Söesauna Talu (or Söesauna Farm, I will refer to it with the name Söesauna from now on) is a location where you can go with your friends or family and enjoy peacefulness atmosphere of the countryside and the company. The thing about this is that Estonia has square kilometers after square kilometers of peaceful countryside and as long as you and your loved ones are together, you have fun. You will do well to choose some other place for your vacationing as there are surely many establishments more worthy of your time and money than Söesauna. TL;DR: Söesauna adds minimal value to your stay. If you go, keep your expectations low. I spent in Söesauna one evening and the night for a bachelor party. We were a group of 14 30-something men with the intention of having a good bit of sauna and lounging in the hot tub with a healthy dose of food and drinks. We did not have the weather on our side as it was raining for most of the evening. A clean and moderately new minibus fetched us from Tallinn. This is a service provided for extra fee by Söesauna. The ride took us about an hour, during which the road got progressively rougher and all civilisation dissappeared from sight. As soon as we reached the Söesauna area, we could not believe our eyes. I for one really thought that this place can't be where they...Söesauna Talu (or Söesauna Farm, I will refer to it with the name Söesauna from now on) is a location where you can go with your friends or family and enjoy peacefulness atmosphere of the countryside and the company. The thing about this is that Estonia has square kilometers after square kilometers of peaceful countryside and as long as you and your loved ones are together, you have fun. You will do well to choose some other place for your vacationing as there are surely many establishments more worthy of your time and money than Söesauna.

TL;DR: Söesauna adds minimal value to your stay. If you go, keep your expectations low.

I spent in Söesauna one evening and the night for a bachelor party. We were a group of 14 30-something men with the intention of having a good bit of sauna and lounging in the hot tub with a healthy dose of food and drinks. We did not have the weather on our side as it was raining for most of the evening.

A clean and moderately new minibus fetched us from Tallinn. This is a service provided for extra fee by Söesauna. The ride took us about an hour, during which the road got progressively rougher and all civilisation dissappeared from sight. As soon as we reached the Söesauna area, we could not believe our eyes. I for one really thought that this place can't be where they have their guests. I was thrown out of the festive mood in a heart beat. Söesauna has a lot of land in the middle of the forest with no neighbors nearby. The hosts live here as well which gives a lived-in feeling to the area. For example, they have many animals such as a cat, a pig and some ponies. But it was visible everywhere that this place is a work-in-progress, something they work on whenever they have time. There are piles of stuff laying on the grass. Piles of gravel. Piles of construction materials. Piles of gravel and construction materials mixed. By the yard entrance, as if to provide balance to the piles, there was a huge pit. The meaning of the pit remained shrouded in mystery for the duration of our trip. The pictures I saw of Söesauna during summer had flowers in baskets here and there, but during our visit there was zero beautification in sight.

Most of the houses greeting us at arrival looked unfinished or abandoned. The central one seemed to be the home of the hosts (can't know for sure), but it still looked deserted with one window missing from the second floor. Then there was the building which was probably supposed to be the bar/lounge, restaurant and banquet room. It was under some severe construction. There was nothing inside except for a lonely disco ball sitting on the floor in the middle of the space visible from the window. If you see any pictures of a bar or similar here in Tripadvisor or at Söesauna's website, it is not there as of May 2019. In addition to these weird buildings, there seems to be one burnt down house in the premises.

Our gang was accommodated in two separate houses. I slept in the one closest to the Perila-Jäneda road. It is a small cabin with a sauna and a small lounging room downstairs. A steep staircase outside takes you to the second floor where three rooms with two beds each are located. If you have challenges in mobility, reaching the second floor or descending back can be a real challenge. And if the hot tub stove is lit it will make all your belongings smell like smoke after one night of accommodation.

This cabin I stayed in was really barebones. There was the absolutely minimal amount of furniture. The scarce furniture look and feel flimsy and cheap. All the building materials look cheap and no attention has been paid to the finishing. If the sauna is lit, the brick chimney pipe rising through the second floor is burning hot, bringing indoor temperatures above pleasant. In one of the rooms you can feel the floor being warmed up by the sauna and by proxy, the room. If that chimney is not a fire hazard, it is will at least be dangerous for children. The beds in the rooms were okay and all of them had nice and clean linen. Except that none of the beds had a bottom sheet. I chose to sleep on top of the blanket because of this. I would have not required any cover any way as the sauna warmed the room to high temperatures. The bed mattress was grey and old and not inviting. The upstairs has a very small common area with one old couch and the chimney pipe wasting most of the space. There is a small toilet which wasn't too clean. You may not throw any paper into the toilet or you risk a clog.

