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The Treehotel is a group of unusual tree houses in northern Sweden that guests can rent. All six sides of this one are mirrored, creating beautiful images as the sky and trees reflect on the surface. Others look like a bird’s nest and a flying saucer.
Link -via My Modern Met | Official Website | Photo: Peter Lundstrom
Launched in 1972, the Kiev was once the pride of the Soviet Navy. But in need of cash, Russia and Ukraine sold it and another carrier called the Varyag to China. Although the Varyag is at sea, China has converted the Kiev into a luxury hotel:
This is the Kiev, currently anchored in the Chinese port of Tianjin. Once she was the flagship of the mighty Soviet navy’s Pacific fleet. Now she’s available for business retreats, intimate getaways or simple relaxation.
That’s because the Chinese have bought the aircraft carrier and transformed her into a floating luxury hotel.
The Kiev will stay permanently docked. Much as a Soviet-era sailor might resent the indignity, Kiev won’t go back out to sea. She’ll entertain guests and clients at anchor, a bizarre museum to a different country’s naval power.
View a slideshow of the hotel’s fancy interiors at the link.
Slideshow and News Story -via DVICE | Photo: Xinhua
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No, the room heater isn’t broken. It’s just that cold. Every year, the Hôtel de Glace is erected in Quebec City, Quebec out of 500,000 tons of ice and 15,000 tons of snow. It includes up to thirty-six rooms that guests can rent as well as a combination dining room and chapel.
Link -via My Modern Met | Official Website | Photo: Luc Rousseau
These pods are moored in a canal in The Hague. They used to be oil rig life rafts, but now they serve as hotel rooms. Except for an exterior lock and a chemical toilet, they remain in their original state. This way, you can get the true life raft-in-a-canal experience!
Denis Oudendijk, the owner, established this business in 2004 as an art project. He plans to expand it to include pods in Amsterdam and Nantes.
Link -via The Presurfer | Photo: Unusual Hotels of the World
BuzzFeed has a great list of cool hotel rooms, and while most of them have stunning interiors, I have to say that this cow-shaped room is the one that really caught my attention. It’s apparently in Belgium, but I couldn’t find much else about it. Anyone care to fill me in?
This time-lapse video shows workers in Changsha, China building a 15-story hotel in six days:
The Ark Hotel, constructed with optimal energy, material and time savings, was reportedly not only more efficient but cheaper to make. Industry experts said there was only 1 percent construction waste.
The sustainable hotel already had its foundation so construction workers only took 46 hours to finish the building using pre-fabricated columns and modules as well as modern construction techniques. Once the main structural components were completed, only another 90 hours were required to finish the building enclosure.
Link via J-Walk Blog
Prisons make the perfect hotels? One wouldn’t think so but here are some examples of hellish old prisons from around the world that have been converted into hotels. Ranging from your basic hostels to ultra luxurious accomodations. Talk about your haunted hotel! Link
The hotel chain Best Western released a list of the oddest requests made by customers over the past year. Here’s are a few examples:
Another customer, who had been tasked with arranging a lawnmower convention, enquired about the possibility of mowing the grounds of the hotel, so guests could try out the various models on display.
One group of animal-lovers requested reiki classes for their pets, and another asked for a host of twin rooms, so guests and their dogs could each have their own bed.
A support group for sex addicts, meanwhile, demanded a selection of single rooms, and a member of staff to ensure each delegate made it to bed alone.
Link | Photo via Flickr user beccapie used under Creative Commons license
Catherine Price’s new book 101 Places Not to See Before You Die is something like a reverse bucket list. It’s about the world’s most pointless or disgusting tourist traps that you should desperately avoid. One is the Karostas Cietums Prison Hotel in Lativa. It’s a prison that has been minimally converted into a hotel:
“It’s not like they took the prison and tried to like spice it up and turn it into a luxury resort,” Price explains — it really looks like a prison.
The hotel boasts that 150 people were shot there. “Ever since the first years of its existence it has been a place to break people’s lives and suppress their free will,” the hotel’s website explains.
“Guests” of the prison sleep on iron beds or prison bunks. For an extra-special occasion, you can arrange to be abducted at your workplace and delivered to the hotel.
What place would add to such a list?
Link | Image: Catherine Price
Densha otaku are people in Japan who are fascinated with trains. To appeal to their tastes, the Washington Hotel in Akihabara has built an elaborate model train set in a hotel room:
Of course the guest can play with model trains along the thirty-meter track (there are apparently two authentic controllers, so friends can drive the trains together) and even the real thing — the Shinkansen line and Akiba station — is visible from the room’s window.
Though it is possible to rent from the hotel, the Nikkei Marketing Journal reports that many guests bring their own trains to use on the four-line track. The first to stay over was a 23 year-old company employee, followed by a man in his eighties. But there have also been mothers with their kids, so it’s not just strange guys with train obsessions!
The train room opened in June and costs from 23,000 JPY ($265) per night. If you want to make a reservation you will have to wait up to a month!
Video at the link.
Link via OhGizmo! | Photo: Japan Trends
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When we travel, we often want to stay in the best hotels money can buy, but really, what is the fun in that? The Hotel De Vrouwe van Stavoren Friesland in the Netherlands is built from huge 4,500 liter wine casks! It is just one of eight weird hotels in which you can book a room, but call ahead because some of these are very popular.
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Take a look at a dozen of the most beautiful castles in Canada. Some are government buildings, some were built to attract tourists, and some are private creations by some of Canada’s wealthiest citizens. Best of all, some are open to the public, so you can go see them for yourself! Shown is Château Frontenac in Quebec City.
(image credit: Bernard Gagnon)
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Tom Schifanella collects classic luggage labels and shares them through his Flickr stream. A suitcase covered with these is a sign of a life grandly lived.
Luggage labels are fascinating bits of hotel history from the golden age of travel, roughly the 1900′s to 1960′s. During this time these labels were used by hotels as advertising and eagerly applied to steamer trunks, suitcases and all sorts of luggage by hotel staff, mainly bellhops.
Today, these same labels are highly desirable and sought after by collectors all over the world. Many of the designs were produced by some of the best poster designers from the golden age of travel like Roger Broders, Jan Lavies and Mario Borgoni.
You could spend all day browsing this collection! Link -via Nag on the Lake
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Welcome to the Hello Kitty Castle in Taiwan. It can help take care of all of your cute needs. The gallery has some amazingly cute things in it, including food garnished with a Hello Kitty chocolate dusting.
Link Via Cute Overload
