Welcome to the tour, enjoy.

"Cocoa Island, in the Maldives, is home to a 23-room hotel owned and designed by Christina Ong, with architecture by Cheong Yew Kuan. The suites, which resemble local dhoni fishing boats, rest on pine poles set into the ocean floor. Steps lead from each suite right into the water." This location is perfectly private for recent honeymooners.

Udaivilas

Located along Lake Pichole in Udaipur, India, Udaivilas occupies 30 acres and offers 90 rooms, including some very luxurious guest suites. The pool, featured in this picture, borders the guest's rooms and measures more than 800 feet in length.

"It's a juxtaposition of old and new," Peter Silling says of Schloss Velden, the historic castle on Lake Wörth in Velden, Austria, and its new addition, whose interiors he designed. The modern, U-shaped wing, by the Viennese architectural firm Jabornegg & Pálffy, wraps around the rear of the castle, which was originally built by Bartholomäus Khevenhüller. Above: Black marble, custom-ordered for the suite, adds a mirrorlike reflection to the bath.

St. Regis Resort

St. Regis Resort Bora Bora, set on a motu, or islet, on island's coral reef, was created as "a kind of village," says the architect, Pierre Lacombe. Villas, secluded by palm groves, wind along the beaches. On its own island in the lagoon is the Royal Estate, a 13,000-square-foot villa. (April 2008)

Otahuna Lodge

A Queen Anne style house designed by architect Frederick Strouts in 1895, near Christchurch, New Zealand, is now an exclusive seven-suite hotel. Otahuna Lodge's owners, Hall Cannon and Miles Refo, recently renovated the property. They worked with a team of gardeners and consultants to revive the grounds.

Hôtel de la Paix

"I wanted to build on the history of the place," designer Bill Bensley says of the Hôtel de la Paix, in Siem Reap, Cambodia, which was reconstructed in the Art Déco style on the site of the 1950s original. A porte cochere frames the entrance. The hotels amenities trump its competitors by providing guests with a once in a lifetime spiritual visit. I don't know what that means but, it sounds amazing.

Gran Hotel Son Julia

Located in Mallorca Spain this beautifully constructed countryside hotel has 25 lovely
guest rooms and suites , 2 Turkish baths, 3 pools, a gym, 2 restaurants, 2 tennis courts, and an 18 hole golf course just minutes away.

Peninsula Palace Beijing

Modern architecture meets luxury at this 5-star hotel providing every amenity your heart desires. "The hotel also features the most prestigious shopping arcade in Beijing; the Peninsula Arcade includes 50 exclusive designer boutiques." The hotel was designed by Chhada, Siembieda & Associates

Ice Hotel

The Ice Hotel is located in Quebec Canada. This featured theme suite called "Quebec
400"features animal skins for blankets. The ice hotel is built differently every year but, something does remain the same. Each year, the hotel is built with "5oo tons of ice and 15,000 tons of snow" carved into one of the most fascinating hotels on earth. They keep it pretty cozy at 23° to 28° Fahrenheit. However, when you're not freezing your behind off, you can enjoy the many amenities featuring a chapel, a movie theater, an outdoor hot tub, and a bar. You're going to need a bunch of hot chocolate to get through this, I assure you.

Blue Palace

Blue Palace is situated just 3 km away from the village of Elounda and within a few hundred meters of the fishing village of Plaka. The hotel is surrounded by the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea and sits opposite the isle of Spinalonga.

"Spinalonga's story dates back to the Venetians and Turks, conquerors of Crete, and is nowadays a unique historical attraction protected by the Greek Society of Byzantine Antiquities."

 

 

“Chill On,” is Melbourne, Australia's first ice bar. The hot sizzling temperatures outside make the inside feel much more enjoyable. At $30AU per adult and $15AU per child (before 6pm kids are allowed in) the price includes gear to keep you warm while you're inside.

You're only allowed to enjoy your stay for 30 minutes and are given a buzzer when your time is up.

