Some of the Weirdest Hotels in the World
Gamirasu Cave Hotel, Cappadocia, Turkey
Located in the ancient valley of Ayvali Village, the Gamirasu Cave Hotel sits in a thousand-year-old Byzantine monastic retreat and in a former prison, today being an exquisitely restored eighteen-room cave house situated near Urgup in the heart of Cappadocia, Turkey and first opened in 1999.
Rooms were carved into caves or built using volcanic stones with vaulted ceilings, and provide comfortable temperatures throughout the year, and until recently, part of the hotel was still used by Christian monks because a 12th century Byzantine Christian church forms part of the Gamirasu.
This is the perfect place for you if you seek a luxurious cave accommodation in a traditional Cappadocian village because the hotel services pay attention to detail and the warmth of a home away from home. Gamirasu is designed in harmony with the natural fairy chimney surroundings to preserve its traditional style and appearance whilst providing you with the utmost in modern conveniences; the prices for a room start at about $116 U.S. and include a breakfast buffet.
Das Parkhotel, Ottensheim, Austria
Das Park Hotel is situated along the Danube River, in the green heart of Linz, Austria and comprises in large drainage pipes, each weighing 9,5 tonnes, which act as the hotel rooms, with minimum space volume for maximum comfort in.
Each room is large enough for a double bed and storage space, the reservoir under and beside the couch surface, fitted with an Optimo mattress, offering some space for your luggage, the rooms also providing a power connection, 220, for your electrical appliances and a plug for Internet connection.
The unique cylinders offer complete solitude in an otherwise busy world and the person who came up with the idea was Andreas Strauss in 2004 and the first rooms were provided in Linz; the concept was to provide easy access sleeping a unit for friends, students or artists with smaller budgets and even if some might be tempted to rock or vandalize them, these concrete tuebs are incredibly robust and need little maintenance, just a coat of varnish from time to time, while the Austrian artist Thomas Latzel Ochoa contributed with some painting to make the pipes’ design more friendly. Das Park Hotel offers a breakfast area, a cafeteria, a bar and other sanitary facilities and around the hotel you will find Danube park public toilets and cafés located in the city centre; the rooms are accessed by a digital keypad, whose code is provided by the self service website upon booking acceptance. The great thing about this hotel system are the prices, meaning that you can pay for the room as much as you believe the room was worth after your stay and it really seems that this system works quite well. The hotel is only open from May to October, because this pipes act like cave hotels, remaining cool during the summer but providing little warmth during the winter.
The Icehotel, located in the village of Jukkasjärvi, about 17 km from Kiruna, Sweden, was the was the world’s first ice hotel, having a modest beginning as an igloo and opened for the first time in 1990 and since then it was erected anuualy, from December to April; it offers “an experience of a lifetime as well as an encounter with art and design that will surprise your senses”, being made entirely of ice and snow. Each ice room is designed by an artist and you can opt to book hot or cold accommodations at the Icehotel, the constant temperature inside reaching 23 degrees.
The entire hotel is made out of snow and ice blocks taken from the Torne River and when spring comes, everything melts away and returns to the Torne River; the prices for the accommodation rooms can start from around $162 U.S for two people traveling together.
Wagon Stays, Christchurch, New Zealand
Wagon Stays is a hotel which offers the interesting chance of sleeping in an early settlers’ covered wagon, which comes fully equipped with a studio-style kitchen, flat screen TV, Internet, outside heated bath, a queen-sized bed, and a computer-controlled shower, while the surroundings provides a peaceful scenery over the surrounding organic market garden and tree-studded farmland. The prices requested for booking a wagon start at about $205 U.S. per night for two people traveling together.
Hotel Kakslauttanen is home to a famous Igloo Village with unique glass and snow igloos for your pleasure, to the world’s largest Snow Restaurant but also famous for the world’s largest smoke sauna and a beautiful stream where guests can pan for gold, being located more than 150 miles above the Arctic Circle or at just 250 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, in Lapland.
You can choose between sleeping under the stars and northern lights in one of the 20 glass igloos, where from late August to late April you will get the chance to view the Aurora Borealis and which also come equipped with a toilet and a luxury bed, or you can relax in one of the 20 snow igloos, with 60 beds that come with a down sleeping bag, wool socks, and a hood to keep you comfortable. The hotel boasts 32 log cabins and from December until April, visitors can stay in one of 20 snow igloos, the igloo village being only open from December or January through April.
The village also has an Ice Gallery, a bar made of ice, and an Ice Chapel, which is quite popular for couples looking for a truly unique destination wedding, while the Glass Igloos are built from a special thermo glass which allow them to remain at a normal room temperature so that you can sleep under the sky and admire the mysterious northern lights in comfort; the Hotel also hosts an international ice-sculpting event that takes place every year during December at the Ice Gallery in the Igloo Village.
