A holiday less ordinary: 10 obscure vacations

Aug 20, 2010 5:26:46 AM

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Why settle for the ordinary? In an excerpt from Lonely Planet’s 1000 Ultimate Experiences, we’ve found destinations that are so off the beaten track, one is up a tree.

1. An oil-rig survival pod, The Hague

Roger Moore made the most of his survival pod in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and now you too can get cosy in a distinctive little bright orange ‘capsule hotel’ moored in The Hague. Built in 1972, the pods are 4.25m in diameter and not particularly luxurious (there’s a chemical toilet), but that kind of detail didn’t worry Bond. The interiors are being refurbished by various designers and artists and are set to have different themes, which will change seasonally.

Rates range from €50–150. The capsules are closed during winter because of the cold; check the website to see the schedule.

2. The Crane Hotel, The Netherlands

Yep, that’s a hotel in a crane. But you won’t be roughing it, because this is a boutique crane. No clambering up a wind-lashed ladder is required; there are two sleek lifts. The chairs are by Eames, the lighting and audiovisual equipment are touch operated, and the bed has panoramic views. The crane stands almost in Wadden harbour, close to Harlingen, and the views are incredible. Best of all, you can climb a rickety ladder to the cockpit to choose your own view: use the stick shift to rotate 65,000kg of steel 360 degrees.

Harlingen is just an hour’s drive from Amsterdam; the room costs around US$400 per night so make the most of it.

3. Mauritania

Off most people’s radars is Mauritania, the size of France but with a population of 3 million. It’s 75% desert, with a climate that has two gears: hot and very hot. For desolate, undulating Saharan sand dunes, endless unpeopled beaches and sand-drifted streets, you can’t do better. Mauritania also has the world’s longest train (around 2.5km long), which runs between Noudhibou in the northwest, and the iron-ore mines in the northeast. It has one passenger car, or you can ride for free in the coal trucks. Travel here is a wild desert adventure: think bumping in pick-up trucks down unpaved roads, glimpsing horses galloping by in the night and sipping mint tea with Moorish fishers.

You can fly direct from France with Point Afrique. The airline is your best bet for reaching out-there Saharan
destinations (it also flies to Timbuktu in Mali).

4. A sphere with a view, Canada

In Canada, the Free Spirit Spheres come packaged with what some might call a lot of New Age mumbo jumbo. But cynicism aside, what’s not to like about alien-looking spherical tree houses? Seeming to float in the treetops like huge wooden eyeballs, they’re built from cedar, ecofriendly, fastened by suspension points, with wooden stairways hanging from the trees like rigging. They wobble with the breeze – and your weight.

Eryn is big enough to sleep three, and has a small kitchen, while Eve is smaller and sleeps one comfortably or two cosily. Two nights will cost around C$200–300. Alternatively you can buy your own sphere to take home.

5. A caravan, Scotland/Ireland/Devon

Get back to your roots with a rustic trip in an old Traveller caravan, meandering through back lanes in Scotland, Ireland or Devon. You don’t have any Traveller ancestry? Detail schmetail, it’s the life on the road that’s in your blood. The caravans look antique and authentic and are quaintly rounded – the accommodation equivalent of an Easter bonnet – and sleep two to four at a squeeze. You’ll be introduced to your horse, given some operating instructions, and then you’ll clip-clop away with your new-found friend. This is slooow travel.

Old Spittal rents caravans for around £600 per week in April, May and September, and for around £750 from June to August. Or try www.horsedrawncaravans.com.

6. Salt Palace, Bolivia

Bolivia’s snow-white Salar de Uyuni is one of the world’s great salt plains. It covers 40 sq miles at an altitude of 3656m, is surrounded by mountains, geysers and flamingos, and becomes a shallow salt lake in the wet season. At its centre lies the Salt Palace, a hotel created from salt blocks, which you reach, not by boat, but by 4WD. Facilities are austere, the silence is deafening, the sunsets stupendous. In this dazzling saltscape, there’s no horizon; the sky merges into the lake. The only other landmark in the midst of the glaring white expanse is Uyuni’s Isla de Pescadores, with thousands of giant cacti that will make you feel lilliputian.

