[imagesource: Dezeen]

You get all kinds of destination travellers, like the ones who go for a particular sight, or a specific activity not found anywhere else, and then you get the ones who just want to chill in a cool place that is not their home.

For the latter, there are some really strange and wonderful Airbnbs and hotels to choose from, which should be enough to make you really feel like you’ve escaped reality for a time.

The Telegraph put together a list of the weirdest and wildest hotel ideas that actually got built (as well as some that didn’t). Quite a few happen to be in Dubai – you know, the place with a particular knack for breaking records.

On that note, we will start with Dubai’s wacky proposal for a moon hotel – the one you see up top.

The proposed $5 billion complex from architects in Canada would stand at more than 600 feet and feature several thousand suites, plus a range of space-themed attractions.

According to reports, guests would be able to experience low-gravity walks on a mock-up of the moon’s surface and explore what the designers have described as a “vast working lunar colony”.

There are quite a few ambitious hotel projects that are excitedly announced and then shelved a few years later, so let’s see if this whopper really lands in the United Arab Emirates.

Also with a foot in Dubai is the Planet Ocean Underwater Hotel, which is a moveable hotel concept:

This roving hotel, which lies underneath the water, has 12 aqua pods set some 28 feet beneath the surface and guests are able to view surrounding marine life from the comfort of their rooms.

One of the main goals of the holiday spot is to help restore coral reefs and find new ways to prevent further destruction of the planet through funding and implementing projects.

The hotel’s first stop is Dubai where guests have to enter a raffle in order to win an overnight stay, but it is slated to be based in Florida, with visits to the Maldives and the Red Sea also in the pipeline.

The Maison Heler Metz in France is essentially an 18th-century-style Alsation house plonked on top of a 14-floor skyscraper:

This is exactly what French designer Philippe Starck had in mind for Metz’s first high-end hotel, labelling it as an ‘out-of-scale phantasmagoric’ design.

There are plans to include a rooftop terrace and garden, 119 rooms, a fitness centre, and a restaurant and lounge bar.

It was originally supposed to open in 2020, but the building was obviously slowed down by the COVID-19 pandemic. Apparently, the grand turrets have already been erected, so progress is showing promising signs.

The Six Senses Svart in Norway is said to be hotly anticipated:

The hotel’s name is Norwegian for ‘black’ and is situated at the foot of Almlifjellet mountain.

Although it is shaped like an extraterrestrial vessel, its design is very much grounded in its place of origin:

Its design was inspired by a fiskehjell – a wooden structure used to dry fish, and the stilts are a tribute to rorbuer, which are fishermen’s huts extended on poles.

As well as marking itself as another top location for watching the Aurora Borealis, the hotel aims to be an energy-positive “powerhouse”, designed to produce more energy than it consumes.

Speaking of the Aurora lights, Houston-based company Orion Span announced in 2018 that it was developing a modular space station hotel that was expected to welcome guests this year:

The station would apparently have completed its orbit of Earth every 90 minutes, and those on board would be able to see 16 sunrises and sunsets in 24 hours, plus glimpses of the northern and southern auroras.

That would have cost a guest $9,5 million per person for a 12-day stay – around R171 million.

Don’t bother saving because in March last year its website announced that operations had been shut down and deposits were refunded.

I am sure Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos is working on something similar, though, so don’t lose hope just yet.

[source:telegraph]