Mind-Blowing Sci-Fi Hotel Rooms

Originally produced for Smart City Hostels during my placement at modern-english 5/5/2011

1)      ICEHOTEL, Sweden – The Tron Room

Created every year entirely from ice and snow, the Torne River’s ice hotel is the first and largest of its kind. A living art project, the famous B&B attracts droves of tourists and entrepreneurs each year with rooms such as the Tron-inspired ‘Legacy of the River’. Taking direction from 2010’s Tron: Legacy, this icy instillation uses sustainable lighting technology to create a glowing aesthetic.    

2) Hotel Sidi Driss, Tunisia – An Authentic Star Wars Set.

Previously used as the set for Lars’ home on Tatooine, and featured in both A New Hope, and Attack of The Clones, this collection of caves is located in the heart of Matmata in Tunisia. The traditional Barber house has since become known as the ‘Star Wars hotel’ featuring four bedrooms and a restaurant (also known as the ‘Star Wars pit’), and maintaining the decorations used in the film.   

3)      The FantaSuite Hotel, Minnesota – Outer Space

With a capsule-themed bed and walls of look-a-like lunar rock, America-based FantaSuite hotels have taken stories about moon cheese literally. Retro-tastic and 60s inspired, the Space Odyssey room includes a 10-sided bed, AM/FM stereo and an oversized ‘moon crater’ whirlpool. Alternately, you could try the Alien Invasion room with a flying saucer bed; choices, choices. 

4) Woodlyn Park, New Zealand - The World’s First Hobbit Motel

Not unlike Bilbo and his friends, you can now enjoy the comforts of Hobbit housing in the homeland of the original set. Woodlyn Park offers the holiday of a lifetime for all hairy feet enthusiasts, with each room sleeping up to six people, and including self-contained kitchen, toilet and shower facilities.

5) Fuji-Q Highland Theme Park, Japan – Neon Genesis Evangelion Room

A dream come true for die-hard anime fans, this anime-themed hotel room was created in the image of popular anime franchise Neon Genesis Evangelion. The room includes robot-inspired wall designs, as well as a sleeping alcove and wakeup call recorded in the voice of the show’s ‘First Child’, Rei Ayanami;  surely every Evangelion enthusiast’s fantasy.

Most Terrifying Hotels in England

Originally produced for Smart City Hostels during my placement at modern-english 5/5/2011.

1) Smart City Hostels – Edinburgh

Struggling to find a spooktacular getaway with all of the luxuries of home? Well look no farther than Scotland’s premier city. Travel just across the border to Edinburgh’s Smart City Hostel to enjoy stylish 5 star bedrooms, a 24 hour reception service and a fully licensed bar-restaurant that won’t break the bank. Practical and perilous, this holiday haven appeals to families, hen and stag parties and youth groups; and with a 3D Loch Ness show, candlelit underground vaults and the award-winning Cadies and Witchery tour just around the corner, ghoul-groupies are guaranteed a delightfully comfortable, haunted holiday.

2) Ruthin Castle – Wales

With a drowning pit, whipping pit and it’s very own dungeon, it would be more surprising if Ruthin Castle wasn’t haunted. While it’s not quite cheap as chips (haunting breaks start from £145 for a double room) the castle does offer a wedding package for those that would like their vows to be accompanied by mysterious noises, spectral footsteps and the ghost of the ‘jealous wife’, executed for killing her husband’s lover with an axe; lovely.  

3) Holt Hotel – Oxfordshire  

Haunted by the legendary highwayman Claude du Vall, this spirited gentleman supposedly favours room 3, and with an epitaph that reads “Here lies Du Vall. Reader, if male thou art, Look to thy purse. If female, to thy heart.” depending on your gender you can probably expect to be either wooed or robbed on arrival.

4) Schooner Hotel – Northumberland

Home of ghostly maritime mischief, the Schooner Hotel boasts strange noises, electrical devices switching themselves on and doors slamming shut. Although relatively small, the hotel was featured in Most Haunted and hosts the occasional ghost-themed event. 

  

5) Kirkstone Inn - Cumbria

Britain’s third highest pub, Kirkstone Inn in Cumbria offers scenic views over the Lake District, as well as the ghosts of several unlucky travellers and a woman who supposedly committed infanticide. A family staying at the inn in 1993 received a rather unusual holiday souvenir when they managed to capture an image of the ghost of a 17^th century coachman; after they left the confused spook reportedly followed them all the way home.