Ice Hotels

Nothing here is permanent. The Arctic SnowHotel is constructed from snow and ice at the start of each winter near Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland, occupied for a few months, and then allowed to melt back into the ground. The following season's building is a different building.

Interior temperature holds a few degrees below freezing regardless of the weather outside, which in Lapland is usually a mercy. Rooms are carved chambers with ice beds, insulating mattresses and expedition-grade sleeping bags; carved ice detailing changes from year to year with whoever is doing the work.

A restaurant and bar are cut from ice on the same site, along with a chapel used for winter ceremonies. Heated facilities — saunas, showers, a permanent building for meals and for guests who would rather not sleep on ice — sit alongside, and the property also runs glass-roofed cabins for aurora watching.