Camping has traditionally brought sophisticated urban dwellers out in hives, but the emergence of glamping—a hybrid of “glamor” and “camping”—has changed things. Now, luxurious yurt and tepee sites boast 100% cotton bedding, organic welcome hampers and indecently abundent tea lights. So no more struggling with a tent and airbed!
Glamping sites range from little more than a pre-erected tent with simple Ikea furnishings to something more akin to an upmarket hotel. Along the way many have missed the point—either too basic or too plush and removed from the natural surroundings.
Here is a look at five luxury camping sites that have achieved the perfect blend, providing absolute immersion in the great outdoors whilst maintaining a just-so degree of indulgence and luxury:
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Imagine the fun you can having suddenly appearing to the people walking below à la Harry Potter throwing off his cloak of invisibility.
Dude, where’s my treehouse hotel?
That’s not the title of a bad sequel to an Ashton Kutcher movie of a similar name. It’s what you might be saying to your room mate were you and he guests at the Treehotel in Harads, Sweden. That’s because two of the accommodations options at the Treehotel are invisible.
Really!
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To reserve an entire restaurant for you and your date you have to be exceedingly wealthy. That, or find an exceedingly small restaurant.
Here are three restaurants that consist entirely of one table. Each is in Europe. And each claims to be the world’s smallest restaurant. Which one deserves that dubious title? You be the judge:
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Spot Cool Stuff’s single favorite piece of travel writing, the David Foster Wallace essay A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, is a humorous accounting of the absurd side of taking a cruise—that part of cruising in which overweight Hawaiian shirt-wearing passengers are herded between crowded shuffleboard tables, bad buffets and overpriced tourist-trap shore excursions.
Your next cruise needn’t be like that. Your cruise can (and should!) be a fun thing you’ll want to do again. And that fun, interesting cruise can also represent an excellent travel value. Our tips for finding cool, yet affordable, cruises:
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Next time you fly out of Stockholm’s Arlanda International Airport spend the night on an airplane before boarding your airplane. On the airport grounds there’s an old Boeing 747 has been converted in a hotel, the Jumbo Hostel.
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From the shores of Lake Malaren in Sweden, the Utter Inn looks like a bright red gardening shack stuck improbably in the middle of the lake. That visible section of the Inn includes a kitchenette and little dining area surrounded by an outdoor terrace. But what makes the Utter Inn really cool is part you can’t see from shore: the bedroom is down a ladder below the water! The sleeping quarters, submerged 3 meters (10 feet) underwater has windows with fish views on all sides.
The Utter staff brings guests to the Inn by boat from the port of Vasteras (about a 90 minute drive west of Stockholm) and then leaves you to enjoy it privately. Not that you’d be totally stranded: There’s a small row boat you could use to explore the lake and the Utter staff is always a phone call away. As for food, you can prepare your own (there’s a little fridge and stove top) or have meals boated out to you. Either way, a stay at the Utter comes with blissful, and romantic, solitude. Rates vary but average around Kr. 1200 (US$160, €120).
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It is amazing what a little personal attention can do. The folks at the Fox Hotel took an ordinary property, albeit an ordinary property well located in central Copenhagen, and set about making each of their 61 rooms artistic and individual. The result is a hotel with a collection of rooms that look like they could form an exhibit at the MoMA. We are fans of the Fox Hotel though wouldn’t necessarily choose to stay here for more than a night or two — the decor often tends to favor looking cool over being functional and many of the rooms are cramped. The hotel itself rates room from “extra large” to “small” but in making your selection you’d be wise to think of them as “medium” to “really tiny.” Our favorite rooms are #306, large, almost all-white and like sleeping in a cloud, and room #121, which is rather small but has a woodsy theme and a tent over the bed.
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