The 10 Best Hot Springs in California

Travertine terraces, Sawtooth views, five minutes from the car — the state's best effort-to-scenery soak. Respect the BLM's ceremonial closure periods; this is sacred ground first.

A hot spring pouring over a rock lip into Buckeye Creek, pools re-dug each season by whoever arrives first. Travertine's quieter forest sibling.

Wilbur's solar-powered, phone-free flumes at 100, 105, and 109 degrees — reservation-only quiet in the Coast Range. The most deliberate soak in the state.

Sespe: 194-degree source water in palm-shaded wilderness pools, fifteen trail miles from Ojai. A winter backpack with a soak at the end — the hardest-won entry on this list.

Mono Hot Springs: a 1930s bathhouse on one riverbank, free wild pools on the other, and a one-lane 9,300-foot pass to get there. Summer only, gloriously.

Grover's state-park pools in a Markleeville meadow — 102 degrees, ranger-staffed, open through snowstorms. Book the 90-minute session ahead.

Keough's century-old pool under the Sierra escarpment, plus the free warm ditch outside the fence. Two soaks, one spring, pick your price.

Mercey's desert-valley tubs and edge-to-edge night sky, zero bars of signal. Winter is the season; book the five-hour window.

Agua Caliente's county-park pools at the edge of Anza-Borrego — warm outdoor pool, 102-degree indoor spa, 140 campsites. Closed all summer; November through February is the window.

Benton's thirteen private tubs on a ghost-town homestead near the Nevada line — book a tub-side campsite and soak under the stars. No day use, by design.