About the lab
Healthlab Seikotsu began in 2014 as two people with a spreadsheet of hot springs and a habit of timing everything. The name stuck from a joke between them: a laboratory for slow travel, with the patience of a bone-setter. It is a brand name and nothing more. We are a tour house, not a clinic, and nobody here will tell you that a bath fixes anything.
What a protocol is
A protocol is a route we have walked, eaten and slept through ourselves, at least twice and in two different seasons, before we offer it. It is written down on one sheet with five measured facts at the top: days, group size, season, effort and the meeting point. Below them come the days, one line of intent each, and then a plain list of what we arrange and what we leave to you.
The effort figure runs from 1 to 5. A 1 is a day spent mostly sitting, in a train, at a table or in water. A 3 is three or four hours on foot with some climbing. Nothing we sell goes above 3 for more than one day in a row, because the point of these journeys is that you arrive home with more energy than you left with.
How a route gets onto the sheet
| Step | What happens | Who |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | A region is proposed when we can name at least three bathing places that are open to the public all year. | Office |
| 02 | Two of us travel it in the off season, keep a log of times and distances, and stay in every lodging we plan to use. | Route team |
| 03 | We cut whatever felt hurried. A day with more than two transfers is split or dropped. | Route team |
| 04 | A second trip in the main season checks crowds, heat and opening hours. | Route team |
| 05 | The sheet is written, read aloud in the office and given a number. Only then does it go on the website. | Office |
The people
There are nine of us. Four write and lead routes, three run the office in the hotel, and two look after the hotel side of things, which means rooms, kitchen and the people who keep the pool hall clean and quiet. Our leaders speak English and German; two also speak Japanese and one speaks Turkish.
Groups are small by design. Most protocols stop at ten travellers, a few at eight, and the Budapest and Pamukkale routes at twelve because the baths there are large enough to absorb us. A leader travels with every group from the hotel door and back to it.
What we will not do
- Promise that any water, walk or meal will improve your health.
- Run a protocol with fewer than four travellers; we tell you early instead.
- Add a shopping stop that nobody asked for.
- Rush a group to make up for a late train. We move the day instead.