Poseidon Undersea Resort, Fiji
Poseidon Undersea Resorts is a proposed chain of underwater five-star resorts, the construction of the first resort being located on a private island in Fiji, with each individual component part of the complex being automatically isolated in the event of a structural breach; this type of resort is the world’s first permanent one-atmosphere seafloor structure, Poseidon being conceived and developed by L. Bruce Jones, president of U.S. Submarines, Inc. and financed by TOPA equities Corp. owned by John Edward Anderson. The Poseidon Undersea Resort is nestled amongst a 5,000-acre Fijian lagoon, and features an elevator provides which access to the 24 suites, 70 percent of each room being made of four-inch acrylic, every unit having a safety dome and an emergency diver’s entrance hatch, but also allowing unparalleled views of the surrounding sea life, and one apartment on the bottom of the ocean floor; the resort will also feature an underwater restaurant, a lounge and an undersea bungalow accessible only by submarine, while onshore, the resort will feature a facility with five-star hotel amenities.
The underwater resort is situated 40 feet beneath the waves, being linked to land through two tunnels, one for guest access and one for services; the prices for each room will reach the staggering $15,000 per person for two people traveling together, the rates being based on a package price that includes round-trip transport to and from Nadi/Suva, diving onboard a luxury liner submarine, four nights in a beach or over-water villa, two nights in an underwater suite, gourmet meals and drinks, an initiation to piloting a three-passenger mini-sub, walks on the lagoon floor, scuba diving and snorkeling, wine tasting classes, access to the resort spa (some treatments cost extra), a professionally-produced photo album, and lectures and activities.
Tree House Lodge, Limón, Costa Rica
Tree House Lodge is literally a “treehouse” located at 5 km south of Puerto Viejo (Limon) and 200 meters after the traffic hump, at the first entrance on you left hand side; these luxurious houses make the perfect combination between two elements: nature and creativity; while on the ground of Tree House the foundation Iguana Verde is established with the full support of Ouwehands Zoo in Rhenen, the Netherlands, being a place where you can see iguanas being born, grow and later being put back into nature. Actually the Tree House Lodge is situated in the Coandoca-Manzanillo wildlife refuge that has a private beach and is surrounded by 3 hectares of botanical gardens with a lot of privacy.
Located on a 10-acre property on Punta Uva Beach in Costa Rica, this eco-lodge features four individual houses offering total privacy and beachfront access, where the water is being heated with sun energy boiler while the house were built entirely from the wood of fallen trees.
Guests can choose to stay in the Tree House, where the bathroom is built around a 100-year-old tree; the Beach House; the Beach Suite, with a Sea-Horse Jacuzzi; or the Bamboo House, built with the same materials the name suggests; the rates start from U$300 for two persons per night in the Tree House, which can house up to six persons; U$ 250 for two persons per night for the Beach House, where maximum five persons can stay; U$200 for two persons per night in the Bambu House, where only four people can stay; and U$ 390 for two persons per night in the Beach Suite, where maximum six people are allowed.
Harlingen Harbour Crane, Harlingen, Netherlands
This restored and renovated Harbour Crane started in being used as a hotel since September 2003, towering only a few yards from the Wadden Sea and dominating Harlingen’s skyline for quite some time. The Harlingen Harbour Crane has been a fixture of historic, and today offers you the great experience of not only resting comfortable high above the ground, but also to see the power of more than 143,000 pounds of steel at your fingertips, because you control the crane. For a price starting from $390 U.S. per night two people traveling together you will have one of the most interesting experiences in your life, including breakfast.
Wigwam Motel, Holbrook, Arizona
Wigwam Motel or Motels are regarded as distinctive landmarks also known as “Wigwam Villages”, the idea for this type of motels being attributed to Frank A. Redford who applied for a patent on the ornamental design of the building on December 17, 1935, and was granted design patent 98,617 on February 18, 1936. Two of the three surviving motels since than period are located on historic U.S. Route 66, in Holbrook, Arizona and on the border between Rialto, California and San Bernardino, California; the Wigwam Motel in Holbrook is now being listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as Wigwam Motel #2, in Cave City, Kentucky.
This retro structures feature 15 individual wigwams, each equipped with a full bathroom, shower, cable TV, heat, and air conditioning and for a price starting from $52 per night for a room with a double bed, I’d say this makes an interesting bargain for such an experience that embodies a time when traveling was as much about the journey as the destination. Seven Wigwam Villages were built between 1936 through the 1950s and besides the ones already mentioned you will also find others in Orlando, Florida; New Orleans, Louisiana; Bessemer, Alabama; and Rialto/San Bernardino, California.
Dog Bark Park Inn, Cottonwood, Idaho
The Dog Bark Park Inn is a giant-sized Beagle hotel located along Highway 95 in Cottonwood, in the US state of Idaho, and makes a rather interesting place for those who are all too familiar with sleeping in the dog house; the hotel carved in the shape of a beagle is colloquially known as Sweet Willie by local residents.
This hotel features a two-bedroom B&B which also features dog-shaped contents, with many of the decorative furnishings being hand carved by the owners and chainsaw artists, Dennis and Frances; the rooms are also equipped with all the modern amenities that make the staying here more comfortable, including a full bath, a microwave, small fridge, air conditioning, coffee maker, and hair dryer. The prices start at $92 per night and include a continental breakfast featuring the Prairie’s Best Fruited Granola made from a secret family recipe.11
