Unusual Hotels of the World Guide
Offbeat Places to Stay in Europe, Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania
The Unusual Hotels of the World Guide lists 50 hotels in 23 countries, from a bullring in Mexico to trains, planes, cranes, lighthouses, caves, tree-houses & TV towers.
So what's special about the Unusual Hotels of the World Guide by Steve Dobson? What makes it different from all the other hotel guides? Well, for a start it's a hotel guide that you might actually want to read, and which will inspire you with ideas instead of sitting on the bookshelf or in the glove compartment until you need it.
The Unusual Hotels of the World Guide lists 50 hotels in 23 different countries, which range in price from 20-1000 euros per night, and which provide some amazing ideas of places to stay that are truly different. They're all hotels, every one of them, which could reverse the usual way of choosing a vacation. Instead of choosing your destination first and then finding somewhere to stay, you would choose your unusual hotel and base a holiday around the sheer fun of staying there.
These quirky and wacky hotels can be found in Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Panama, Senegal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. You can stay in bull-rings, trains, planes, cranes, lighthouses, caves, tree-houses, oil rig platforms, chapels, prisons, igloos and TV towers.
Only two hotels in the UK are listed, which is surprising given Britain's record for eccentricity, but the two hotels couldn't be more different. One is the Old Railway Station at Petworth in West Sussex where you can stay in the old Colonial splendour of restored Orient Express Pullman railway carriages, or in the original station house. By contrast, the Pavilion Hotel near Hyde Park in London is a rock 'n' roll fashion hotel whose guests have included Bryan Ferry, Duran Duran, Courtney Pine, Kate Moss and Pete Doherty – although Pete Doherty is apparently banned after holding a gig in his bedroom. It must have been some gig.
Canada also has two hotels listed: The Ice Hotel in Quebec and the floating King Pacific Lodge (www.kingpacificlodge.com) in the British Columbia wilderness. In the USA there's Saugerties Lighthouse on the Hudson River, Jules' Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, and Winvian in Connecticut where you can sleep in a tree or in a helicoopter. South of the border in Mexico the Quinta Real Zacatecas is a luxury hotel converted from the Zacatecas bullring.
And these are just the tip of the iceberg – oh yes, you can stay in an igloo in Switzerland, an ice hotel in Sweden, a pagoda surrounded by hippos in Kenya or on top of a TV tower in Rotterdam.
Unusual Hotels of the World is also a handsomely-produced book, and most hotels get several pages devoted to them, with lots of color photos so you can see exactly what the experience will be like. There's a lengthy description, details of what there is to do in the area, contact details, current prices and information on how to get there. Unusual Hotels of the World is unusual in itself – a hotel guide that you actually want to read, and wish it was longer.
Unusual Hotels of the World by Steve Dobson is published on 2nd January 2008 at €24.90 by Jonglez Publishing.
There are more inspiring and amazing unusual hotels on the author's website.