Downstairs has a somewhat spacious terrace which was covered with an ugly protective tent-like plastic. That ugly plastic protected us against the rain so it at least helped us carry out our dinner together. The same tarp covered terrace has a small hot tub which we tested and approved of, except that it was pretty dangerous piece of work because of the style of heating. The iron stove for burning wood and heating up the hot tub water is almost completely submerged in the said water. The burning hot stove and its chimney are in the same water as the people relaxing. Talk about health hazard. Next to this cabin there is a small artificial pond.

Inside the first floor is a pretty dingy lounge room with old sofas and other old furniture and appliances such as a microwave. The cabin had free wifi which worked as expected, no qualms here. There is a spacious sauna and one shower which is supplied with water from somewhere else than a municipal infrastructure. I have no real information about this, but I suspect they draw the water from their artificial ponds.

Speaking of which, you can't drink the tap water in Söesauna. You have to bring your own. We were not aware of this and the hosts were not that helpful towards us, first claiming that they can't give us any more water as it is for themselves. I get it, we are a bunch of dumb bachelor party-goers, expecting that tap water works for drinking in Estonia countryside. But we were also paying customers and we paid a lot. After repeated requests they provided us with enough water, but I really feel like they should have provided any and all of our drinking water without any buts.

The best part of Söesauna is its large hot tub. Located away from the main road by a larger artificial pond, it fit easily ten of us. It was a good experience and no health hazards to speak of. Extra burning wood was provided. It was much fun to relax in the hot water while the outside temperature was not that warm. We could not determine when the water for the tub was last changed.

Additionally, we all agreed that the hosts, the man (I think his name was Igor) and the woman were ultimately nice people. They were around a lot, spoke adequate English (They seemed to be fluent in Russian and most probably Estonian) and Igor showed up to make jokes sometimes. They delivered the food we ordered (smoked salmon, fresh salad, potatoes, sausages and chicken fillets) and it was adequate. It was nice that it felt like home cooked food but the portions did not exceed our expectations in any way and were not that large. The plates were paper and cutlery picnic plastic.

There are some parts of the Söesauna I did not experience for myself. For example I did not visit the second cabin where seven of our group stayed for the night. They told me that it was smaller than the cabin for the rest of us (six) and had no inside water toilet. Instead there was a nearby dry toilet. After returning home from Estonia I saw pictures of some buildings with moss covered roofs, but I did not locate them during my stay. According to Söesauna pictures, at some point there was a small sauna next to the large hot tub and the larger artificial pond. There was a construction going on for a new one, at least presumably.

Everywhere in Söesauna I saw glimpses of possible summer activities or events of times past, but I couldn't picture them hosting any of that in the current state of the place. They advertise that one could fish and swim in the larger artificial pond. I can't imagine why anyone would want to swim in the pit which has its water stay in place all the time. Let alone prepare food out of fish from that pit. There was something like a small stage in the side of a grassy yard. I guess they could have some sort of festivals here, and maybe for a day visit it could be nice. And there was the bar/lounge, of which I saw pictures in Google. Now a husk of a bar remains.

This brings me to the conclusion. Located about 60 kilometers from Tallinn it makes no sense to travel to Söesauna. With the price they ask for their accommodation or services it makes no sense. First they ask you to pay extra for the ride to reach them, then you are accommodated in the most uninspiring way. The food you eat is okay, but nothing special. The food is served in a cheap roadside picnic kind of way. The environs emanates the spirit of incompleteness and lack of finish. You are made feel like you are some sort of not-that-wanted visitor even though you paid steeply for these services. The accommodation is expensive for what you get. The food is expensive for the taste and meal size you get. The large hot tub, even as nice as it is, is expensive. The shuttle bus is expensive for what you get at the location.

For the time and price you have to sacrifice for this place, it really is not worth it.More