When you step into King Spa, you must make some choices: Do you take off your clothes to soak naked in a 102°F pool with strangers? Or do you change into a provided cotton uniform and step into a hot sauna. Maybe the pyramid-shaped sauna lined with 23-karat gold?
Of course, you could always put on a swimsuit and head to the mixed-gender rooftop pool lined with sprays, waterfalls, soakers, and tubs. There are no wrong choices at this 70,000-square-foot pleasure palace, which opened in late 2021 near Dulles Airport. As one of the nation’s largest Korean spas, the $34 million retreat brings the glamor of Seoul to a Chantilly strip mall.
Known as a jjimjilbang, spas are a traditional part of life in Korea, says Sophia Kim, who opened the haven with her husband, John. His father, Byung “Donald” T. Kim, was the spa’s founder. Families visit together, and, unlike U.S. spas, guests typically stay for hours, she tells me. “Our mission is to offer an authentic Korean experience.”
And people are eager to try it. On this busy morning, a switchback line nearly stretches out the door. The customers represent a cross-section of Northern Virginia: multi-ethnic and multi-age.
Sophia attributes some of the popularity to the surging interest in Korean culture, with bands like BTS and television shows like Squid Game finding audiences around the globe. Not to mention Korean food. An on-site café serves authentic dishes like bibimbap and bulgogi, along with hamburgers and corn dogs.But above all, guests—who drive from as far as Pennsylvania and North Carolina—are seeking wellness and relaxation. “They are thinking of this as a one-day vacation spot,” Sophia notes.
For all its Korean authenticity, King Spa could be a symbol for the American Dream. It was founded by Byung, who immigrated to the United States in 1970, and slowly built a spa empire, opening the country’s first Korean-style spa in northern New Jersey in 2001, followed by locations in suburban Chicago and then Dallas.Chantilly is their biggest spa yet, and my wife, Sara, and I are eager to get the full experience.
After paying admission—day rates start at $50 on weekdays—we’re issued bracelets with locker keys and electronic sensors letting us purchase food and spa services. I wave goodbye as we head to separate locker rooms to put on the provided uniform of a loose-fitting cotton shirt and draw-string shorts required of all guests.
Although optional, the spa offers a full treatment menu from Swedish to Thai massages. Sara has signed up for a hot-rock massage, and meets her masseuse at a second-floor check-in counter. Meanwhile, I head to the hot pools.
Which brings us to the naked situation.
If soaking starkers with strangers isn’t your thing, be warned: “You will be fully naked, and yes, there will be other naked people next to you,” the spa’s website notes.
Sara said she quickly adjusted to it. “People looked so comfortable with themselves—natural and easy,” she told me later. “I didn’t feel self- conscious. The focus was being, not thinking.”
I had once visited a jjimjilbang during a 24-hour layover in Korea, so I know the routine. I start in a warm pool and soak for a few minutes, nodding to the other men in the water as I lie back to relax. Then I progress to a hot pool and finally a steaming one before shocking my body by plunging in a cold bath. Then it’s back to the warm pool to start over again.
This all builds up to a traditional Korean body scrub, called a sesshin, which is optional and carries an additional charge.
At the appointed time, I meet my masseur, and he steers me to a table in an alcove by the pools. He instructs me to lie down face up and places a warm wet cloth over my eyes. Then comes an experience that I can only describe as a human version of a full-service car wash.
I’m doused with a bucket full of warm water, and the scrubbing commences. Using loofa-style gloves that feel like they’re coated with sandpaper, he works his way up one arm and down another before proceeding to my feet and working up both legs. Along the way, he splashes my body with warm water to wash away the gritty outer layers of skin he has removed.
It’s invigorating and relaxing, walking the line between pleasure and pain. Soon I enter the zombie zone. The spa says the treatment promotes healthy, youthful skin, and I’m clearly radiant when I meet up with my wife.
Sara is just as happy after what she calls the best massage of her life. She describes her treatment as a symphony of strokes, pressure and rubs, many incorporating palm-sized heated rocks. “It took me from a place of stress and agitation to just complete calm,” my blissed-out wife reports. At one point the masseuse climbed up on the table and placed a knee on her back to stretch her out. “It was heavenly,” she says. “I feel like a new woman.”
Now, we’re ready to sample the saunas, which the spa calls “poultice rooms.” These mix-gender areas require patrons to be clothed in their spa uniform.
We find nearly a dozen of these heated chambers, including ones lined with Himalayan salt, charcoal, and Korean river mud—each said to provide specific therapeutic benefits. Another vault is kept as chilly as a walk-in refrigerator. We’re both drawn to a room lined with six-foot stone slabs called base rocks, which a sign says are made from a Japanese mineral called siraka. When heated to 104°F, they’re said to emit vibrations and negative ions, boosting lymphatic health.
Sara quickly becomes a believer.
“There was almost a magnetic quality,” she said later. “I felt drawn to that place. Every inhale and exhale completely filled my lungs.”
Spa etiquette dictates silence in the saunas, and although there are a few whispers and folks tapping on their phones, it remains quiet and serene. One dimly lit room has recliners for relaxation. A sign notes that “overt displays of affection are not allowed.” Sara and I vow to behave.
King Spa’s pride is its bul han jing mak, a wood-burning sauna heated to well over 300°F, the only one like it in the country. Spa supervisor Alice Moon tells me she used to visit a similar sauna when she lived in Korea because it loosens tight and achy muscles, helping her heal from injuries suffered in a car crash. For many years, she and her family drove to New Jersey to visit the King Spa location there. When one opened in Virginia, she knew she had to apply. “I love it here.”
Finally, we end our visit on the heated rooftop pool. This is not a place to swim laps. Instead, visitors settle into niches, leaning back to douse their head under sprays of showering water. Although we’re overlooking busy Route 50, it’s a chilly afternoon and steam rises off the large hot tubs at the edge of the pool. Looking up at the sky, you could easily believe you were soaking somewhere in Seoul. Virginia.KingSpa.com
Larry Bleiberg is a past president of the Society of American Travel Writers. The former travel editor of Coastal Living magazine and The Dallas Morning News, he contributes to BBC Travel, The Washington Post, and many others. He lives in Charlottesville.
