The Strangest Hotels in the World
For an unforgettable holiday – and a talking point on return – these truly bizarre hotels (all bookable on Culture Trip) set the gold standard.
Hotels can make or break a trip. Find the right one and you’ll be relaxing before you know it. Take a wrong turn and it’s eyebrow-raising anecdotes for years to come. Luckily, that won’t be an issue at these above-and-beyond hotels, which rip up the rulebook and do things their own way.
Icehotel, Sweden
Ice Hotel, Hotel
Hotel Palacio de Sal, Bolivia
Hotel
Hotel on skis: Wilderness Camp, Finland
Hotel, Camping, Ski Chalet
Kilpisjärvi is one of the best places in Finland to glimpse the Northern Lights and Wilderness Camp has come up with an ingenious solution that means you keep all the creature comforts while placing yourself front and centre to take in the natural phenomenon. This mobile home on skis can be positioned anywhere in the Finnish tundra and also features a glass roof, which means you can constantly look into the wilderness.
Hotel Costa Verde, Costa Rica
Hostel
This Central American hotel deserves to be on the list just for its cheeky slogan, “Still more monkeys than people…” But its lavish suite is what marks this place to stay as truly strange. The 727 Fuselage Home is a two-bedroom suite fashioned out of a plane, perched in a seemingly precarious spot in the rainforest. In reality, it’s all perfectly safe, but the visual impact is breathtaking. You get all the mod cons, plus toucans and monkeys as neighbours.
Treehotel, Sweden
Hotel, Cabin, Treehouse
The Manta Resort, Tanzania
Resort, Hotel
Quinta Real Zacatecas, Mexico
Boutique Hotel
Built around a 19th-century bullring – where fighting is thankfully a thing of the past – this modern hotel now has luxury rooms that overlook the central arena and a bar constructed in the old animal pens. The sumptuous setting is close to the historical part of the Mexican city of Zacatecas, but you’ll be hard pressed to find any reason to leave the hotel itself. When the exterior is lit up just before sunset, it looks as commanding as the matadors who once stood here.