The 10 strangest hotels in the world include Sweden’s Icehotel, rebuilt every winter from the ice of the Torne river since 1989, the underwater residence The Muraka in the Maldives, a salt palace in Bolivia, a former military prison in Latvia, and suites built inside a harbour crane in Amsterdam. These are real, bookable properties, with rates ranging from €20 to over 50,000 dollars a night.
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Why strange hotels work
Before the ranking, a useful premise for anyone who works in hospitality professionally: all these hotels sell the same thing, a story. Nobody sleeps at minus eight degrees on a block of ice for comfort’s sake: they do it to be able to tell people about it. It’s the extreme version of a principle that also applies to a twenty-room property in a historic town centre: identity is remembered, neutrality isn’t. The same principle guides the design of a boutique hotel, where the character of the furniture is as much part of the product as the bed.
The top 10 strangest hotels
1. Icehotel, Jukkasjärvi, Sweden
The original. Since 1989, every November, in the village of Jukkasjärvi, 200 kilometres above the Arctic Circle, artists from around the world carve rooms and suites from blocks of ice taken from the Torne river. In spring the hotel melts and returns to the river, with a different design every year. The indoor temperature stays between minus five and minus eight degrees, and guests sleep on beds covered in reindeer hide inside thermal sleeping bags. Since 2016 there’s also been a permanent, solar-cooled section open all year round.
2. The Muraka, Conrad Maldives Rangali Island
Opened in 2018, it’s the world’s first hotel residence with an underwater bedroom: the main suite sits around 5 metres below the surface of the Indian Ocean, with a transparent dome above the bed and fish in place of a ceiling. The upper level, above water, has an infinity pool and sun deck.
3. Palacio de Sal, Uyuni, Bolivia
On the edge of the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world, stands a hotel built from salt bricks: walls, ceilings, sculptures and much of the furniture, beds included, are made of pressed salt, and the floors are covered in a crunchy granular layer. House rule: don’t lick the walls.
4. Giraffe Manor, Nairobi, Kenya
A 1930s manor house set within a sanctuary for Rothschild’s giraffes. The strangeness isn’t the building, elegant and classic, but the neighbours: morning and evening, the giraffes poke their necks through the breakfast room windows looking for a snack, offering the most photographed breakfast on the continent.
5. Karosta Prison Hotel, Liepaja, Latvia
A former military prison from the early twentieth century, which passed through the Tsarist, Nazi and Soviet eras, now open for visits and overnight bookings. The “inmate” experience includes barred cells, iron cots, prison rations and uniformed guards giving orders, after signing a liability waiver. It’s considered one of the most extreme places to stay in Europe, at hostel prices.
6. Crane Hotel Faralda, Amsterdam
Three luxury suites built inside a decommissioned harbour crane at the NDSM shipyard, around 50 metres up, with a panoramic hot tub at the top. The crane cabin can still rotate with the wind. A textbook example of industrial reuse taken to the extreme.
7. Kakslauttanen Arctic Resort, Finland
The resort that made glass igloos famous: heated transparent domes at the heart of Finnish Lapland, designed for watching the northern lights from bed. It has spawned dozens of imitations across the Alps and Scandinavia.
8. Capsule hotels, Japan
The first, the Capsule Inn in Osaka, designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa, opened in 1979: capsules of about 2 by 1.25 metres, stacked on two levels, designed for commuters who’d missed the last train. Today chains such as Nine Hours have turned the concept into a minimalist design product, with rates from €20 to €50 a night. It’s the hotel stripped to its essential core: a bed, silence, a shared bathroom.
9. Free Spirit Spheres, Vancouver Island, Canada
Three spheres of wood and fibreglass suspended on cables among the trees of a Canadian rainforest, reached by spiral staircases and suspended bridges. Internal diameter of around 3 metres, gentle swaying included: the grown-up, engineered version of a treehouse.
10. Hotel Costa Verde, Costa Rica
In a jungle resort near Manuel Antonio park, a suite has been built inside the fuselage of a 1965 Boeing 727, salvaged, decontaminated and hoisted onto a 15-metre pedestal among the treetops, with two bedrooms and a terrace overlooking the sea. The interiors are clad in teak.
