Spanish resort lets vacationers stay in huts that look a lot like tree houses.
How would you like to sleep in a giant seashell, wine barrel, prison cell or castle?
These are just a few of the incredible lodging options featured in "Bed in a Tree and Other Amazing Hotels Around the World" (Eyewitness Travel, $25).
Author Bettina Kowalewski slept in each one of the 27 unusual accommodations described in the book, from a bed in a cave in Cappodocia, Turkey, to a bed in the Ice Hotel in Norrbotten, Sweden. Each entry is accompanied by suggestions for things to do nearby.
She also found a hotel designed like a giant doghouse, the Dog Bark Park Inn, in Cottonwood, Idaho; another in Germany's Rhine Valley where huge wine barrels have been outfitted with two beds each at the Hotel Lindenwirt; and a converted prison in Lucerne, Switzerland, where you can sleep in a cell at the Jailhotel Lowengraben.
On Isla Mujeres, off the coast of Cancun, Mexico, there are two giant white manmade seashells, outfitted with beds and bathrooms, called Casa Caracol, and in Scotland, on the Isle of Mull, you can stay in a castle.
Kowalewski also describes treehouse lodging in New Zealand; beds in spheres suspended from trees on Vancouver Island in Canada, called Free Spirit Spheres; and the place that "Bed in a Tree" is named for: a roofless, open-air bed with a mosquito net in a platform in a tree in the South African bus. It's part of the five-star safari lodge Lion Sands, offering a front-row seat for viewing wildlife for those adventurous enough to try it.
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