Your drinks are on ice, literally. The glasses you drink from are frozen ice, imagine that!

For more information check out their website.

In North Africa, there are 80 blocks of such pyramids scattered around the Egypt's Nile River, which have become one of the most miraculous places in the world. The highest pyramid called Cheops Pyramid and it was build by overlapping pile of boulders together. In the making of pyramids, Egyptians were not using any adhesive, glue or nails to attach the pile of boulders and one could even hardly find cracks or gaps among the rocks or stones from the overlapping plot. Nevertheless, the structure is extremely firm and strong that the sharp blades or swords could not even pass through. In addition, Egyptian Pyramids have experiencing 5,000 years of strong wind's erosions and yet these artifacts are remained not touch by the nature. They appeared to stand alone like warriors in the desert. These towering pyramids are such spectacular and superior buildings human had ever made on the Earth.

This is a mysterious place encountered in the Antarctic Island. People call it “a dry valley with no snow cover.” Antarctic is a place with fewer inhabitants and dwellers and thus some unexplainable phenomenon happenings in Antarctica remain mystery to the outsiders. Approximately 14 million square kilometers of the total area of the Antarctic continent have the snow cover. When viewing from the high sky, the central of the Antarctic is like a pot's lid plateau. Most of the areas vividly have their surfaces covered with snow with its thickness reaching 2000m and sometimes may attain the thickness up to 4,800m. In winter, the surrounding ice combines with the ice from the ocean to form up one smooth, large plateau to which people can hardly distinguish between the land and the sea.

Bermuda Triangle is located in Western North Atlantic, which comprises of seven major islands, 150 small islands, some islands composed of reefs group. Any high-tech devices or equipments will become malfunction when reaching this mysterious place and thus the survivors may have encountered problems to communicate with the outside world. Because of its extremely mysterious characteristic, people have called this place as a devil triangle.

In China, people have named this desert as “Moguicheng” or a city of devil. “Moguicheng” is famous in Xinjiang, China. When someone is strolling towards the castle in a sunny day accompanying with a gentle blowing breeze, one may heard a nice rhythm coming from the distance. The melodies are just like 10 million shaking bells, and sometimes one may feel the music like gentle flicking of 10 million guitars' strings. However, when cyclones come, bulks of sands are rising up in the sky by the strong winds, the sky turns pitch dark suddenly like a hell, and the nice music no longer heard but turns into strange sounds. The sounds resemble the roaring of the tigers, trumpeting of the elephants, and sounds by pigs that are being slaughtered, babies' crying, shouting of the women who are going to die, and alternately the sounds change to shouting, mourning and quarreling. The storms are then swirling aggressively by shooting up to the sky accompanying by terrified wolf growling sounds in the cloudy nightfall. People are wandering who had built this city and where do the sounds come from?

This island is legendary full of Surreptitious and specter. Westerners prefer sailing by venturing many historically strange events occurred here in the history of seafaring. In 1707, the British captain of the Andean Julius had discovered this land; however, it was strange that he could hardly reach this land. He later affirmed that this was not an optical illusion, so he marked the “land” on the map. 200 years later, the admiral Makaluofu and his inspection team who were sailing to the North Pole on their icebreaker vessel called "Ye Ermake," accidentally came across this piece of land. In 1925, Navigator called Woershi, too, passed through this land and he memorized the outline of the land. Nevertheless, the investigation team comprising of scientists, who sailed to this land in 1928 never found any islands as claimed by the previous navigators.

