This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).

Why should the adventure stop when you lay down your bags and bed down for the night? There’s no shortage of unusual accommodation to try around the world, whether you want to stay in a floating hotel in Sweden, a fire marshal’s look-out tower deep in the forests of Wyoming or a campsite on a tiny car-free island off the Spanish coast.

The Incas weren’t averse to a bit of vertigo. They built storehouses up on sheer cliffs so their crops would be cooled by mountain breezes; they built Machu Picchu on a mountain spine to guard against prospective marauders. Chances are, they’d be quite content staying in the Skylodge Adventure Suites — a series of transparent capsules suspended 1,300ft above Peru’s Sacred Valley, the spiritual heartland of the Incas. Getting to your guest rooms is part of the fun: you have the choice of a via ferrata or else a hair-raising zip-line. Once ensconced within your little glass nest, you’re rewarded with sublime views of condors on the wing, and the muddy Urubamba River snaking its way to the Amazon far below.

A floating hotel might seem a recipe for seasick guests. Fortunately, the one at Salt & Sill is anchored in a cove on the island of Kladesholmen, shielded from the waves of the Skagerrak Strait by skerries and reefs; guest rooms bob gently rather than pitch and yaw like trawlers in a storm. The adjoining restaurant is focused on the fruits of the surrounding waters, specifically herring — Kladesholmen is a historic epicentre of the Swedish herring industry, and these days, the silver fish are served in a signature buffet with six flavours. Having scoffed down a minor shoal of them, retire to your floating abode to be rocked into a deep sleep. Wake with a bracing dip in the morning by climbing down a ladder from your room straight into the sea.

Guests at the floating Salt and Sill are lulled to sleep by the gentle waves of the Skagerrak Strait in Sweden. Photograph by Tony Meyer

Thousands of travellers in Jordan make their way to the sandstone majesty of Petra and the red valleys of Wadi Rum — fewer visit the remote Feynan Ecolodge, an off-grid establishment run by Jordan’s Royal Society for Conservation of Nature. Set between the furnace-hot plains of Wadi Araba and the canyons of the Dana Biosphere Reserve, this kasbah-like lodge has rooms set around breezy courtyards. By day, you might tour the ancient copper mines nearby or join a class to learn how to make Bedouin eyeliner. By night, the lodge is at its most evocative, with stargazing sessions held on the rooftop and guest rooms lit by candles and wrought-iron lanterns.

Cable-cars go in tandem with the seasons in the Dolomites, ferrying skiers to pistes in winter, shuttling hikers to trailheads in summer and hibernating in spring and autumn. They’re also the only practical way to reach Vigilius Mountain Resort — a hotel almost 5,000ft up on an Alpine meadow, with views of limestone summits, pine forests and down towards the Adige, a blue river carrying meltwater to the plains of the Po. The hotel itself is also easy on the eye, with minimalist rooms, blonde-wood motifs and a restaurant specialising in artfully presented South Tyrolean cuisine. There’s yoga, archery and a spa to occupy residents of these ear-popping heights — though for many, the highlight is the hotel transit, gliding upward like an eagle to your guest room.

Vigilius Mountain Resort is a hotel almost 5,000ft up on an Alpine meadow, with views of limestone summits and pine forests. Photograph by Tobias Kaser

Fire towers are akin to lighthouses of the forest — structures perched on rocky hilltops or rickety stilts, where lonely keepers once scanned the horizon for the smoke that foretold approaching fires. Many towers are now no longer in use and have been repurposed as shelters, with staying guests spending a night in the canopy, enjoying the company of squirrels and nesting birds. The catch? They’re often in high demand, booked up months in advance, so getting a reservation can be like a Wonka’s golden ticket. If you’re feeling lucky, try the Spruce Mountain Fire Lookout in the woods of Wyoming; what it lacks in plumbing or electricity, it makes up for in backcountry views.

North Wales’s abandoned slate minds have been given a new lease of life in recent years — strung with trampolines, traversed by zip-lines and turned into tourist attractions. Now, there’s another use for these eerie, post-industrial spaces. The world’s deepest subterranean hotel — smartly named Deep Sleep — opened in a Victorian mine near Blaenau Ffestiniog in 2024. Guided parties clamber their way to a gloomy recess some 1,300ft underground in the murk. Here, they snuggle down in garden shed-like cabins, listening to the eerie soundtrack of dripping water. There’s also a more spacious ‘suite’, where you can lie in a double bed under a ceiling of slate.

Guests at this Welsh slate mine sleep 1,300ft underground. Photograph by Go Below

It’s always an adventure staying in a bothy: free-to-use wilderness shelters dotted across Scotland, most featuring a few bunks, a sooty fireplace, a visitor’s book and a cast of mice anxious to nibble on your Kendal Mint Cake. There’s been an addition to the pantheon of Highland bothies in recent times — Ruighe Ealasaid (also known as the Red House) opened two years ago in a remote riverside spot in the Cairngorms. To get there, you’ll need to be a competent and confident hillwalker — it’s roughly a four-hour march from the nearest sizable settlement, Braemar. After tramping through the often inclement Highland weather, the bothy’s little red rooftop is as welcome a sight as any five-star hotel.

The Islas Cies lie just a few nautical miles off the industrial port of Vigo — but somehow this little archipelago has the feel of desert islands lost in the lonely leagues of the mid-Atlantic. These Spanish islands have few buildings, no cars and few marks of humanity apart from the lighthouses that spin on blustery headlands and hills. Having disembarked from the 40-minute ferry from the mainland, all overnight visitors are obliged to stay in a designated campsite that’s open only during the summer months — in return, they get to play castaway in this miniature paradise, pacing untouched beaches, snorkelling in blue shallows and wandering paths that wind through pine forests and reach up to plummeting cliffs.