A night should cost less than US$20, but first you have to get there; Uyuni is a 15-hour bus ride from La Paz.

7. North Korea

Expensive, difficult to access, highly restricted, with economic woes and electricity shortages, and filled with faceless apartment blocks and mammoth monuments to deceased president Kim Il-sung, North Korea is an unusual holiday choice. But this isolated bastion of a kind of communism is the world’s most mysterious country, which alone is an enticing reason to visit. Don’t expect to be free to explore: you’ll be accompanied by two government-approved local guides at all times, who will fill you in on an official version of history. It’s a trip into another world, where mobile phones and the internet are unknown, and the Cold War never ended.

Air Koryo runs flights between Beijing and Pyongyang on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; the return fare is around €300.

8. Camping on a raft, The Netherlands/Belgium

Camping in a field is for lightweights. You haven’t really camped until you’ve done it on a raft. It’s rugged, back-to-nature stuff . The tent-shaped huts are made out of logs hammered together, which rest on floating barrels. These are only accessible by water: you paddle there via canoe, taking all necessary supplies with you. There’s no electricity and no plumbing – the toilet is a bucket with a lid that you empty in a separate toilet block, a canoe trip away. The rafts are secured in remote idylls on lakes in the Netherlands and Belgium. Don’t watch Deliverance before you go.

Rates are from €135 for two nights, depending when you stay. The rafts are located in De Heen, De Wissen and Marnemoende.

9. Klagenfurt, Austria

What? You’ve never heard of Klagenfurt? But it’s Austria’s sixth biggest town. The capital of Carinthia. You know. And now it’s a destination in itself, as no-frills flights ply the London–Klagenfurt route. The town is picturesque, with a frothy, Italianate feel, and sits on the eastern shore of Lake Wörthersee, the warmest and largest alpine lake in Europe. Winter visitors can skate 120km away on Weissensee; the ‘white lake’ freezes in the colder months, and hundreds of people scud around the ice. From a distance they resemble flickering punctuation marks.

From April to October visit Minimundus Villacher park and marvel at the detailed mini-models of famous buildings from all over the planet. Admission is around €11.

10. TV Tower, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Yet more proof that the Netherlands has the world’s zaniest places to stay is this TV tower built in the 1960s. It now houses a brasserie and two panoramic suites: ‘Heaven’ and ‘Stars’. Heaven overlooks the port, while Stars has city views and a jacuzzi. Both are minimalist but luxurious, with lots of gleaming white and monochrome. If staying in a TV tower isn’t crazy enough, you can also arrange to abseil its 100m height, an unusual proposition as there’s no wall to rest your feet against. Or rope slide instead – you’ll whiz to the ground in 15 seconds. If you’re not afraid of heights, take a lift to the top to look out from the 185m-high balcony.

The Euromast is open daily, year-round, until 11pm. The last ride on the Euroscoop is at 9.45pm; abseil and rope slides cost around €45.