This place is located in Henan, China, and local people called it “bingbing bei” or the back of the ice. When midsummer approaches, people tend to move to places that are cool and refreshing. Although the change of four seasons, namely summer, autumn, spring and winter is an unchangeable law, in certain parts of the world, this theory seems not to be applicable. They are some fortunate people live in “warm” zone. This phenomenon is applying to people dwelling in the eastern mountain areas of Liaoning Province, China. They are experiencing warm temperature while other areas of China are experiencing the changes of seasons. Thus, this area has named after this phenomenon as "temperature anomaly zone." This "geothermal anomaly zone" extends from 1.5m out of the town of the left riverbank of Hunjiang to the end part of the right riverbank of Hun River and to the foothills near Guandian Province. The entire length for this "temperature anomaly zone" is approximately 15km, occupying the areas of approximately 106,000 square meters. The advent of summer is always accompanying with a decline of temperature in the area of "temperature anomaly zone." When the temperature reaches as high as 30 degree Celsius during the summer, the temperature is minus 12 degree Celsius at one-meter deep into the underground of this area, and the ice froze underground. When someone dips a drop of water one-meter deep into the underground of this area, the water will immediately turn into ice.

Shennongjia is located at the intersection of Sichuan, in Hubei zone, with the meeting of two rivers, namely China's Yangtze River and Hanjiang River. This region comprises an area of 3,250 square kilometers, accounting for more than 85 % of woodland. The average elevation is 1,700m, with the highest point of 3,105 meters, and with the characteristic of various types of climate. When speaking of Shennongjia, people here will think of “savage.” Since ancient times, large numbers of documentations have revealed the existence of savage roaming around this area. Legendary, people could even hardly identify the authenticity of the savage. The effort of collecting evidence on the existence of savage was initiating by the relevant departments from 1977 to 1980. They had collected savage hairs, footprints and feces left by the savage. This proved to us that a kind of bizarre animal might have existed in Shennongjia not long ago.

This is the famous ancient city of Teotihuacan in America, which called “death to the road.” This region stretched from a so-called main road of “death to the road” to the north-south roadway. In the tenth century AD, Ards heroes who were the earliest team walking along this way leading to a castle found nobody in the city, and thus they believed that the buildings on either side of the road were gods' tomb lands. In 1974, a Mexican person called Dayton • Halisi said that he had found a suitable unit measurement for all these streets and buildings at this city at the International American meeting. This unit length is 1.059m using a calculation from a computer. For example, the units for the Teaodiwakan snake temple, the moon and the Sun Pyramid is the height of 21, 42, and 63 "units" respectively with the ratio of 1:2:3 based upon the ancient calculation.

People not allowed entering this Kunlun Mountains as its name suggested as "The Gates of Hell." This valley is a death valley, which further claims the Kunlun Mountains "The Gates of Hell." The remains found in this valley were the furs, bones, skeletons of wolves, bears and hunters and some scattered lonely tombs, rendering the world in the death of a ghastly terrifying atmosphere. The Xinjiang Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources of a geological team in China had recorded a true story in the year of 1983 on a group of hungry horse that was grazing the grass and disappeared suddenly in the "The Gates of Hell." A herdsman went into the prohibited area of "The Gates of Hell" to search for his horse. After few days, he was found missing but the horse emerged at the foothill of Kunlun Mountains. Later, the herdsman was found lying on a small hill with his clothes badly torn off, barely footed, eyes widely opened with an angry look, a shotgun gripping in one of his hands showing that he was reluctantly to die. The miraculous thing was that no wounds or signs found around his body to show that he had attacked.

Canada Niagara Falls is the world's most mysterious places in the world. Niagara Falls constitutes a part of Canada and the border of United States, the New York State and Ontario, Canada, separating from the Niagara River by flowing northward from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario with a total length of nearly 30 miles. Located in the north, covering an area of 250,000 square miles, Niagara Falls is a smooth exit to these lakes. Its maximum water flow reaches 250,000 cubic feet per second. Niagara Falls is indeed very awesome.

