The 10 Weirdest Hotels in the World in 2026

You sleep inside a train permanently parked on a bridge above the Sabie River, inside Kruger National Park.

Not next to a train.

Not in a hotel designed to look like a train.

Inside real carriages standing on the Selati Bridge.

Kruger Shalati has 24 Train Carriage Suites and another 7 Bridge House Suites.

The carriages stand above the river, and some have large windows that let you see the river and the safari from inside the room.

There is also a pool suspended at bridge height above the river.

You wake up inside a train carriage.

You look out at the river.

You head out on a game drive inside Kruger.

You come back to the pool above the Sabie River.

And the chance of seeing wildlife is not limited to the drive.

The river itself draws elephants, hippos, crocodiles, buffalo and birds.

The location has a historical connection.

In the early railway era, visitors to the park used to stop in this area and sleep on trains during their journey.

The modern hotel takes that historical idea and turns it into a luxury hotel.

Train Carriage Suite

If you are coming for the concept, sleep in an actual carriage rather than the Bridge House.

Couples

Safari lovers

Photography

Train lovers

Anyone looking for a hotel that is hard to compare to anything else

Anyone who dislikes heights, or prefers a classic lodge on the ground, may prefer the Bridge House.

Het Arresthuis was a prison.

Today it is a luxury hotel.

The historic building is still very obvious after the conversion.

The long corridors, the structure of the cell wings and the doors are a constant reminder of what this place used to be.

The hotel even keeps the concept in the names of its rooms.

You can book categories called Deluxe Cell and Comfort Cell.

You walk down a corridor that looks like a prison.

You open a cell door.

And inside, a modern hotel room is waiting for you.

That contrast is exactly what makes the place interesting.

This is not a new hotel deliberately built to look like a prison.

It is the conversion of a real building with a real history.

Deluxe Cell or Comfort Cell

If you actually want to experience the concept.

Couples

Architecture lovers

A trip through the Netherlands

Anyone who likes hotels with a story

For some people the idea of sleeping inside a building that used to be a prison will feel less amusing than it does for others.

Palacio de Sal is built mostly out of salt.

Not white-painted walls that look like salt.

Real salt taken from the Salar de Uyuni area.

According to the hotel, more than a million salt blocks were used to build it.

Some of the sculptures and decorative elements inside the hotel are made of salt too.

The hotel sits on the edge of the Salar de Uyuni, about 25 kilometres from the Uyuni area.

The material the hotel is made of comes from the same enormous landscape that lies outside it.

This is not a concept you could simply move to London or New York.

The place and the building belong to each other.

Where available, a category such as the Hanan Suite makes the most of the salt architecture and the feel of the hotel.

Couples

Photography

Nature lovers

A trip to the Salar de Uyuni

Anyone who wants somewhere they can talk about afterwards

The area sits at high altitude.

Anyone sensitive to altitude should factor that into the itinerary.

V8 Hotel in Böblingen near Stuttgart is built around the world of cars.

The hotel has themed rooms where the car is not just a picture on the wall.

In some of the rooms, car bodies are built right into the bed and the furniture.

You can choose concepts such as British Racing, Off Road, Le Mans, Made in Germany and Vive la France.

The hotel sits inside Motorworld Region Stuttgart, in an area strongly identified with the German car industry.

You sleep inside a motoring room.

You wander around the Motorworld complex.

You look at cars.

And from there you carry on into the Stuttgart area, home to brands like Mercedes Benz and Porsche.

The hotel sits inside an environment genuinely connected to the car world.

This is not one car wheeled into a lobby for Instagram.

The rooms and the whole complex live the same subject.

A specific V8 Themed Room.

Do not book a general category if the concept is your entire reason for coming.

Car lovers

Families

A road trip through Germany

A holiday with older children

If you have no interest in cars at all, much of the magic simply will not work.

Your room is not a room. It is a capsule: a bed-sized sleeping berth, enclosed, with its own light and ventilation, opening onto a corridor of identical berths.

This is not a novelty version of a hotel. It is an entire Japanese lodging category that has existed since the 1970s.

You sleep. That really is the whole programme, and that is the point: the capsule is for people who spend the day in the city and come back only to sleep.

The hotel stands at 4-4-6 Sotokanda in Chiyoda, which puts it in the middle of Akihabara, Tokyo’s electronics and anime district.

Because in Tokyo the price of a normal room in a location like this climbs fast, while here you pay only for somewhere to sleep and get a location you otherwise could not afford.

