Unusual times call for unusual hotels. From quirky to downright weird, here's our pick of the most unique places to stay around the world, featuring the world's best spaceship treehouses, ice suites, desert shipwrecks, underwater hotels and glass igloos.
InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland, China
The space-age InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland hotel trickles down the scarped slopes of an abandoned quarry, and jumps out in a city better known for its rising skyscrapers. It has been labelled the world's first underground five-star resort – and the bottom two floors sit underwater. Expect waterfall views from each room (except for the submerged spaces, where schools of fish will float past instead).
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The luxury Shanghai hotel built into the side of a quarry
Treehotel, Harads, Sweden
Located in the pine forest around Harads are seven unique ‘treerooms’ (and a guesthouse). Treehouses include the glass capsule-like Cabin, the lifelike Bird’s Nest, the mind-blowing reflective Mirrorcube and the UFO (pictured), which reminds guests of the final scene in E.T. There is also a Tree Sauna.
Read the full review: Treehotel, Sweden
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The world's best treehouse hotels
Crane Hotel Faralda, Amsterdam, Netherlands
An unashamedly bonkers hotel in up-and-coming Amsterdam Noord. This three-suite property is housed in a converted crane and boasts spectacular city views. Opulent and obscure in equal measure, it’s ideal if you’re looking for something alternative, but best avoided if you suffer from vertigo.
Read the full review: Crane Hotel Faralda, Netherlands
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No Man's Fort, Portsmouth, England
No Man’s Fort – a Victorian-era fort which was originally built between 1867 and 1880 to protect Portsmouth from an attack from Napoleon III – has been turned into a luxury hotel, with 23 bedrooms, a lighthouse penthouse suite, spa, cabaret club, bars, restaurants and hot tubs.
Read the full review: No Man's Fort, England
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SiloStay, Little River, New Zealand
Situated in Little River, just 350 yards from the Christchurch-Little River Rail Trail, SiloStay offers innovative eco-friendly accommodation on New Zealand's Banks Peninsula. The silos are designed across two floors and are fully-equipped with kitchen facilities, balconies and televisions. Gourmet microwave meals or takeaways can be provided on request.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best hotels in Bolivia
Palacio de Sal, Uyuni, Bolivia
The Palacio de Sal – ‘Salt Palace’ – on the salt flats of Uyuni, is completely constructed from salt, including most of the furniture. There’s an impressive lobby, bar and bedrooms with private bathrooms, central heating and electricity. The restaurant’s speciality? Salt chicken, naturally.
Read the full review: Palacio de Sal, Bolivia
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best hotels in Bolivia
The Dog Bark Park Inn, Idaho, USA
The Dog Bark Park Inn takes the term ‘dog lover’ to a whole new level. Owned by chainsaw artists, the b&b is located inside a 12-foot beagle. Guests (it sleeps four) enter the beagle’s body through the second-storey deck. It is, of course, pet-friendly.
• The best pet-friendly hotels in Britain
Magic Mountain Hotel, Huilo Huilo Reserve, Chile
The Magic Mountain Hotel is in the Huilo Huilo reserve, which covers 60,000 hectares of Valdivian forest, and has natural hot springs, unexplored lakes and direct access to the Mocho Choshuenco volcano. Accommodation ranges from rooms in the main lodge, which has a waterfall cascading from the pinnacle of the roof, to secluded forest lodges.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best hotels in Chile
Icehotel, Jukkasjärvi, Sweden
Twenty years ago the world’s first Icehotel opened in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden. Every November, ice from the frozen Torne river is fused with snow (‘snice’) to remake the hotel – new themed suites are designed every year. The team behind the hotel has, as of 2017, opened its first permanent hotel, ICEHOTEL 365, just opposite.
Read the full review: Icehotel, Sweden
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Rates provided by Booking.com• Inside the world's first year-round hotel made of ice
V8 Hotel, Stuttgart, Germany
Car fanatics will love the V8 Hotel in Stuttgart. All rooms are themed around the automobile, with features such as vintage cars, racing paraphernalia and drive-through cinemas.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best hotels in Stuttgart
Das Park Hotel, Linz, Austria
Who would have thought concrete could be comfy? These renovated sewage pipes are, thankfully, clean and functional and sit on the banks of the Danube, making them a perfect post-industrial bolthole.
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Hotel Marqués De Riscal, La Rioja, Spain
The Marqués de Riscal is architect Frank Gehry's first and only hotel project, located in Elciego, in the heart of Spain’s Rioja wine-growing region. Similarly to his other projects, such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao and the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, the structure is avant-garde in its approach, using huge titanium ribbons which stand out from the surrounding vineyard.