This Geysering is a magical spring found in the upper part of the Yarlung Zangbo River in Tibet, China. The spring bursts out in a short while and stops for a while before following by other bursts. The burst goes on, stops and goes on. In other words, its eruption cycle is continuous for a few minutes, auto stop after a few dozen minutes; and followed by another burst and so forth. It bursts like an eruption with a huge, shocked sound. It vents out some high temperature steam from the mouth of the spring. The spring then expands immediately into one to two meters in diameter, and rushes out as water column as high as 20m into the sky. In addition to China's Geysering, in the place near Reykjavik, capital of Iceland, the Geysering is renowned in the world with its diameter of 20m. When there is drizzling rain, this water column can even soar up as high as 70m into the sky.

1. Making a snowman

   A traditional classic and fun for the whole family. You can personalize it for and homemade added touch of uniqueness. Can also be made into many shapes and sizes.

2. Snow Forts

   Your snowy home away from home. How big, how small is all for you to decide. Can be a great addition to a backyard and is perfect for a snowman to watch over.

3. Snowball Fights

   The most used activity to accompany the snow fort (mentioned above). Compete with your friends in a head-to-head competition, and make the most out of your winter at the same time.

4. Shoveling Snow

   A fun way to clean up after a massive snowball fight, clear a driveway, or do something when you are alone. A fun way to keep healthy as well.

5. Ice Skating

   Its not exactly on snow but still a fun way to enjoy the winter weather. Enjoy gliding on ice while others talk. A must do winter event for the whole family.

Gamirasu Cave Hotel, Turkey

The cave was originally inhabited by the Christian monks in the Byzantine era for more than 5,000 years. The volcanic rock insulates the cave, keeping the temperature naturally comfortable. Opened in 1999, the restored cave hotel has a total of 18 rooms at around $100 - $150 per night.

Kokopelli's Cave, New Mexico, USA

This is actually a privately owned luxury cliff dwelling in Farmington, New Mexico. The one bedroom cave home is carved from a 65 million year old sandstone formation. For about $280 per night, not only you will get a "living-in-cave" experience but also a superb view of the La Plata River as well as La Plata and San Juan mountains.

2. TREE HOUSE

Woodpecker Hotel, Vasteras, Sweden

This is a tree house built on a 130 year old oak tree located in the Vaserparken park. At 13 meters above ground, the only access to the tree house is by a rope ladder. The tree house was built by a Swedish artist, Mikael Genberg. Even though small, the tree house is furnished with all the basic amenities. As this is the only tree house in that area, early booking is necessary and expect to pay around $300 per night.

Green Magic Tree Houses, Kerala, India

This is a tree house built on a tropical rainforest tree at around 100 feet high above the ground. The only access to the tree house is via a hanging bridge. As the tree houses are located in a protected rainforest, they are all eco-friendly and use alternative energy to keep running. There are four double rooms in two tree houses. Costing around $250-$300 per night, each room is equipped with a bathroom and telephone.

3. ICE

Ice Hotel, Sweden

Ice Hotel of Sweden is the original and the world's first ice hotel made of 6,000 square feet of ice and snow. This hotel only exists from December to April every year since 1990. At an average temperature of about 17 degrees Fahrenheit, the hotel beds are also specially made of ice and snow, topped with a couple of layers of reindeer skins with a thermal sleeping bed for the guests to sleep. The hotel charges around $200 per night. It has 80 rooms including suites, a church and a bar called the Absolute Icebar.

Alta Igloo Hotel, Norway

This hotel is made of snow and ice, measuring about 2,000 square meters. The hotel is decorated with ice sculptures depending on the theme set each year, for instance, Viking myth (2004), Norwegian fairytales (2005) and wild animals (2006). The temperature in the igloo remains between minus 4 and minus 7 degrees Celsius. To ensure comfort of the guests, the bed is made up of reindeer hide mattresses and a thermal sleeping bag. The hotel has 30 rooms which cost around $250-$300 per night.

4. DESERT

Al Maha Desert Resort, United Arab Emirates

This luxurious hotel has received world recognition for its architecture which comprises 40 Bedouin-tent shaped villas and two suites. The resort has a full spa complex with a large pool and gym. Each room is equipped with air-conditioning, a giant bed and a luxurious bathroom, costing between $800-$1500 per night.

