I hope you’ve enjoyed our adventures through American bathing culture. Don’t worry, we’ll be back. We’ll be joined by more founders and experts who are shaping the US’ burgeoning sauna and thermal bathing culture. I’ll also be sharing some of my favorite places to sweat and soak across the country and especially here in the Northeast. Keep an eye right here on our Substack, where we post articles that go deeper into the topics and travel guides from the podcast.
In the meantime, we’re taking a journey across the ocean to Scotland and Ireland. Our Celtic bathing series will take us far north to Orkney over to Edinburgh’s sea side and across the Irish sea to Dublin City and beyond.
I am so excited to share this series in particular because Scotland is my second home. My twin sister has lived in Scotland for over a decade. Over those years I’ve lived all over the world, but one thing has been constant: my regular visits to Scotland. She lives in Portobello now—that’s Edinburgh’s seaside. And I’ve fallen in love with the Victorian bathing history of that neighborhood. I’ve also really enjoyed seeing the sauna scene grow and evolve in Scotland.
Ireland too is seeing big growth in their sauna scene—taking shape through sea side saunas, urban bathhouses, and a rich history of ancient sweat houses.
I think you will be delighted to hear about the magic, the whimsy, the romance, and everything that makes this part of the world so special.
Now let’s escape to the islands of Orkney, Scotland…
We’re traveling far north to an archipelago off the coast of Scotland. The sea there is an unpredictable force— cold, fierce, and beautiful. In the summer, the days stretch long. And in the winter, darkness overtakes. Orkney is steeped in history and folklore. For our guest today, it’s a place of returning to herself, her body, and the land.
I’m joined by Victoria Bennett, author of Apothecary by the Sea, a deeply felt book that weaves together wild swimming, grief, healing, and an apothecary garden.
With the years of early motherhood and elderly caregiving over, Victoria faces a time of change. She and her family decide to take a leap, moving five hundred miles north of everything they know to the northern Scottish islands of Orkney. Uprooted and in an unfamiliar landscape, Victoria instinctively returns to the work of growing, setting out to transform her scrappy backyard into an abundant apothecary garden by the sea, inspired by Orkney’s folklore, ancient landscapes and wild nature.
Shaped by tides and storms, wild plants and seaweeds, she creates a biodiverse backyard sanctuary filled with micro-habitats, wildflowers and herbs. Here, in her apothecary by the sea, she crafts teas, tinctures and balms inspired by the surrounding soil and seas. Victoria finds belonging not only in the garden she has nurtured, but in the landscape that has quietly embraced her and called itself home.
Victoria Bennett 🌼🐝🐺 is a disabled, award-winning writer, poet, and literary activist whose work centres on nature, identity, and creative resilience. Her debut memoir, All My Wild Mothers, won the Nautilus Award for Memoir, was shortlisted for multiple UK prizes, and was named an Aladin ‘Best Book of the 21st Century’. She is the founder of Wild Women Press and the international Wild Women Writers' Salons, dedicating nearly three decades to initiatives that nurture creative community and amplify women’s voices locally and across the world. Victoria lives in Orkney with her husband, artist Adam Clarke, and their son, where she tends her apothecary garden by the sea. You can find Vik on X (@VikBeeWyld), Bluesky (@beewyld.bsky.social), and Instagram (@beewyld). You can also find her here on Substack at WildWomanLife.
In this conversation, we talk about:
What it means to sea swim as a ritual of strength, awareness, and intention
How tending plants can become a form of remembering
How both the sea and the soil can hold us through periods of change
The culture of wild swimming in Scotland
The mythology and folklore of Orkney—including the story of the selkie (my personal favorite)
Vik reads an excerpt from her newest book, Apothecary by the Sea
She even shares a recipe to bring the sea home and into your personal bathing ritual with a glorious bladderwrack salt soak
This episode was edited by Lila Woodbridge.
💙 Subscribe today and support an independently produced and funded podcast. The sauna and bathing industry in the US and UK is growing fast. Where there’s growth, money and big companies will follow. If you want to see a bathing culture that isn’t just led by the folks with the most cash, support a platform that is run from a grassroots level. A platform that can authentically prioritize a respect for culture, science, and community.
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Tschüss!
Sarah
P.S. Badii Talk is going LIVE! Introducing live virtual conversations on the business, culture, and ritual of the thermal bathing & sauna world.
Designed for owners and operators, ritual practitioners, and bathing enthusiasts.
Join us for our first live expert panel with Sierra Blake, MPS, LADC , a practicing mental health therapist and founder of Saint Lucie and MacKenzie Boling of Longevity Law. We’ll be discussing how to create signature experiences rooted in care, safety, and differentiation. These women are not only absolute experts in their fields, they are also friends of mine who bring so much passion, care, and intention to their work. It’s going to be a special conversation.
Join us on May 13th at 7pm ET. We’ve kept the pricing approachable at $45, so we hope you’ll join us!
Learn more and register here on Badii’s website. Paid Badii Talk Substack subscribers receive a discount off all Badii Talk Live sessions. See this post for the code.
