Ice Hotels

An ice hotel is not a permanent building. It is cut, packed and carved at the start of each cold season, occupied for a matter of months, and returned to water in spring.

That cycle governs everything about the stay: the layout changes from year to year, the interior sits close to freezing regardless of the weather outside, and the sleeping arrangements involve thermal bedding rather than heating. Warm service buildings alongside handle everything the frozen rooms cannot.

1 hotel in this category

Lapland Hotels SnowVillage

Kittilä, Finland

Finnish LaplandRebuilt annuallySeasonal opening

SnowVillage is raised each winter on a site in Finnish Lapland, near Kittilä, and taken by the thaw every spring. The structure is built from packed snow over temporary forms and finished with carved ice: vaulted corridors, sculpted walls, a bar with an ice counter, and a chapel that is rebuilt to a new design each season.

Sleeping rooms hold a temperature a few degrees below freezing whatever the weather outside does. Guests sleep on insulated bases in expedition-grade bags, leave their luggage in heated storage, and use warm service buildings for washing, eating and dressing. A theme is chosen annually, so the layout and the carvings a guest sees one winter will not exist the next.