5. UNDERWATER

Utter Inn, Stockholm, Sweden

This is an underwater hotel with a floating top which looks like a little red house in the Lake Malaran. The bedroom is like an underwater hatch with windows. This is in fact another creation of Swedish artist, Mikael Genberg. Access to the underwater hotel is by boat. Meals will also be delivered by boat. A night stay with dinner costs around $350.

Jules Undersea Lodge, Key Largo, Florida

It claims to be the world's first underwater hotel, 21 feet below the sea. It was originally built in the 1970s as a research lab off the coast of Puerto Rico. It was only opened to public in 1986. The only access to the hotel is by diving for 21 feet underwater. Each room is equipped with a kitchenette, shower and window (for underwater viewing), costing around $350 per night.

6. CAPSULE

Capsule Inn, Tokyo, Japan

This is more like a capsule than a standard hotel room. These capsules are made of reinforced plastics. Each capsule has all the basic amenities such as TV, radio, alarm clock and lightings. The Inn also provides lounge and also shared bathrooms. It charges around $50-$100 per night.

7. FANTASY / WEIRD DECOS

Hobbit Motel, Woodlyn Park, Otorohanga, New Zealand

Hobbit Motel is one of the 3 unique motel units in Woodlyn Park. It resembles the authentic Hobbit home based on Tolkiens's books with the Hobbit furniture and circular windows. Comes with a very basic amenities, you can stay here for under $100 per night.

Propeller Island City Lodge, Berlin, Germany

This hotel is especially designed for people who like weird decorations and arts. Each room at Propeller Island Lodge is distinct in its own way. For instance, one room is orange in color, another comes with a slanted bed as if floating in the air. There's also a room complete with coffins that double as beds or you can even sleep in a lion cage. Cost per night comes to around $150-$200.

8. BIZARRE WALK-THROUGH EXPERIENCE

Queen Mary Hotel, Long Beach California, USA

Queen Mary was once a luxurious ocean liner and first set sail in 1934, carrying about 3,000 passengers and crew. During World War II, the ship carried around 16,000 troops at a time and also became a hospital for a short while. Right after the 1,001th voyage, the ship was permanently docked in Long Beach in 1967 and was transformed into a hotel with an interactive museum. Ghost sightings are quite common among the guests and the crew. However, if you can't see one, there is also the "Ghosts and Legends" tour, which is a special effect walk-through tour that dramatizes most of the ghostly stories reported on the ship. There are 365 rooms and suites. Price starts at around $150-$200 per night.

Old Jail Mount, Mount Gambier, Australia

This old jail house was transformed into a lodging aimed at budget travelers and backpackers. Guests will get the experience of being locked up during the night, pay legal fees, court appearance, eat in mess hall, sleep next to a toilet; all for less than $100 per night.

9. TRANSPORTATION

Imperial Boathouse, Hotel Cheong Mun Beach, Thailand

These boathouses were originally rice barges which are transformed into 34 luxurious beach-front suites. These two-storey boathouses are equipped with a luxurious bedroom, bathroom, dining area, living room and sunbathing deck, with a starting price of about $600 per night.

Exploranter - Overland Hotel, Sao Paulo, Brazil

This is actually a hotel on wheels. The hotel amenities include a shared kitchen, hot showers and a total of 28 beds. There is also a traveling chef on board who are also adventurous in preparing international cuisine. You can expect to pay less than $100 per night.

10. ANIMALS AND PETS

Dog Bark Park Inn, Indiana, USA

This is a two storey building in a shape of a giant beagle. For less than $100 per night, the rooms are well equipped with a queen sized bed, bathroom, fridge, microwave, hair dryer and a coffee maker.

Paw House Inn, Vermont, USA

This hotel is specialized for pets traveling with their owners. The pets get its own custom made dog bed complete with quilt and pillows. There is also a day care center for the pets to enjoy the scenic countryside. Price starts at around $200 per night.