turning connection from a basic human condition into a lifestyle product.

Living connected, on the other hand, doesn’t require a price tag. It looks like shared spaces, public rituals, collective care; things that remind us belonging was never supposed to be scarce. The danger is: the more we outsource community to the market, the more we forget how to practice it ourselves.

Belonging, like water, is meant to be shared.

— Clouds

P.S. If you enjoyed this post, hit reply and let me know!

The Essentials

YOUR HYDRATION NEWS

Each edition, we handpick stories, trends, and insights that connect with our Water Method to Wellness. From the source of your water to how you move, restore, and live around it—plus the latest in wellness real estate, the fastest-growing sector in the wellness world.

☁ Visionary Voices

MY 4-STEP WATER METHOD TO WELLNESS

Kara Meyer, +POOL
As managing director of +POOL, Kara Meyer is reimagining what public wellness looks like in cities. Her team is turning the dream of a floating, Olympic-sized river pool into reality, complete with free swim lessons, community programmess, and water stewardship initiatives. Her vision? “What if you could swim in your city’s river and trust it?”

What began as an idea for a water-filtering floating swimming pool, conceived by a small group of designers, has since launched a movement to restore the utility of our waterways. 

#democraticwellness

CHECK IT OUT →

The Playbook Edit 

WAIORA RITUALS

Wellness has always been social. It’s not about buying into trends, it’s about remembering what we already know.

As Stephanie Alice Baker writes in Wellness Culture:

“The market logic of late capitalism sells the myth that wellness is an individual pursuit: if only you purchase this product, you too can be happy and live well (until you are required to purchase another).”

For me, water wellness is a ritual. Not a routine to perfect, but a practice to return to. A way to stay open, and care for the water in me and around me. It’s choosing play over rush. It’s sipping water with presence, rinsing off the day with intention, and letting things flow.

Because true wellness lives in ritual. Everyday moments that bring us back to center. Not fancy bottles or rigid schedules, but the simple, shared acts that connect us to ourselves, to each other, and to the element that sustains all life.

Align your rituals.

A Final Note

NOTES FROM THE MEADOW

Until next time! ☁