LET’S MAKE A new year’s resolution early this evening – to give ourselves a bit of a break in 2013.
And while finances might just permit us a wet weekend in a mobile home, there’s nothing to stop us taking a mental trip to these wishlist of unusual hotels….
Tubohotel, Mexico
An eco-responsible tourist hotel where all the rooms are self-contained in sections of giant concrete tubes. We love it as much for the colourful description of the hotel on the website as much as for its aesthetics. In its Frequently Asked Questions section:
Will I need to shower with strangers?Ohh, no, no, no. We are not one of those hotels. But we do have two very clean and comfortable bathroom houses with skin-scalding hot water, private showers and comodes (that is French for toilet). We suggest you bring a robe, flip-flops, shampoo, soap and your Turbo-Rubber-Ducky.
Okay then.
via danbowski/Youtube
The Ark, Russia
Not to be mistaken for this bog-standard hotel in Moscow which is also called the Ark, the one we’re thinking of is a concept rather than a built hotel (yet). It was proposed by Russian architectural firm Remistudio and essentially looks like a giant sea urchin floating in the water. The idea behind the design is that it would withstand floods, tidal waves and other natural disasters.
It would look like this in the water:
It would look like this on land:
And it would have a self-sustaining green enivronment inside:
All images from Remistudio
Hurry up and build it, guys, and we’ll happily test-stay it for you.
Treehotel, Sweden
It does what it says in the title – you stay in rooms suspended over the Harads wilderness with views of a river valley and miles of unspoilt forest. Just gorgeous:
via Treehotel of Sweden/Vimeo
Japanese pod hotels
The denizens of Japan know how to make the most of their space and pod hotels – in which you rent a pod with enough room for a person to sleep on a simple single mattress – are commonplace in cities. This handy guide in gizmag shows you how to use one should you ever have the chance, and this report from Monocle gives a good sense of the utilitarian philosophy behind them:
via Maurice Ajanaku/Youtube
Ice hotels in Scandinavia and Canada
These hotels genuinely have seasonal opening hours – because they melt when spring comes. The hotels are a novelty in areas where they can be built from whole blocks of ice harvested from the local frozen landscape.
The Icehotel in Jukasjarvi, Sweden was the first such one in 1990, but the Hotel de Glace at Lac-Saint-Joseph, Quebec in Canada is also proving to be a frozen hit:
Inserting a light fixture beside a snow-carved mural in a hall at the Quebec ice hotel in 2001. Pic: The Canadian Press/PA Images
Salt Hotel, Bolivia
As with the ice hotels, the Salt Hotel at Salar de Uyuni uses the most prolific raw material around it – salt from the flats it rests on in Bolivia.
This video from foreignofficial/Youtube shows the walls made of compressed bricks of salt:
Underwater hotel, Fiji
Find the sea relaxing? Then the Poseidon (of course) resort in Fiji might be for you. The undersea suite is 40 feet down an elevator trip – you can even feed the fish by pressing a button on a control console. The acrylic pod in which your bedroom is located is transparent so that you can look out into the coral gardens and the sea beyond. Probably not for those with a fear of deep water or claustrophobic tendencies.
via Popscivideo/Youtube
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