Tag: Unusual Hotels
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Room With a Night View: Stargazing At Chile's Elqui Domos Hotel
Living in a big city, we’re used to so much light pollution that sometimes, we yearn for some proper darkness and a star-filled sky overhead. One place that appears to fit the bill perfectly, although unfortunately not exactly around the corner, is the Elqui Domos Hotel in Chile.
Built specifically by its owners to experience the night skies of the Elqui Valley, some 600 km (373 miles) northwest of Santiago, the hotel has two types of accommodation: domes and observatories. While each is different, both are designed with an eye towards the sky, with as little as possible to distract you from the twinkling lights above.
Weird Hotels / Unusual Hotels / Odd Hotels / China Hotels / Theme Hotels / → All Tags
Cute Or Creepy? China's Haoduo Panda Inn
Between a Japanese public toilet, an English yellow submarine, a beer barrel, and a Tasmanian morgue, we have seen a lot of hotels that are, let’s say, a little different. Whether it’s just for the novelty factor, or to make a particular statement, we usually take an approach that says: whatever floats your boat – if there are guests out there willing to pay for it, then here’s to you.
This week’s oddball that’s doing the rounds everywhere from CNN to Inthralld is the Haoduo Panda Inn in China, and as much as we appreciate and support wanting to draw attention to the endangered panda, we kind of can’t decide: is this cute or creepy?
Pop-Up Hotels / Music Festival Hotels / UK Hotels / Snoozebox / Unusual Hotels / → All Tags
Contain Yourself: There’s a New Brand of Pop-Up Hotels in the UK
Where: United Kingdom
In the ever-expanding world of pop-up buildings – hotels, restaurants, museums – there’s a newcomer in the UK, Snoozebox, who is ushering in a new era of stylish pop-up hotels.
These hotels are aesthetically-chic and can pop-up in 48 hours at festivals and sporting events, with the added advantage of being right in the heart of the action. Right now, one can only find them in the UK but the capability is there to expand worldwide.
And here’s why. These hotels are decked out shipping containers, with a double bed and single bunk, full bathroom, air-con, flat-screen TV and free wireless (yes, you heard that right) in every room. Granted, the rooms are on the smallish size, but no expense has been spared in the amenities of these tidy, stylish portable hotels.
Plus they can go wherever the world needs additional fashionable accommodations. In other words you call them in when necessary, sort of like a superhero, really. We know that we start to panic when a nice hotel cannot be found at an event we’re attending.
Odd Hotels / Unusual Hotels / Okura Hotels / Japan Hotels / → All Tags
Spend the Night in a Dutch Royal Palace...In Japan
Did you know that fifty minutes outside of Nagasaki, Japan, there is a resort the size of Monaco that is modeled after a 17th-century Dutch town? Complete with windmills, canals, fields of tulips, and an exact replica of the residence of H.M. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, built with special permission from the Dutch Royal family?
Named "Huis Ten Bosch" (after the Queen's residence, which translates as House in the Forest), the resort was built in honor of the shared history between Nagasaki and the Netherlands, dating back to the arrival of a Dutch ship called "De Liefde" (The Love) in 1600.
Centuries later, the resort / theme park was built on reclaimed land, much like parts of the country it was modelled after. Hundreds of thousands of trees and flowers were planted to regenerate the area, with sustainability and environmentalism still a major focus today. You can stroll around cobble-stone streets, or go native and take a bike, stopping by one of the museums before getting a spa treatment on your way to an afternoon bit of theatre.
Ice Hotels / Unusual Hotels / Romania Hotels / Winter Hotels / Snow Hotels / → All Tags
Get Down with Dracula at Romania's Rebuilt Ice Hotel This Season
Eerily sculpted headboards adorn rooms at the Balea Lac Ice Hotel
It's been over a year since we last reported on an ice hotel, which we took as a sign that the kitschy travel trend had seen its final day pass. But rounding out this unusually mild winter season is news about the latest contender in (relatively) cheap and chilly accommodations: Romania.
The Balea Lac is one in a series of European icy lodgings that are rebuilt to compensate for melting and other seasonal changes. Temperatures inside top off at a spine-tingling 35 degrees Fahrenheit, though rest assured, every stay includes a "specialist sleeping bag" and some furs.
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Don't Step Outside Your Bubble at The BubbleTree Hotel
Where: France
While we wait for the W Paris to open, there's another funky hotel we can check into just outside the city--The BubbleTree Hotel at Chateau Mal-maison, the former home of Napoleon’s wife, Josephine de Beauharnais .
The WSJ reports on this unusual kind of outdoor hotel where the rooms are actually self-enclosed "bubbles." The French designer, Pierre-Stephane Dumas, said:
“It’s a structure without a frame, and so we send air into it to continually hold the structure up. This allows us at once to continually renew the air and avoid condensation and humidity. That avoids a problem frequently encountered in tents, so that we have a truly healthy habitat.”
