Unique Hotels

Sleeping at -5°C sounds awful. Somehow, it's one of the best nights' sleep you'll ever have. At Hunderfossen Snow Hotel in Norway, your bed is made of snow and reindeer skins, your glass is carved from ice, and you're woken by Edvard Grieg and fireworks. The whole hotel is demolished every spring — and rebuilt from scratch.

Sleeping in a wooden box never looked this good. Copenhagen's first capsule hotel just opened in Vesterbro — 22 private pods, organic breakfast included, and a south-facing terrace that'll make you forget how small your bed is. Five minutes from the train station, steps from the Meatpacking District.

50 feet underground. 6,000-pound blast doors. A king bed bolted into concrete. This former Cold War nuclear missile silo in Arkansas has been transformed into one of the most unique places you can spend the night in America — and yes, it's on Airbnb.

A hotel you can only reach by cable car. No roads. No taxis. No televisions. Just the Zugspitze outside your window, a bathtub carved from a single tree trunk, and the kind of quiet that's getting harder to find.

A divorced dad promised his 3-year-old son a castle in 1978... so he spent 40 years building one. Now you can actually stay in it. Lake George, NY — and it's more magical than it sounds.

Your own private island. All six lodges. Just your group. Elang Private Residence at Bawah Reserve isn't a hotel room - it's an entire island, reserved exclusively for you. Cliffside lodges, a private chef, your own spa, and a saltwater infinity pool with a waterslide. A speedboat whisks you between islands whenever you feel like exploring. Starting from $18,000 a night. Some experiences are simply priceless.

Lost world vibes, just 80 minutes from Singapore. Six private islands, 13 beaches, zero roads — and the only way in is by seaplane landing on a turquoise lagoon. Bawah Reserve in Indonesia's Anambas Archipelago might just be the most beautifully remote place on earth.

A Boeing 737 in your hotel room. Yes, really. The Corendon Amsterdam New-West has a full aircraft fuselage — cockpit, seats, galley carts and all — built right into their 7th floor suite. You can sit in the captain's chair and watch real planes land at Schiphol. Then head downstairs for Caribbean cocktails and a hammam.

A secret door built into a Kenyan hillside. Step through it, and you're standing on the highest point in the Maasai Mara, 2,000 feet above the plains below.

26 pyramid villas. A mysterious thermal lake. An Austrian woman who reads your health from your eyes. This resort in Fort Myers, Florida is either the strangest place you'll ever stay — or the most unforgettable. Possibly both.

Peacocks roaming the lawn. A photo of you on your nightstand when you arrive. Miniature horses named Tango and Twist. And a wine cellar dug into the earth for candlelit private dinners... La Residence in Franschhoek is not your average hotel.

You have to cross an active airport runway just to check in. And that's not even the strangest part about Sunborn Gibraltar — the world's only five-star floating hotel, permanently moored in the Mediterranean and never once sailed anywhere under its own power. Monkeys on the rocks outside your window. Africa visible from your dinner table. Prosecco at check-in. A casino two decks below your bed.

This hotel in Thailand has people convinced Wes Anderson secretly designed it. From the emerald marble staircase to the moonlit secret gardens — every corner of Maison Mystique, Khao Yai looks like a scene that was too beautiful to film. You just have to live it instead.

Deep in the Jordanian desert, Feynan Ecolodge runs on solar power, candlelight, and a sky full of stars. No roads. No noise. Just 10,000 years of history beneath your feet.

What if your hotel room disappeared every spring? At Hunderfossen Snow Hotel, it does. Built from 1,500 cubic metres of snow and 15 tonnes of ice each winter, this is Norway's southernmost ice hotel — and it melts away before summer even arrives. You sleep on reindeer skins at -5°C, drink from a glass carved out of ice, and drift off to complete silence. Then fireworks and Grieg wake you up.