Part of the fun of travel is enjoying the local flavor. So on your next trip, eat the local food, see the local sights … and stay in a tiny underwater motel.
| Hotel: Hotell Hackspett Location: Vasteras, Sweden Description: One of the tiniest hotels in the world, the Hackspett (Swedish for“woodpecker”) accommodates just one person, or a couple if they don’t mind sharing a twin bed. But what really makes the Woodpecker different is that it’s a tree house situated 30 feet above a city park. It’s accessible only by rope ladder. Meals are delivered with a basket and pulley. Despite its size,the hotel room includes a kitchen, a veranda and a toilet. | |
| Hotel: Hotel de Filosoof Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Description: Each of this 19th-century hotel’s 38 rooms is dedicated to a different philosopher or philosophy. So, depending on your mood or your level of enlightenment, you can choose a Nietzche, Marx, Aristotle, Wittgenstein, or Zen room. Each is decorated with appropriate sculptures, murals, and quotations.Breakfast is served in the morning on a place mat covered in quotations by the philosopher of your choice. Bad joke: If the hotel is full, you’re out of luck – you Kant stay there. | |
| Hotel: The Old Jail Location: Mount Gambier, Australia Description: The Old Jail offers the accommodations – and decidedly spooky atmosphere – of a huge, 19th-century rural prison. The hotel was once the South Australian State Prison, which operated form 1866 to 1995. Not much changed when it was converted into a hotel.Showers are still communal and beds are still cots, but the cell doors can now be opened from the inside. “Inmates” sleep four to a cell(either with strangers or family) or can pay double for a private,two-person suite. | |
 Dog Bark Park Inn Bed and Breakfast Hotel: Dog Bark Park Inn Location: Cottonwood, Idaho Description: It would be odd to sleep on your back on top of a doghouse, like Snoopy, but it’s odder still to sleep inside the dog. The Dog Bark is a two-story wooden dog. It was built and is managed by a husband and wife team of chainsaw artists who invested the money they made selling dog-shaped wood carvings on QVC into building a dog-themed hotel. (And, yes, dogs are welcome.) | |
| Hotel: Hemp Hotel Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands Description: Nearlyeverything in this five-room hotel is made out of hemp, a plant with awide variety of commercial uses that’s often confused with itscontroversial cousin, marijuana. Mattresses, curtains, shampoo, soap, and even breakfast in this hotel are all made from hemp. Guests can choose from five themed room:Afghan, Moroccan, Caribbean, Indian, and Tibetan. | |
| Hotel: Utter Inn Location: Lake Malaren, Sweden Description: Literally “Otter Inn,” the hotel was conceived as a modern art project by artist Mikael Genberg. Guests enter through a cottage floating on the surface of lake Malaren then descend 10 feet into an underwater “reverse aquarium,”where the room is dry – but surrounded by water and fish that are visible through wall-to-wall picture windows. | |
 Image: Hotel Chatter Website: Kakslauttanen Hotel | Hotel: Kakslauttanen Hotel or Igloo Village Location: Nordkap, Finland Description:Guests get to sleep in real igloos made of ice and snow blocks. They are completely dark and the only source of heat are the down sleeping bags. (The less adventurous can sleep in heated glass igloos.) Facilities also include an ice-cold swimming pool, the world’slargest smoke sauna, and the world’s largest restaurant made of snow,which has to be rebuilt every winter. |