Odd Hotels / Unusual Hotels / Mexico Hotels / → All Tags
Head To Mexico For Some Quality Tube Time
In terms of oddly-shaped hotel rooms, we'd say the cardboard hotel and Sweden's Icehotel stand out prominently in our minds. But eco-news site Treehugger tipped us off to the Tubohotel, whose rooms are made out of recycled concrete tubes. Perhaps not the kind of hotel room you'd want to stay whilst recovering from plastic surgery, but a winner if you're traveling through Mexico on a shoestring budget—rooms go for a very reasonable $43 per night (or 500 pesos, for those who are already on the plane) and rates stay fixed all year round.
The hotel (we use the term liberally) is located in Tepoztlan, a 45 minute drive south of Mexico City. We laughed out loud while browsing their website—directions to the property include phrases like: "Ask Uncle Pepe, he will show you," and "just like in life, Young Jedi, there are many ways to arrive at your chosen destination." We couldn't agree more, Tubohotel. Now, any wisdom on how to make other hotels as cool as you?
Yurts / HotelChatter Reviews / Big Sur Hotels / Glamping / Unusual Hotels / → All Tags
Do Go Back To Big Sur, As Long As It's At Treebones
It says a lot about the place you’re staying when a yurt is the pedestrian option, but that’s how we felt when we booked two nights at Treebones Resort the week before last.
See, the reason we were really heading up to Big Sur was because we wanted to stay in The Nest – the treehouse perched on a bluff overlooking Highway 1 and the Pacific. But, thanks to its being booked up months in advance, The Nest was only free on our second night. So the first, we luxed up in a yurt.
Our yurt, 12, qualified as a partial ocean view – although we didn’t get much enjoyment from said view because our first day was freezing cold. But there were two chairs on the deck that we could have enjoyed it from, had we brought our longjohns.
The yurt itself was basic but spotless and comfy, too: a queen bed with, for once, a pretty quilt, a futon, a sink (with an eminently stealable bar of handmade lemongrass soap, spring water from their own underground aquifer and compostable cups) and towels. There was a small heater and, for those (um, us) who were still too cold with that, reception had more to loan out. The end result? Toasty.
As for the bathrooms, there were male and female blocks of toilets and showers up by the reception and lounge area – three showers and three toilets for the women, and two showers for the men – as well as one male and female toilet over the far side of the site. They were pretty clean, considering there are the inhabitants of 16 yurts using them. And we never saw a line for the showers over the two days.
Treehouse Hotels / HotelChatter Reviews / Unusual Hotels / Big Sur Hotels / Yurts / Glamping / → All Tags
Flying The Nest Isn't Easy When It's In Big Sur
There are hotels that look like Chinese gods, motels in the shape of a dog and now we present our lodging from last Monday night: a human-sized bird’s nest perched on top of Highway 1 in Big Sur.
The treehouse, which is actually called The Nest is one of the accommodation options at Treebones Resort – you can either choose a yurt (more on those another time), full-on camping, or this. Although, if you book the nest, you’ll be required to pitch a tent just below it, in case the weather’s too bad to sleep in the nest (it’s bang on a ridge overlooking Highway 1 and the Pacific, so it’s the windiest part of the property). And seeing as Big Sur is, as we found out this weekend, pretty damp and foggy anyway, whatever the time of year, it’s not a bed for the fainthearted.
Hotel Architecture / Unusual Hotels / Odd Hotels / China Hotels / Hotel Hype / Hotel News / → All Tags
Hotel Balls of Fury? China to Open Ping Pong Paddle Hotel
We couldn't ask for anything better to break up the monotony of a slow news day than the announcement of a Ping-Pong Paddle Hotel.
The hotel is being constructed in the city of Huainan, China as part of a $45.8 million sports complex which will have a main stadium shaped like an American football and smaller facilities shaped like a basketball, volleyball and a soccer ball.
But the pinnacle of this complex will no doubt be the Ping Pong Paddle Hotel. AOL Travel has more on this awesome-shaped hotel:
The China Daily newspaper reports rounded guestroom windows will resemble the surface texture of a table tennis racket, while the "handle" of the 500-foot hotel will be an observation deck, allowing tourists to take in a view of the city of Huainan, where the hotel will be built.
Unusual Hotels / Odd Hotels / Pop-Up Hotels / Madrid Hotels / WTF Hotel News / → All Tags
What A Load Of Garbage: The Rubbish Hotel
Where: Madrid, Spain
We’ve stayed in some gross hotels before but nothing quite as trashy as this one.
Corona’s Save The Beach Hotel is made out of 12 tons of rubbish gathered from beaches around the world. The idea behind the hotel is to raise awareness of the campaign to keep beaches litter free and stop people using the ocean as a garbage dump. However, like yesterday's trash, this hotel has already been hauled off to the junk yard.
The 'boutique' hotel was only open for four days in Madrid on January 19th but the five double rooms were fully booked for the whole time. A rubbish hotel that sells out--impressive!
Sweet Suites / Ice Hotels / Unusual Hotels / Sweden Hotels / → All Tags
The Icehotel Gets Even Cooler with a 'Tron'-Inspired Suite
The Swedish Icehotel attracts adventurous types with its all-ice accommodations 12 miles north of the Arctic Circle. But the sci-fi squad and design geeks will want to make reservations at the hotel to check out the new Tron-themed suite.
Inspired by a nightclub the upcoming Tron: Legacy flick, the "Legacy of the River" suite is pimped out with futuristic lights using technology the hotel's never used in its 20-year history.
