26 Unusual Hotel Designs: Glass Igloos, Tree Rooms and Underwater Views

An unusual hotel can be a highlight of a trip, but the photograph rarely explains the whole night. How warm is the room? Where is the bathroom? Is the experience available in every season, and does it belong to the room you have actually booked?

The twenty-six stays in this collection include individual rooms, whole properties and experiences that cannot all be booked in the same way. Begin with six examples in more detail, then explore the full design gallery below. Choose the feature that matters to you and check how it affects the rest of the stay: a glass roof, an underground setting and a room among trees each raise different questions about everyday comfort.

1. Glass igloos: a view of the sky

Kakslauttanen in Finnish Lapland is known for its glass-roofed accommodation. The appeal is being able to look outward while sheltered, especially during the darker part of the year.

Check the resort’s current room descriptions for the exact layout, bathroom arrangements and occupancy. Northern lights depend on darkness, cloud and solar conditions; no room can guarantee them. Choose dates and activities you would enjoy even if the sky stays quiet.

2. Ice rooms: make the sleeping experience part of the plan

Sweden’s ICEHOTEL offers a distinctive relationship between art and accommodation. The official site distinguishes its different cold and warm experiences, which is more useful than thinking of the whole property as one type of room.

Read the sleeping guidance and ask how luggage, changing and bathroom access work. Consider how a cold-room night fits with the rest of your stay. The most comfortable plan may combine different room types rather than spending every night the same way.

3. Underwater rooms: check the exact property and product

An underwater bedroom and an underwater restaurant are very different bookings. The Manta Resort’s Underwater Room is associated with Pemba Island, while other well-known underwater experiences are in the Maldives.

Our updated Manta Resort article explains the property context, and the Ithaa restaurant guide covers a dining experience. Confirm transfers, overnight arrangements and the actual space included. A photograph of fish at a window does not identify the island or the booking category on its own.

4. Tree accommodation: design affects everyday comfort

Treehotel in Sweden offers individually designed accommodation rather than one standard treehouse repeated across the property. Our Treehotel guide introduces the different architectural ideas.

Ask about the route from reception, steps, luggage and the room’s facilities. The feature that makes a room exciting in a photograph—a suspended structure or a secluded position—may also affect how you move in and out of it throughout the day.

5. Giraffe Manor: understand the managed wildlife setting

Giraffe Manor near Nairobi is known for the presence of giraffes around the property. The operator’s own information explains the stay and its managed setting.

Follow staff guidance around the animals and avoid treating a close encounter as a performance that must happen exactly as it did in someone else’s photograph. Check which experiences belong to your reservation and how the stay connects with the rest of your Kenya itinerary.

6. Southern Ocean Lodge: make sure you are viewing the current building

Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island was rebuilt after the loss of the original lodge and reopened in December 2023. Its current website shows the new iteration.

Older galleries may depict the earlier building. Match room plans, facilities and inclusions to the present property, especially when the architecture is a major reason for choosing it.

Choose the experience you will enjoy after the photograph

Make a short list of your essentials: privacy, temperature, bathroom access, mobility, meals and transport. Then check how the unusual feature fits around them. For a pool-focused stay, continue with five distinctive resort pool settings. A special room should work for your whole visit, not only its first five minutes.

The US hotel comparison applies these questions to five stays with different locations and purposes.

The full design collection

The twenty-six entries include whole properties, individual rooms and specialist overnight experiences. The original photographs document the featured designs, not current booking availability. A hotel’s distinctive room should not be mistaken for the type supplied with every reservation.

1–5. Glass, water, wildlife and stone

Kakslauttanen’s glass accommodation, the Manta Resort’s underwater room, Giraffe Manor, the Fairy Chimney hotel setting and Bambu Indah’s Udang House open the sequence. The Manta room is associated with Pemba in the Zanzibar archipelago, rather than the main island being the only possible meaning of Zanzibar. Udang’s glass floor looks into a pond; that is a different design from a submerged bedroom.

6–10. Themed rooms and suspended spaces

The Georgian House’s wizard-themed rooms in London, Montaña Mágica in Chile, the Äscher cliffside setting in Switzerland, Free Spirit Spheres in Canada and Attrap’Rêves in France each use enclosure differently. A themed interior creates an imagined world; a sphere or transparent bubble changes how a guest relates to the real surroundings. None of these designs guarantees a particular weather or wildlife experience.

11–15. Forest shelters, ice, mirrors and reused buildings

Kolarbyn, ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi, Treehotel’s Mirrorcube, Sala Silvermine and Martin’s Patershof show how materials can define a stay. Forest shelters and ice rooms differ from a mirrored tree structure, an underground setting and a former church.

16–20. Ocean, stacked façades and imaginative interiors

Conrad Maldives Rangali Island includes the underwater dining setting featured in the old article; a restaurant is not automatically an underwater guest room. Inntel Hotels Amsterdam Zaandam is the property shown in the Zaandam entry. Southern Ocean Lodge, Hằng Nga Guesthouse and the V8 Hotel complete this group with three very different approaches to landscape and theme.

21–26. Treehouses, urban rooms and playful shapes

Kingston and Chalkley are separate Lion Sands treehouse entries. Wanderlust in Singapore, Tubohotel in Mexico, the historical Batcave-themed room in Taiwan and Dog Bark Park Inn in Idaho close the collection. The cylindrical rooms of Tubohotel and the dog-shaped Idaho building make their exterior form part of the experience.

Look at the room before imagining the stay

Ask what the design changes in practice: the amount of daylight, privacy, access to a bathroom, connection with the outdoors or separation from other rooms. These questions reveal more than an unusual exterior alone. A striking photograph often leaves ordinary facilities outside the frame.

Use the credited photographs to compare how these designs work with their surroundings. A sphere is visibly separate from the trees supporting it; a former church carries traces of another use; a lodge frames a broad landscape. If one catches your imagination, follow the named property's current information to the specific room. That extra step connects the appealing image with the layout, facilities and arrival arrangements you would actually experience.