Summary table: where they are and what they cost
| Hotel | Country | Distinctive feature | Indicative price per night |
|---|---|---|---|
| Icehotel | Sweden | Rebuilt in ice every year | €300-600 |
| The Muraka | Maldives | Underwater room, 5 metres down | around $50,000 |
| Palacio de Sal | Bolivia | Built from salt bricks | €150-250 |
| Giraffe Manor | Kenya | Giraffes at the window | over €1,000 |
| Karosta Prison | Latvia | Former military prison | €20-50 |
| Faralda Crane Hotel | Netherlands | Suites in a harbour crane | €500-1,000 |
| Kakslauttanen | Finland | Glass igloos under the northern lights | €400-700 |
| Nine Hours and similar | Japan | 2-metre capsules | €20-50 |
| Free Spirit Spheres | Canada | Spheres suspended among the trees | €250-400 |
| Hotel Costa Verde | Costa Rica | Suite in a Boeing 727 | €400-800 |
What they teach about hospitality design
Behind the strangeness lie concrete lessons, ones that apply to far more traditional projects too.
Melting ice, a decommissioned crane, an aircraft fuselage: every property on this list comes from a limitation that someone decided to turn into a theme instead of hiding it, and the same reasoning applies to a fourteen-square-metre room or a historic building where every window is a different shape. A constraint, when designed around, becomes character. Comfort, though, is never compromised: even at minus eight degrees, the Icehotel works hard on mattresses, insulation and the rituals used to warm guests up. The strangeness drives the booking, but comfort decides the review, and nobody goes back to a place where they spent the night with their teeth chattering.
The fastest-growing segment puts nature in place of eccentricity: glass igloos, spheres suspended in trees, panoramic lodges. In Italy the same movement shows up in glamping and lodges, where the furniture project has to withstand humidity, temperature swings and installation in places reachable only by small vehicles. And all of it then needs maintaining: salt air, altitude and tropical humidity test materials and finishes exactly as they do for anyone furnishing a mountain refuge, where a panel left to acclimatise in the cold before fitting warps before it’s even installed.
There’s a final lesson in method too: none of these projects was furnished from a catalogue. Spheres, capsules and ice suites exist because someone designed and built made-to-measure furniture for a space unlike any other. It’s the same approach a contract partner with a selected supply chain of Italian workshops applies, with less ice and more everyday practicality, to attic rooms, historic buildings and non-standard floor areas.
How much it costs to sleep in an unusual hotel
The range is enormous, and that’s the most interesting figure: from €20 for a Japanese capsule or a Latvian cell to $50,000 for an underwater night in the Maldives. Strangeness alone doesn’t set the price: rarity, service and comfort level do. The Icehotel, though unique in the world, stays under €600 because the night is objectively spartan; The Muraka costs a hundred times as much because it combines uniqueness with grand-luxury service, the same ground on which the ranking of the most luxurious hotel in the world plays out.
At the opposite extreme from wonder sits its opposite: hotel buildings that became famous for the wrong reasons, as we cover in the article on the ugliest hotel in the world. And for anyone who prefers longevity records to strangeness, there’s the thousand-year story of the oldest hotel in the world.
Frequently asked questions
Do ice hotels exist?
Yes. The most famous is the Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, rebuilt every winter since 1989 from blocks of ice taken from the Torne river and melted every spring. The indoor temperature stays between minus five and minus eight degrees, and guests sleep on reindeer hides inside thermal sleeping bags. Similar properties also exist in Finland, Norway and Canada.
Can you sleep underwater?
Yes, in a handful of properties worldwide. The most famous is The Muraka at Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, opened in 2018, with the master bedroom around 5 metres below the ocean’s surface and a transparent dome above the bed. The rate is around $50,000 a night.
How much does a night in an unusual hotel cost?
It depends more on the service than the strangeness: a Japanese capsule or a cell at the Karosta Prison Hotel costs €20-50, the Swedish Icehotel €300-600, Finnish glass igloos €400-700, while unique luxury experiences such as the underwater suite in the Maldives exceed $50,000 a night.
What’s the strangest hotel in Italy?
Italy doesn’t hold an official record, but it offers plenty of unusual properties: scattered hotels in historic villages, former convents and monasteries, trulli, dammusi, wine barrels converted into rooms in wine-growing areas, and seasonal alpine igloos at altitude. The scattered-hotel model, born in Italy, is regarded abroad as one of the most original ideas in hospitality.
