Hotels can be sterile affairs, with a room in Hong Kong sometimes indistinguishable from one in Holland or even Brisbane. But there are some hoteliers bucking the trend, offering accommodation where the star attraction is the hotel itself, rather than a place to take a break between sightseeing.
Flight Centre marketing manager Zoë Heywood said as people travel more frequently, some are searching out unique holidays that very few people would have experienced.
“Being the first to try something is quite important to some people’s holiday experience, and staying in really unusual properties can be a way of trying something memorable that very few others have dared to do.”
From downtown New York to Dubai, for those looking for an original experience while never having to stray too far from the bedroom, here are ten of the world’s most extraordinary hotels:
Gone to the Dogs
The owners may be considered barking mad, but the Dog Bark Park Inn is a bed and breakfast guesthouse in the body of the world's biggest wooden beagle, also known as ‘Sweet Willy’. Located at Dog Bark Park on Highway 95 in the small Midwest town of Cottonwood, Idaho, guests enter Sweet Willy from a private 2nd story deck. Inside and up another level in the head of the dog are a loft room for sleeping and, of course, a cosy reading nook in the dog's muzzle.
Dog Bark Park artists Dennis Sullivan and Frances Conklin built Sweet Willy and Toby, his companion 12-foot tall beagle statue, and they have this to say about the Park:
“Dog Bark Park is one of America's latest additions to the type of roadside architecture popular in the early days of automobile vacation travel when travellers would often buy gas, eat meals or stay overnight in a building that looked like something else. Remember coffee pot or teacup gas stations, milk bottle shaped restaurants or the shoe and duck houses? For today’s travellers Dog Bark Park Inn offers a glimpse into those bygone days with all the modern day comforts.”
Flight Centre has flights to Idaho from £525 per person with KLM via Amsterdam from Heathrow in April 2006 Tel: 0870 499 0042 (www.flightcentre.co.uk)
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