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Comments

21 August 2010 4:22AM tigris330 Report this comment
I don't see why North Korea is marketed as a holiday...all the money you spend there goes directly to the government to perpetuate its politics and keep its people without voice. I would never contribute to that by giving tourist money.
21 August 2010 7:10AM wnsf Report this comment
4 of these "obscure" vacations are in the Netherlands.
Is the author Dutch?
21 August 2010 6:23PM tomstar86 Report this comment
Why are 4 of these "obscure" places Dutch!??! Piss-poor research from this author, LP.
21 August 2010 7:47PM thesamsmith Report this comment
thanks for the great suggestion... well, for the moment, or this year, i'll choose bolivia... sounds interesting....:-)
http://www.cellhub.com
23 August 2010 1:01PM calbeck1 Report this comment
Absolute trash
14 September 2010 4:48PM jdetre Report this comment
This is a vert poor list. It reflects poor lazy research. Bad editorial control, shows why the BBC should not get involved in such a business
14 September 2010 5:01PM daniel415 Report this comment
The Salar de Uyuni is absolutely worth a visit, as is Bolivia more broadly. It's a wonderful country. But it's curious that this list recommends staying in a salt hotel, which the LP guide for Bolivia informed me was illegal--constructing anything on the salt flats is against Bolivian law.
14 September 2010 5:07PM froglink Report this comment
Hi, you'd want to check those suggestions about Mauritania and Timbuktu. When I was in Mali recently, Timbuktu was definitely off bounds, even with Point Afrique, due to Al-Qaeda Maghreb activities (as was Gao), and Mauritania has been touch and go for a few years now. The best hint for less ordinary travel is to do something you wouldn't normally dream of doing close to home. The real surprises are often just around the corner.
14 September 2010 7:30PM thriftybeatnik Report this comment
Psst your link has an hyphen correct is http://www.gypsycaravanholidays.co.uk/
14 September 2010 8:56PM tot2 Report this comment
to tomstar86 and wnsf simply because they saw these places in a book called "Unusual hotels of the World", so it was an easy choice...
15 September 2010 12:32AM diamond41962 Report this comment
Why have you not considered Sri Lanka ?
New York Times named it as the No 1 destination for 2010. There were rebels fighting there till last year,but now it is very safe. It has a lot to offer in a small space and it is still cheap.
15 September 2010 1:55AM nowornever Report this comment
the list is indeed very poor! whoever made it , wrote it in a "last call" -it has to be in by midnight--or something like this. north corea-- really its difficult to go there but you only support this funny dictator, and all this massparades with this "happy" looking people--really disgusting!!!
15 September 2010 5:42AM londonhomebase Report this comment
Why choose any particular country or commercial accommodation - arrange a home exchange with someone anywhere in the world and create your own unique adventure living someone else's lifestyle.
15 September 2010 10:58AM pipw Report this comment
I agree with daniel415 Bolivia and salt flats are amazing, the salt hotel is worth seeing but definitely don't stay there it is illegal and jammed full of tourist shuffling around to see the salt sculptures.
15 September 2010 1:15PM habannah Report this comment
No one who is concerned with the fate of the millions of North Koreans being starved, raped, pillaged, or sold in the human traffic trade through China, no one who cares that millions of North Koreans have been seperated from their family members in prisons or in the southern part of the peninsula, should spend tourist dollars on visiting North Korea. Kim Jung Il and his political party have made sure that tourists never see the truth about what goes in the country, but even worse, that none of the country's citizens ever see the truth about what's going on in the rest of the world. LP supposedly has a commitment to ethical travel. Shame on you for promoting travel that contributes dollars to a government responsible for some of the most atrocious crimes against humanity in the past half-century!
19 September 2010 2:40PM attiliopolo Report this comment
for years, maldivians lived under a strict dictactorship and were tortured right next to the glitzy resort islands thousands of tourists went to and keep going to. how is north korea different? cause it's in the news more? as for the list, i agree on the excessive dutch twist on it... i'd add nigeria, so very impressive!
20 September 2010 12:42AM cdiezyn Report this comment
On top of all the other reasons people have pointed out for why this article is weak, at least two of the links are broken.
22 September 2010 12:07AM albenarth Report this comment
Klagenfurt seems to be the best bet. I have heard of it actually.
23 September 2010 7:04PM marrum Report this comment
If the author was Dutch, he would know the Euromast is not a TV tower, never has been either. It is purpose built as a tourist attraction in the sixties, it is the highest observatory tower in the Netherlands. It turned two of its meeting rooms into Suites in 2004.
24 September 2010 4:04PM niteshchandra Report this comment
Hi.. somebody got 'inspired' by your article and appropriated some of it as his/her own.. Check this out.. http://www.hellotravel.com/stories/going-unconventional-in-most-unusual-vacation-spots-of-world. Hope you take some exemplary action against them.
24 September 2010 4:40PM niteshchandra Report this comment
When confronted, they remarked: 'We take help and ideas from magazine, contact editors and sources. Our writer are settelled in various parts of the world who inform us on various happening things. We serve pure Copyrighted material to our readers.' Kindly confirm whether in this case, it is true..