That is also why it works: the city is the room, and the capsule is only the bed.

Upper capsules are usually quieter than lower ones. If you are sensitive to noise, ask for a high floor away from the entrance.

Solo travellers

Anyone in Tokyo for only a few nights

The curious who want to try it once

A capsule is not a lockable room and your suitcase does not stay with you, it goes in a locker. Check the men’s and women’s floor separation policy too, which is common in this category.

The whole village was designed by the artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who believed the straight line works against nature.

The result is a complex where the walls undulate, the windows sit at different heights, grass grows on the roofs and trees come up through the floors.

It opened in May 1997 and is described as the largest habitable work of art in the world.

You bathe. There are hot springs beneath the village, and the water is why the place was built here at all.

There are thermal pools, walking paths between the buildings, salt grottos, a hammam and treatment areas.

Because this is not a hotel that commissioned unusual decor. It is a structure built from the beginning as one artist’s project, and it was never meant to be only a hotel.

The difference shows: there is no themed room inside an ordinary building, there is a building with nothing ordinary in it.

Ask for a room facing the village itself rather than the car park. Part of the pleasure here is looking at the other buildings.

Architecture and art lovers

Families

Couples looking for a spa with character

This is a working thermal complex as well as a hotel, so there are day visitors. Check which areas are reserved for hotel guests and at what hours.

Crazy House looks as though someone took a giant tree, a cave, a fairytale house and a surrealist sculpture and joined them into one building.

The place was designed by the architect Dang Viet Nga.

There are almost no straight lines.

There are winding staircases.

Bridges.

Spaces that look like tree trunks.

Tunnels.

Rooms with animal themes.

Many visitors come to Crazy House only as a daytime attraction.

But you can also sleep in it.

And then the attraction becomes your hotel.

It is first and foremost an architectural project.

The hotel is part of the work, not decoration added to an ordinary building.

Architecture lovers

Couples

Families

Anyone who likes surrealist places

A trip through Da Lat

During the day the place is also open to visitors.

Anyone after a completely secluded, quiet hotel should take that into account.

Your room is an igloo with a glass roof.

The point is not only to let light in.

The point is to let you lie in bed and look up at the skies of Lapland.

During the northern lights season, which in this area runs roughly from late August to the end of April, you can try to see the Aurora without leaving the room.

There are several types of accommodation.

Glass Igloos.

Kelo Glass Igloos, which combine a log cabin with a glass igloo.

And larger, more lavish versions.

You sleep under the sky.

You head out on a husky safari.

You can do a reindeer safari.

Parts of the complex also have a planetarium, a gallery and other buildings devoted to the Arctic experience.

The northern lights are a natural phenomenon.

Even if you come in the right season, no hotel can promise they will appear on your night.

Couples

Honeymoons

A winter break

Families

A bucket list

If the Aurora is your entire reason for the trip, build in several nights rather than one.

That way you improve your chances of good conditions.

The suite most identified with Hotel Costa Verde was built inside the fuselage of a real Boeing 727.

The plane was placed in the tropical landscape of the Manuel Antonio area and converted into accommodation.

This is not a room that looks like a plane.

It is a real fuselage that became a suite.

From the outside it looks almost as though a plane landed in the jungle and never went anywhere else.

Inside, it is a full accommodation experience.

But the reason to choose it is obvious:

You can say that you slept inside a Boeing in the jungle of Costa Rica.

Couples

Families

Aviation lovers

A trip through Costa Rica

Anyone who loves unusual accommodation

If the 727 suite is your reason for booking, confirm that the specific category is available before you book.

Your room is inside a real harbour crane.

Not a hotel built next to a crane.

And not a room with an industrial look.

A crane that stood on the NDSM shipyard grounds in Amsterdam, converted into suites.

The suites are stacked up inside the crane's frame, above the water of the IJ.

To reach your room you go up inside the crane itself.

You wake up dozens of metres above the water.

You look at the city from an angle no ordinary hotel room gives you.

You go down into NDSM, the former shipyard area that became a centre for art and culture.

And you come back to sleep inside a machine.

The crane is a real industrial structure with a real past.

It was not put up for tourists.

It was placed here to work the harbour, and the hotel moved into what was left.

A suite inside the crane itself.

If the concept is your entire reason for coming, that is what to book.

Couples

Lovers of architecture and industry

Anyone who likes places that compare to nothing else

One special night in Amsterdam

The hotel is very small and has only a handful of suites.

Anyone with a fear of heights probably will not enjoy the way up to the room.