Read the full review: Hotel Marqués de Riscal, Spain
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best budget hotels in amazing locations
El Cosmico, Marfa, Texas, USA
El Cosmico is far more than a place to stay — it’s a vibrant community space that fosters creativity and intellectual exchange along with its quirky, artistic accommodation that includes vintage trailers, teepees and casitas. Spread over 21 acres, the compound also celebrates the nature that it’s a part of, with wide-open spaces and plenty of communal gathering options such as an elm grove full of hammocks, a creative lab, amphitheatre and community lounge.
Read the full review: El Cosmico, Texas
• The best hotels in Austin, Texas
Hotel Central & Café, Copenhagen, Denmark
Hotel Central & Café in Copenhagen takes boutique to a whole new level. This café-hotel has just one bedroom which measures 8ftx10ft. Despite the lack of space there’s still a double bed, bathroom, television, an iPod docking station and a minibar. And morning coffee is merely steps away.
• The most romantic hotels in Copenhagen
Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort, Huzhou, China
Nicknamed the ‘donut hotel’, the Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort is on the Taihu Lake inbetween Nanjing and Shanghai. The magnet-shaped hotel was conceived by architect Ma Tansong, who has worked with Zaha Hadid in London and is responsible for the rippling Absolute Towers in Mississauga, Canada. The 27 floors above water, and two below (to create a complete oval) feature luxury trimmings, including a lobby paved with White Jade from Afghanistan and Tiger’s Eye Stone from Brazil.
Read the full review: Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort, China
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best hotels in China
Quinta Real Zacatecas, Zacatecas, Mexico
Built around the restored 19th-century San Pedro bullfighting ring, the Quinta Real Zacatecas is now a luxury hotel. The last bull run was in 1975. The hotel’s restaurant now looks over the old arena, while the brick-walled bar is located where the bullpens used to be.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best hotels in Mexico
Inntel Amsterdam Zaandamn, Amsterdam, Netherlands
The façade of this hotel is made up of nearly 70 stacked houses – from labourers’ cottages to town houses – which are typical of Amsterdam. Rooms are inspired by local history and there’s also a spa with a pool, Turkish steam bath and Finnish sauna.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best design hotels in Amsterdam
Masseria Le Carrube, Ostuni, Puglia, Italy
Puglia is home to trulli: small, conical, stone, igloo-shaped 'farmhouses'. Many of them have been converted into holiday homes and hotels, giving tourists the chance to experience one of the region's most distinguishing features. Guests at Masseria Le Carrube can opt to stay in the trullo or masseria which was once a frantoio (olive oil production mill).
Read the full review: Masseria Le Carrube, Italy
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best trulli hotels in Puglia
Arctic TreeHouse Hotel, Rovaniemi, Finnish Lapland
Built on a hillside on the Arctic Circle, the Arctic TreeHouse Hotel, a resort of cubic chalets with wide north-facing windows, is an ingenious solution to combining snug comfort with Northern Lights viewing, as well as being a great base for other Arctic pursuits.
Read the full review: Arctic TreeHouse Hotel, Lapland
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The world's most amazing capsule hotels
Ariau Amazon Towers, Manaus, Brazil
Guests awake to the screeching of primates and dazzling birds of paradise at this eco-friendly retreat, set high among the Amazon tree tops. Rooms include private balconies from which to marvel at the world’s largest tropical forest. Other facilities include treetop swimming pools, restaurants, bars and five miles of canopy-skimming walkways.
• The best hotels in Brazil
Good Hotel London, London, England
An erstwhile Dutch detention centre has docked in London. Inside it’s a study in counterculture-chic: think a concrete palace of up-cycled furnishings, where guests in oversized headphones play with complimentary iPads and fork at plates of okra and chips. Expect a sun-snaring rooftop bar and stupendous Thames views.
Read the full review: Good Hotel London, England
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The Caves, Negril, Jamaica
The Caves enjoys a stunning cliffside location in Negril. Accommodation is comprised of just 12 variously configured, secluded cabins set in jungle-like gardens at the top of the cliffs. The caves themselves are used for private cande-lit dining — a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Read the full review: The Caves, Jamaica
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Jumbo Stay, Stockholm Arlanda Airport, Sweden
This former Jumbo Jet, dating from around 1976, has been converted to provide overnight accommodation. Choose between an en-suite room, budget dormitory or twin rooms. The best room is a luxury cockpit suite complete with panoramic view – you might even catch some planes landing at Stockholm Arlanda next door.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best hotels in Stockholm
TWA Hotel, New York, USA
For almost 20 years, the former TWA Flight Centre, Eero Saarinen’s iconic swooping structure, sat empty at John F Kennedy airport, a nostalgic tribute to the golden age of air travel. It has reopened as a glamorously kitsch hotel, complete with vintage furnishings, a rooftop pool and a cocktail bar.
