The world’s northernmost ice hotel, the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel, has reopened for the winter amid the Arctic expanses of Norway’s Finnmark region. Built from scratch each year with ice from a nearby lake, frosty features range from frozen fireplaces to an ice chapel. The hotel has a different theme every winter – this year it’s Norse mythology, so expect ice sculptures of Nordic warriors growling in the corridors and a Viking longboat carved into the bar. Guests sleep on reindeer hide beds, prizing themselves away from the warmth to look for the northern lights – an intense period of solar activity means that 2012 could be your best chance to see the aurora borealis in 50 years. In case of any other nighttime excursions, bathrooms are housed in a heated building outside, along with the sauna and restaurant. The Igloo Hotel is open until April, after which everything starts to melt into a puddle.

Photo Credit: Philip Lee Harvey