The Cabin treehouse at Treehotel in Sweden
Peter Lundström / WDO

10 of the World's Weirdest Hotel Rooms

What do you look for in a hotel? A pool? Free Wi-Fi? Rooms in a giant pineapple? If you answered yes to that last question, then this is the list for you. We’ve scoured the globe to find some of the most unconventional lodgings imaginable, designed for travelers who have grown bored with sleeping between four walls and long instead to stay inside a repurposed double-decker bus, a manmade mountain, or a two-story-tall wooden beagle. After all, if travel is all about trying something different, you might as well try something really different.
Inside Jumbo Stay, a hostel housed in a grounded airplane in Stockholm
Jumbo Stay
Grounded Airplanes
Airplane cabins seem to get more cramped all the time, but it turns out they feel a lot roomier when you take out the seats. Your options for overnight stays in gutted, grounded jets span both ends of the price spectrum: At the more affordable end, there’s Jumbo Stay, a hostel with a fresh, contemporary look aboard a Boeing 747 at Sweden’s Arlanda Airport just outside Stockholm. Guests—er, passengers—can hang out in a brightly colored bar and café (pictured) before retiring to one of 33 rooms, including a suite in the cockpit.

For an aviation-themed splurge, on the other hand, you can opt for the two-bedroom suite aboard a retired Boeing 727 at the Hotel Costa Verde in Costa Rica. Surrounded by lush tropical gardens and filled with hand-carved teak furnishings, the room features a kitchenette, a private entrance, and views of both the ocean and the jungle from a terrace over the right wing.
The Magic Mountain Hotel in Chile
Tony Guyton/Flickr
An Artificial Mountain
Standing amid a lush forest in southern Chile’s Huilo-Huilo Biological Reserve, the Magic Mountain Hotel wouldn't be out of place in The Lord of the Rings. Built with stones, moss, and other local materials, the cone-shaped lodge resembles a kind of cozy volcano, with inviting windows from the hotel’s 12 rooms built into the sides. Perhaps the most surprising feature: the waterfall that spouts from the top and runs down the facade.
Inside the hotel room converted from a double-decker London bus at the South Causey Inn in County Durham, England
Instagram/@south_causey_inn
A Double-Decker London Bus
Let's say you want to spend the night inside an iconic symbol of London. The royal residences are likely unavailable until you can get Prince Harry to return your calls. And there's probably a night watchman at the British Museum to expel you if you linger past closing. A better alternative: Book a stay at the South Causey Inn in County Durham, England, where one of London’s classic, red double-decker buses has been converted into a swanky hotel room. The two-story accommodation has one bedroom, a living room, a large bathroom, and even a hot tub out back. A few of the vehicle's original features remain, too, including the steering wheel and some seats.
Idaho's Dog Bark Park Inn is a giant wooden beagle.
Alan Levine/Flickr
A Giant Beagle
This B&B in Cottonwood, Idaho, brings new meaning to being put in the doghouse. Known as the Dog Bark Park Inn, it’s a two-story wooden beagle built by the owners, who also keep a gallery of canines carved from wood with chainsaws. The place is a throwback to the days before hotel chains standardized roadside lodgings and motorists could spend the night in kitschy castles, concrete teepees, and other oddball structures. Inside the body of the pooch, you’ll find dog-shaped cookies, a bedroom decorated with more homemade carvings, and a loft in the head. Yes, pets are allowed for a small fee—though your cat might object on principle.
Airstream trailers at the rooftop Notel Melbourne in Australia
Instagram/@notelmelbourne
A Rooftop Trailer Park
Airstream trailers are intrinsically stylish, with their chrome finish and curvilinear, midcentury-modern look. So they’re a natural fit for getting the vehicle-converted-to-lodgings treatment from hoteliers aiming to make their businesses look sleek as well as distinctive. You can find several Airstream inns throughout the world, especially in the American West, where they conjure images of cross-country road trips on Route 66. The Notel Melbourne is different—it’s located right in the middle of that Australian city, on top of an otherwise nondescript parking garage. The hotel's six trailers are shiny and metallic on the outside with minimalist, pink-tinged interiors; one unit has its own hot tub. They're all grouped around a red-carpeted communal deck with good views of the skyline and a vibe akin to the coolest trailer park you could possibly imagine.
UFO treehouse at the Treehotel in Sweden
Peter Lundström / WDO
A Floating UFO
Whereas most of the hotels on this list have only a single offbeat edifice, the Treehotel in northern Sweden’s remote Lule River Valley has a whole forestful. The business specializes in eerily beautiful luxury treehouses that put to shame the rickety perches you might remember from childhood. Our favorite is the UFO (pictured) because we’ve seen Steven Spielberg's E.T. a few too many times, but other striking creations—including a giant bird’s nest and a “Mirrorcube” covered in reflective glass—are designed to blend seamlessly into the scenery.
The SpongeBob SquarePants suite, shaped like a giant pineapple, at the Nickelodeon resort in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Instagram/@nickresortpuntacana
A Giant Pineapple
It's not quite living in a pineapple under the sea, but it's as close as you're likely to get. At the Nickelodeon-themed beach resort in the Dominican Republic, you can stay in a two-bedroom, three-bathroom luxury suite built to resemble the home of everybody's favorite absorbent hero, SpongeBob SquarePants. (To be fair, his only real competition for that title is the Brawny man.) Though inspired by the beloved cartoon, the colorful suite is a notch or two above what you'd find in Bikini Bottom. It comes with 1,500 square feet of space, a private pool, butler service, and your own cupcake bar.
The Null Stern Hotel, a double bed in the open air in the Swiss Alps
Atelier für Sonderaufgaben
The Open Air
For unbeatable views of the Swiss Alps unimpeded by pesky obstacles like, say, walls, consider a stay at the Null Stern Hotel. Created by conceptual artists Frank and Patrik Riklin—brothers whose previous work includes a hotel in an underground nuclear bunker—the Null Stern (or “no-star”) property is nothing more or less than a double bed in the middle of an alpine valley near the town of Safiental. In addition to the scenery, stays come with butler service, so guests aren’t exactly roughing it. For obvious reasons, the bed is only available for booking in the summer months.
Inside the Liberty Hotel, converted from a Boston jail
Flickr/P
Jail
Among the famous people who have stayed at this Boston landmark: civil rights leader Malcolm X and accused anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti. They weren’t hotel guests, though: From 1851 to 1990, the place was known as the Charles Street Jail. Following a multimillion-dollar rehab, the building reopened in 2007 as hip, luxury lodgings ironically dubbed the Liberty Hotel. Despite the overhaul, many original features remain, including a showstopping 90-foot central rotunda lined with stylish guest rooms where blocks of cells used to be. There are references to the building’s past in the form of key-themed artwork and bars with names like Alibi and Clink.
CasAnus, a Belgian hotel room designed to look like a model of the lower intestine
Verbeke Foundation
A Giant Replica of the Lower Intestine
And now we come to the end. The rear end. Located on the grounds of the Verbeke Foundation, an exhibition space in northern Belgium, CasAnus is a hotel room designed by Dutch artist Joep Van Lieshout to look like the lowermost part of the lower intestine. Though the exterior might turn your stomach, the room is downright cozy (though spare) inside, with a double bed set amid rounded, whitewashed walls. We’ll say this for the artist: he’s got guts.
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