Read the full review: TWA Hotel, New York
• Inside the world's coolest airport hotel
The Hobbit Motel, Woodlyn Park, Waitomo, New Zealand
Put aside your preconceptions of the soulless motel – these Lord of The Rings-inspired rooms invoke homely charms suitable for the most discerning of hobbits. It’s two hours from Auckland and just two minutes from the Waitomo Caves.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The world's sexiest, kinkiest and strangest hotels
Hurawalhi, Maldives
Hurawalhi – a circle of soft-sand beaches fringed by aquamarine waters – distinguishes itself from other Maldivian resorts with truly remarkable sea life and the world’s largest underwater restaurant.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best overwater villas in the Maldives
The Manta Resort, Pemba Island, Tanzania
The Manta Resort in Tanzania has its very own Underwater Room. The floating structure has three levels, including a roof which is perfect for launching off into the sea. Downstairs, is the below-sea level bedroom, where you’ll see friendly trumpet and bat fish, Spanish dancers, squid and octopus.
• The best hotels in Tanzania
The Library Hotel, New York, USA
While a library in a hotel is nothing new, The Library Hotel in New York is one for true book lovers: each of the 10 floors honour one of the 10 categories in the Dewey Decimal System (for example Literature, Technology, The Arts), and each of the rooms come with a thematic collection of books depending on the floor. On top of that, there’s also a writer’s den, poetry garden and terrace and reading room.
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Free Spirit Spheres, Vancouver Island, Canada
Set among the trees of the west-coast rainforest on Vancouver Island are handcrafted, UFO-like spheres made from cedar, Sitka Spruce and fibreglass. The three globes are tethered to the trees with ropes, and sway gently in the breeze.
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Costa Verde, Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica
The Costa Verde team have transported and refurbished a 1965 vintage Boeing 727 airframe to create a fantastic, two-bedroom suite. The structure is set out on a concrete plinth that juts 50 feet into the jungle canopy and furnishings are hand-carved teak. The rear bedroom also has a handcrafted deck atop the wing.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The strangest places to stay in the UK and Channel Islands
The Boot Bed’n’Breakfast, Tasman, New Zealand
The giant boot guesthouse, created by Steve and his partner Judy in 2001, is wonderfully eccentric. The curved walls and ceilings means everything has been custom made. There was an old lady, who lived in a shoe…
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Giraffe Manor, Nairobi, Kenya
One of Nairobi’s most iconic buildings, Giraffe Manor, harks back to the 1930s when European visitors first came here to enjoy safaris. The most fascinating thing about the elegant property is the herd of friendly resident Rothschild's giraffe that live here: they often poke their long necks through windows, especially at meal times in search for a treat.
Read the full review: Giraffe Manor, Kenya
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Winvian, Litchfield Hills, Connecticut, USA
This beautiful, 113-acre boutique resort in Connecticut is made up of 19 individually designed cottages. They range from the whimsical helicopter cottage, based on a Coast Guard chopper, to the neoclassical ‘Secret Society’, a high temple to romance. Other cottages include the more classic Library, Woodlands and Beaver Lodge.
Read the full review: Winvian, Connecticut
• The best hotels in Connecticut
Hüttenpalast, Berlin, Germany
This slightly eccentric ‘urban glamping’ spot offers vintage caravans, stylish mountain huts and double rooms inside a converted factory. There’s a lovely garden, a cafe serving healthy bio-breakfasts and you’ll be located right in the middle of hip and happening Neukölln.
Read the full review: Huttenpalast, Germany
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The world's most incredible desert hotels
Utter Inn, Lake Mälaren, Sweden
Utter Inn (Otter Inn in English), is an art project by Mikael Genberg located in the Lake Malaren, near Västerås in Sweden. On entering the little red house on the water, guests will discover a submerged bedroom, with panoramic windows.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best floating hotels around the world
Arctic Bath, Harads, Sweden
This daring spa hotel, floating or frozen in Sweden’s Lule River, is a design masterpiece. Crowned with a jumble of pine logs, the ring-shaped spa is inspired by a historical timber floating industry. Use of natural wood, Baltic stone floors and reindeer skins bring warmth and calm a well-ordered space. Indigenous Sámi culture is celebrated through a five-course gourmet dinner drawing on traditional recipes and local products.
Read the full review: Arctic Bath, Sweden
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Amangiri, Utah, United States
Perhaps one of the most luxurious on our list, but also one of the most strikingly unusual is the Amangiri resort in Utah. Set deep within Canyon Point, close to the border with Arizona, the hotel blends into its dramatic surroundings. The spa is a cut above.
Read the full review: Amangiri, Utah
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Rates provided by Mrandmrssmith.com• The world's most unusual hotel spas
The Liberty, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Once the Charles Street Jail, The Liberty Hotel in Boston has done away with its image as a former jailhouse – to an extent. While offerings include the stylish CLINK restaurant and Alibi bar, jail-time features have been preserved, including vestiages of jail cells, catwalks and three-storey arched windows.
