24-Hour Bathhouse Near Me in LA: Wi Spa's Five Mineral Saunas

Wi Spa never closes. The Korean bathhouse at 2700 Wilshire Boulevard has run around the clock since it opened in 2009, with a men's floor, a women's floor, a co-ed jjimjilbang and a rooftop terrace stacked into one building on the Koreatown edge of Westlake. The only scheduled pause is a maintenance window from midnight to 6 am on the first Wednesday of each month. If you need a bathhouse near me at 2 am after a Koreatown dinner, this is the one with the lights on.

The building works like a vertical bathhouse. The gender-separated floors hold the hot and cold tubs, dry and steam saunas, showers and scrub tables, and Wi Spa's etiquette page is blunt about the dress code there: no bathing suits. You soak nude, as you would in a bathhouse in Seoul, and you shower before entering the tub and again after any sauna session.

Upstairs, the jimjilbang flips the rule. Everyone wears the spa's issued clothing in the co-ed area, and the house rules ban robes, street clothes and outside footwear there. This is where couples, friends and families meet up, and it is the reason Wi Spa feels less like a hushed day spa and more like a community hall with heated rooms.

Time Out describes that uniform as oversized T-shirts and khaki shorts, handed out at check-in along with towels. Nobody is dressed up, and the co-ed floor has more than heated rooms: the spa lists a computer area, a kids zone and an extensive library with a comic book collection, so a long afternoon here can mix a sauna round, a nap on a mat and an hour with a manga volume.

The jimjilbang's five specialty rooms are meant to be taken in sequence, and the spa posts recommended times for each. Start with the Bulgama, an oak-built kiln room held at 231 degrees, where you lie on the floor for 10 to 15 minutes. Then move to the salt room, lined with mineral salt for halotherapy, and stay 10 to 20 minutes.

Next comes the clay room, where you bury yourself under a layer of small heated clay balls imported from Korea, followed by the jade room, the hottest-feeling of the stone rooms. The circuit ends in the ice room, a cold chamber built to bring your core temperature down and close the pores. Do not take the clay balls or salt rocks out of their rooms; the posted rules specifically ask you to leave them in place.

Wi Spa's own services page notes a $40 admission fee on any treatment under $160, which is a good benchmark for a day's entry. Regulars save with a 10 Entrance Pass, sold online for $350 and picked up in store. Treatments that cost $160 or more include admission, so a long massage can make the entry effectively free.

The menu is long. A 55-minute acupressure massage is $125, the 80-minute version is $170, and a 55-minute Swedish oil massage is $170. The classic Korean add-on is the buff, a 25-minute full-body scrub for $65, done nude, with hair wash and conditioning included for women. Soak in hot water for at least 10 to 15 minutes beforehand, as the spa recommends, so the scrub lifts properly.

A full-service restaurant sits inside the jimjilbang and serves around the clock. It is independently owned and run by a separate operator, US Chambada, and the spa describes the menu as Korean food. A bowl of soup between sauna rounds is the local move, and late at night it is often the only hot meal on this stretch of Wilshire.

Outside food and drink are not allowed anywhere in the building, and you are expected to return chairs, mats and pillows after use. The rooftop terrace, recently remodeled according to the spa, is the place for fresh air between the Bulgama and the ice room, with the Westlake skyline and Wilshire traffic below.

No photos in the spa or locker rooms. Take your shoes off before the locker area, keep your voice down, and do not dye your hair or use oils and facial products in the bathing area. Children are welcome in the co-ed floor, which has a kids zone that won the spa a Best Family Fun Spa award for Los Angeles in 2010, but they cannot be left unattended.

The front desk checks identification, and the spa posts an ID notice for guests. Bring a photo ID, and expect that an overnight stay means sleeping on a mat on the heated floor rather than in a bed. Earplugs help, since the jimjilbang never fully goes quiet.

The honest drawback of a 24-hour bathhouse is weekend crowding. Saturday evenings bring families, groups and late-night arrivals, and the jimjilbang floor fills with sleepers after midnight. Skip Saturday night if you want room in the clay balls. Weekday mornings, roughly 8 am to noon, are the quietest stretch for the gender floors.

If Wi Spa is busier than you want, Crystal Spa on West 6th Street is a smaller Koreatown option with its own jimjilbang. Women wanting a calmer, women-only soak can book Olympic Spa on Olympic Boulevard instead, which is known for its traditional scrubs.

Wi Spa sits between two Metro D Line stations: Westlake/MacArthur Park to the east and Wilshire/Vermont to the west, each roughly a ten-minute walk. Lafayette Park is a short walk west on Wilshire, a green space with tall trees and a recreation center that makes a short post-soak stroll.

Further west along Wilshire, the 1929 Bullocks Wilshire building, now part of Southwestern Law School, is one of the city's great Art Deco landmarks and worth a look from the sidewalk. Head east instead and MacArthur Park's lake is a few blocks away, busiest on weekend afternoons.

Wi Spa, 2700 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90057. Open 24 hours, 7 days a week, with maintenance from midnight to 6 am on the first Wednesday of each month. Admission benchmark: $40 fee on treatments under $160; 10 Entrance Pass $350. No swimsuits on the gender floors, spa clothing in the jimjilbang, no photos. Ask Karpo in the Karpo APP to pick a Koreatown dinner before a late soak.