BestUnique Hotels

Sixteen tented pavilions on red desert dunes, each with an unobstructed view of Uluru from inside. The premium Dune Pavilion also looks out to Kata Tjuta. Guests watch the monolith shift from ochre to deep red at sunset without leaving the tent.

Palacio de Sal describes itself as the world's first salt hotel. It stands at the edge of Salar de Uyuni, about 25 kilometres from Uyuni, with salt blocks and salt-finished surfaces shaping guestrooms, passageways, dining spaces and sculptural details.

Three bookable wooden and fibreglass spheres — Eryn, Melody and Luna — hang in a coastal rainforest from rope systems inspired by nautical rigging. Each has its own interior plan and materials, and the suspended design allows the structure to move gently with the surrounding trees.

North America's only hotel made entirely of ice and snow, reconstructed each winter at Village Vacances Valcartier. The 2026 edition used about 3,000 ice blocks and 35,000 tons of snow across a 53,000-square-foot site, with 30 regular and themed suites plus an ice bar, chapel, restaurant and grand hall.

A 50-room all-inclusive lodge on a 42-acre estate in the Atacama, designed by Chilean architect José Cruz Ovalle. The only hotel in the area with its own horses, and with exclusive access to the Puritama Hot Springs conservation reserve. On-site stargazing observatory.

Luxury safari-style canvas tents sit on stilts above a reforested hillside overlooking Arenal Volcano. The standard tents accommodate couples or families and include a private pool fed by mineral hot springs; larger family tents, grand tents and residences expand the same indoor-outdoor design for groups.

A glass-and-steel lodge inside the 3,200-acre Mashpi Reserve, where cloud forest and tropical rainforest overlap in the Chocó biodiversity hotspot. Guests can travel through the canopy on the Dragonfly Gondola, and the reserve reports encounters with up to 400 bird species.

The world's most recognized glass igloo resort: thermal-glass igloos with a fully transparent roof for watching the Northern Lights from bed without leaving your covers. Houses the world's largest smoke sauna. Open year-round; summer offers midnight sun.

Eighteen guest rooms carved into ancient cave dwellings in the oldest district of Matera, a UNESCO World Heritage city. The caves retain their original stone walls, floors, and forms — no imitation materials. A former church on-site serves as an exclusive dining room.

A 17-floor ryokan in central Tokyo: guests change into yukatas at the entrance, leave their shoes, and move through the building on tatami. Each floor has a communal living room in the style of a traditional inn. The rooftop onsen operates at night, with city views. The kaiseki breakfast is served in the room each morning. Shoes go back on only when leaving.

A 1930s Scottish manor house in Nairobi where a resident herd of endangered Nubian giraffe visit at breakfast and in the evening, poking their heads through open windows to reach the pellets guests leave on sills. Part of an active giraffe breeding and reintroduction programme.

The world's first two-level undersea residence: two overwater bedrooms above the lagoon and one master bedroom 5 metres below the surface inside a 180-degree acrylic dome surrounded by coral and reef fish. Opened 2018; requires 2–6 months advance booking.

Handcrafted villas rise through tropical vegetation along the Tulum coast, using curving wood, bamboo, stone and suspended walkways to create the property's organic form. The former blanket no-technology description is no longer accurate: current villa listings include power outlets and Wi-Fi, and several include air conditioning, so compare amenities for the exact villa before booking.

Seven glass-box rooms cantilevered on stilts over the Valldøla River in the Norangsdalen valley, each facing a different direction into the landscape so that each room sees a completely different view. The architecture is designed to disappear: no room can see another. Juvet achieved international recognition as the filming location for Alex Garland's Ex Machina (2015). Open year-round; the landscape transforms between snow, autumn colour, and midnight sun.

Eighty-six suites and villas perched at 2,000 metres above sea level on the razor edge of a deep forked canyon in Oman's Al Hajar Mountains. The architecture camouflages into the clifftop; the view is directly into a dramatic desert gorge with no railing between guest terraces and the drop.

Three polycarbonate and aerospace-aluminium capsules bolted directly into a granite cliff face 400 metres above the Sacred Valley. Each pod is 7.5 metres long with 300-degree panoramic views. There is no road up; guests arrive by via ferrata or zipline.

Twenty-nine "sanctuaries," each with only three walls — the fourth is entirely open to a direct, unobstructed view of the UNESCO World Heritage Pitons and the Caribbean Sea. Each suite has its own private infinity pool. The jungle air and birdsong are part of the room.

Fifteen glass-walled loft suites cantilevered over the N'wanetsi River on a private 33,000-acre concession in Kruger. Timber walkways between buildings mean game — including lions and leopards — routinely pass within metres of guests. The architecture is modelled on an eagle's nest.

The world's first ice hotel, rebuilt annually since 1990 from blocks of ice and snow taken from the Torne River. Guest artists design each room anew each season. ICEHOTEL 365 keeps a permanently refrigerated wing open year-round for those who visit in summer.

Nine architecturally distinct forest rooms make up the current collection, from the reflective Mirrorcube and birdhouse-covered Biosphere to the sauna-and-hot-tub-equipped Oasis, opened in August 2026. The Bird's Nest, UFO, 7th Room, Dragonfly, Blue Cone and Cabin complete the lineup.

A small red Swedish cottage floating on Lake Mälaren with a hatch in the floor leading to a 25-square-metre bedroom 3 metres below the surface, with panorama windows on all four sides. Created by artist Mikael Genberg in 2000; sleeps two. Intentionally rustic.

Geodesic dome pods and themed suites sit at 1,400 metres in the Swiss Alps, with views across the valley toward the Dents-du-Midi peaks. The current accommodation range spans cosy and family pods through deluxe, forest, Swiss and Japanese-inspired suites, so layouts and amenities vary.

A three-storey floating suite moored 250 metres offshore in a marine conservation area. The bedroom sits 4 metres below the ocean surface, encased in near-360-degree glass panels. Spotlights illuminate the reef through the night; guests fall asleep watching fish they cannot name.

A 38-villa resort with four villa typologies; the signature Bird's Nest Pool Villas are woven-wood cocoons suspended in the rainforest canopy with a glass facade opening to floor-to-ceiling Andaman Sea views. Each 185-square-metre nest has its own private infinity pool.

A village-like hotel adapted from restored stone mansions, caves, cellars and underground passages on the slope below Uçhisar Castle. Its Bezirhane — a historic vaulted space once used to produce linseed oil — now hosts concerts, dinners and private events, while guestrooms are distributed across distinct mansions.

A five-star hotel comprising six 5th- and 6th-century cave dwellings plus a 19th-century Greek mansion, converted into 46 individually designed rooms cut into the volcanic tufa cliffs above Ürgüp. Near the UNESCO-listed Göreme Open-Air Museum.

A single-unit cave dwelling excavated from Tertiary Ojo Alamo sandstone, now operated as a bed and breakfast. The entrance is 70 feet below the cliff top; the roughly 1,700-square-foot interior includes a full kitchen, rock waterfall shower and Jacuzzi, with views about 300 feet down to the La Plata River valley.

Converted from the Charles Street Jail (built 1851), one of the finest examples of Boston Granite School architecture. The original rotunda and cell block structure are preserved and visible throughout the 300-room luxury hotel. Former inmates include Whitey Bulger and Frank Abagnale. Reopened as a hotel in 2007.

A 113-acre Relais & Châteaux resort with 18 cottages each designed by a different architect with a completely different concept. The Helicopter Cottage houses a real decommissioned U.S. Coast Guard Sikorsky HH-3F Pelican rescue helicopter as the room's centrepiece. The Treehouse Cottage is 35 feet off the ground.