Read the full review: The Liberty, Boston
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Rates provided by Booking.comKakslauttanen Hotel, Saariselkä, Finland
Hotel Kaklauttanen is home to incredible glass igloos, from which you can admire the northen lights and starry sky. The hotel is open during northern lights season, from the third week of August until the end of April.
Read the full review: Kakslauttanen Hotel, Finland
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best bubble hotels in the world
Bubble Lodge Ile aux Cerfs, Île aux Cerfs, Mauritius
From Mexico to The Maldives, bubble hotels have been popping up all over the world lately. In Mauritius, bubble lodge enthusiasts can head to Ile aux Cerfs, a small island with an 18-hole golf course at its centre. Each of the three lodges has been simply yet beautifully decorated to complement its surroundings, with earthy tones chosen for the Banyan tree lodge and pale blues for those located by the sea.
Read the full review: Bubble Lodge Ile aux Cerfs, Mauritius
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best animal-themed hotels around the world
Capsule Hotel, Sydney, Australia
What's cheaper than an Airbnb and more stylish than a backpackers hostel? A capsule hotel. Located within an iconic Art Deco building in Sydney's CBD, the pods are equipped with a television, climate control, USB ports, headphone jacks, universal-power-point and a locker. And an SOS button for those concerned about being stuck inside their pod forever.
Read the full review: Capsule Hotel, Australia
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The 50 greatest hotels in Italy
ION Luxury Adventure Hotel, Nesjavellir, Iceland
Close to Thingvellir National Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site, ION Luxury Adventure Hotel sits amid a landscape of mountains and lava fields. The hotel juts out from the base of a long-dormant volcano.
Read the full review: ION Luxury Adventure Hotel, Iceland
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The world's best clifftop hotels
The Jaffa Hotel, Tel Aviv, Israel
Arched collonades, hefty stone walls and stained-glass windows are a few of the original features that impress at this 19th-century monastery hotel that once housed Jaffa's French hospital. Renowned British designer John Pawson combined the building's historic architecture with modern design, bringing in a blend of mid-century furnishings and theatrical art from Damien Hirst.
Read the full review: The Jaffa Hotel, Israel
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The Witchery by the Castle, Edinburgh, Scotland
This extraordinary collection of fantasy suites near Edinburgh Castle is the ultimate romantic hideaway: sumptuous, indulgent, and slightly (delightfully) mad. If Pugin designed gothic revival love nests they would look like this: an outrageous riposte to modern minimalism.
Read the full review: The Witchery by the Castle, Scotland
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The best castle hotels in the UK
Featherbed Railroad, Clear Lake, California, USA
On the shore of Clear Lake in northern California, are nine vintage railroad caboose cars. All are different in theme: there’s a New Orleans bordello in La Loose Caboose, a Casablanca-themed cabin, and ‘beach house on rails’ TropiCaboose.
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Hang Nga Guesthouse, Da Lat, Vietnam
Popularly known as ‘Crazy House’, this fairytale-like building is Gaudi-esque in its form. The building’s overall design is meant to resemble a tree and each room is animal themed.
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The most unusual hotels in the United States
Shipwreck Lodge, Skeleton Coast, Namibia
The barren but beautiful Skeleton Coast takes its name from the eponymous book by John H. Marsh, which recounts the final days of the MV Dunedin Star, a British cargo ship that ran aground on these shores in 1944. Nina Maritz, the award-winning architect responsible for Shipwreck Lodge's design, was “gripped by the tale” and used it as the inspiration to create cabins that “could have been put together by castaways".
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Taj Lake Palace, Udaipur, India
One of the world’s most romantic destination hotels, the Palace floats like a beautiful white ship on the waters of Lake Pichola, with 360-degree views of surrounding Udaipur.
Read the full review: Taj Lake Palace, India
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Rates provided by Booking.com• The coolest futuristic design hotels
Skylodge Adventure Suites, Sacred Valley, Peru
These aluminium and polycarbonate pods that cling to a granite slope above the Urubamba Valley are totally unique. With the night sky twinkling overhead as you sleep, you feel more like you're staying in a spaceship than a hotel.
Read the full review: Skylodge Adventure Suites, Peru
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Cley Windmill, Cley next the Sea, Norfolk, England
This early 19th-century windmill turned cosy guesthouse is in a scenic coastal location, making it a fabulous base for walkers, birdwatchers and romantic couples. Not only does it have characterful rooms, hearty food and friendly staff, but guests are privy to superb views over reed beds towards Blakeney Harbour too.
These are unusual times, and the state of affairs can change quickly. Please check the latest guidance before travelling. Our writers visited these hotels prior to the pandemic. Note that prices cited on Booking.com are subject to change in high season and during popular holidays and events.
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