Ice Hotel Sweden: Sleep In A Room Made Out Of Ice And Snow

Sweden is the land of the first time experiences, from watching the Northern Lights, snowmobiling, husky sledging, cross country skiing, ice driving and ice sculpting to sleeping in the most incredible hotel ever built - the world's first and largest ice hotel.

Sweden's Ice Hotel first received its guests in 1990, and since then it was rebuild from scratch every winter. Overwhelming new designs, uniquely decorated suites with ice carved beds, a brand new reception, chapel and ice bar, are all part of this mind-blowing ephemeral art project, as the hotel shifts from frozen solid to free flowing river and back in a matter of months.

The Ice Hotel is situated on the shores of the Torne River, 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, in Swedish Lapland, in the old village of Jukkasjärvi. I have no idea how to pronounce this. Jukkasjärvi. It looks like a cat just walked across my keyboard, thought I doubt cats would like the Ice Hotel very much.

The hotel opens every year from December until April, it is made out of 10,000 tons of crystal clear ice and 30,000 tons of pure white snow and has 80+ rooms that can accommodate 100+ guests caught in a frozen dream. 

Covering more than 5500 square meters, the Ice Hotel includes an Ice Chapel, the hotel itself, an ice art exhibition hall, a cinema and last but not least, the world famous ‘Absolut Ice Bar’, where even the glasses are made of ice and the menu highlights the many flavors of Swedish Lapland.

Maybe everything does happen for a reason, because the world's first ice hotel was born completely by chance. One spring night back in 1990, the visitors gathered to see the igloo exhibition in the area found themselves shelterless for the night as there were no available rooms left in town. So somebody came up with the idea to host them in the exhibition hall. They slept in sleeping bags on top of reindeer skin, had an epic experience and a new hotel concept was born literally over night.

The Ice Hotel requires months in a row to come to life. Tons of ice are harvested from the frozen Torne River and ice artists carve ephemeral artworks from the raw materials Mother Nature provides. In fact the entire Ice Hotel is on loan from the mighty river Torne.

The Swedish Ice Hotel recently partnered with Virgin Galactic, and as from 2012, guests can not only sleep in frozen dark rooms listening to little creaking noises, and take day trips through the moose safari in snowmobiles, but for $200,000 they can even fly to space either through the Northern Lights of winter or the midnight sun of the arctic summer.

The Ice Hotel in Sweden is not the only ice hotel there is though, and if you want to experience a magical night at freezing temperatures, you can also book a room at Hotel de Glace, North America's only ice hotel. Ice hotels can also be found in Norway, Finland and Romania and if you are an art lover and ice sculptures tickle your senses, the Harbin ice and snow festival and the Sapporo snow festival should not be missed.

Photos via Flickr Creative Commons