You’re planning a holiday but all the hotels seem to look the same. Don’t worry, though, as there really are some unusual ones. If you want to sleep with the fishes or stay in a shoe, there’s a hotel somewhere in the world that will offer you a room.
Water Holidays
Start your holiday with a dive into the sea at the Jules Undersea Lodge in Florida. There’s actually no other way of getting into your room. Once there, you can watch all the sea life around you while you stay in air conditioned comfort. If you don’t know how to swim, there’s a three-hour crash course available.
But if you are looking for top-class comfort underwater, try the Poseidon Undersea Resort in Fiji. Here you won’t have to dive to reach your room because there’s a convenient lift for the purpose.
If frozen water is your preference, try the Jukkasjarvi Ice Hotel near Kiruna in northern Sweden. This was the world’s first ever ice hotel, with a season that runs from December to April. All the furniture and even the glasses in the bar are made of ice but you will sleep comfortably on reindeer skins on your ice bed.
Stone Age
Return to the Stone Age but with all modern amenities at the Cappadocia Cave Suites in Turkey. The caves have been carved out of tufa, a kind of volcanic stone that resembles pumice and have been homes to local residents for the last 2,000 years.
You’ll be able to choose rooms with a lot of windows, just a skylight or no windows at all. It will be cool in the room even if the temperatures are sweltering outside, although you may need extra heating during the winter months. And even if your room door is a vast wheel made of stone that rolls shut, you will be able to sleep on a soft bed.
Try the modern version of a Stone Age dwelling in an old nuclear bunker in Sevelen, near Zurich in Switzerland. This is Switzerland’s first zero-star hotel – the Null Stern Hotel. There’s no breakfast on offer in most of the rooms but a “luxury” room comes with coffee in the morning. The heating comes from hot water bottles hanging from the wall, but the management kindly gives you a complimentary set of ear plugs to block out the noise of the ventilation system.
These bunkers are part of Switzerland’s civil defense system and they have to revert to their original purpose within 24 hours of any emergency. So don’t bother unpacking during your stay.
New Zealand
Stay in a boot as you explore the delights of New Zealand. The Boot Bed & Breakfast, also known as the Jester House, in Tasman South Island, lets you relive that nursery rhyme of the old woman who lived in a shoe. But this is a two-story house with curved walls in the correct places that offers you a romantic as well as an unusual atmosphere.
Continue your New Zealand tour to Raglan, a stunning beach resort on the northern tip of North Island and check into a caboose – the last railway wagon of an old train – at the Solscape Eco Retreat. Or you can get down to earth in style in a tipi, the local term for an animal-skin tent. If you need to keep extra active, you can also go ‘woofing’ – that’s trying your hand at some work on an organic farm – or kite boarding or surfing in the ocean.
Before you go anywhere, however, you should ensure that you have a good travel insurance policy to cover against all eventualities.
Article by Chris Rowlands
