The concept of hotels has been evolving throughout the centuries. It all started with coaching inns serving travelers. Then, it was just a simple place to get a good night's sleep before the next day's journey.
In the 18th century, more affluent clients indicated their interest in something more sophisticated than a bed to crash on.
That's where things started to speed up. Hotels began popping up like mushrooms offering more and better.
So here we are in the 21st century; what's the next level of the hotel concept? Read below to find out.
Your room comes with boxing gloves, a punching bag, and a set of snorkeling kits.
Sounds weird? Wait until you read the whole story.
The punching bag can turn your room into a mini-gym, and that snorkeling kit you have received is for some fun on the rooftop.
Zero Box Lodge even has a free room, but there is a "small catch".
Yes, you guessed it right; the large glass wall is wide open to the public areas where anyone can watch you sleep, or...
This Portuguese hotel decided to place a large water tank on the rooftop, and - as you have probably already guessed – this is where you can take a dip, cool down, and swim underwater. Neat!
Forget about the usual hotel concept, where they try and dedicate as much space as possible to your room.
At the Proposal Zürich, you can try and squeeze yourself for a good night's sleep in the tiny bedroom upstairs or use the van outside that has been converted into a double bed.
All the rest of the property is for art. That's the main focus of this project, even if it's a giant inflatable fat man that takes away space from you.
The inflated giant man creeping the hell out of the brave guests.
If the giant man is too much to digest, a van is parked outside with a tightly fit a double bed.
Architects from Lucerne University and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology created this brilliant crystal shape angled to bring sunlight to the beautiful wooden interior.
The sun is aimed to keep you warm, as the heating system is you, thanks to the technologically advanced wall isolation.
The crystal-shaped exterior of the Monte Rosa Hütte with the pyramid-shaped Matterhorn peak in the background.
The concept is that your evaporating and radiating body heat is insulated within the building walls holding the temperature steady.
In return, the New Monte Rosa Hut gives you a majestic view of the Gorner Glacier and a cozy place to sleep. I call that a well-functioning symbiosis!
Advertised as a 0 stars hotel (this concept seems to be sticky, see Null Stern Hotel further below), the Dunant Hotel is not exactly how you would imagine it.
They want you to come, observe and experience the structures and design details without prejudice served by a star-rating system.
It's like when you meet a new person, someone tells you, "he is a 4". Dunant wants you to make up your own mind.
The deconstructed room concept
The Beaumont Hotel could very well be the typical five-star hotel near Hyde Park in London if it were not for something very dark and silent that it keeps inside.
Antony Gormley, a famous British sculptor, was hired to design an extraordinary suite for the Beaumont Hotel.
It might be strange to work with a sculptor instead of an interior designer on a hotel suite, but there is a good reason for it.
The Gormley's ROOM was designed as a large sculpture where you can experience the artwork all around you.
Hate the city's noise and wish you were on an uninhabited island?
The Gormley's ROOM has such noise isolation that you will hear your breath. Just the right place to meditate.
The Ark Lodge developed a new type of Safari. A Safari that comes to you. This place is for you if you are not into bumpy rides on a Jeep in the Indonesian heat.
The hotel is situated in the Aberdare National Park overlooking the Yasabara waterhole, where the show happens.
The Ark's main entrance
The reservoir is a natural magnet for wildlife, as this is where all the different animal species try to get some water.
So all you have to do is get a nice drink, lay down on the panoramic terrace, and enjoy the view.
The 12 Decades Hotel takes you on time travel into Johannesburg's vibrant and sometimes turbulent history.
The twelve rooms and three apartments/penthouses are all uniquely designed to represent a significant era of Jo'burg between 1886 and 2006.
The themed rooms include names like "Minehouse" and "Perpetual Liberty", each of them telling a tale of history.
1946 to 1956 – A Part Love a Part Hate room - Satirical design of the apartheid era of South African
1996 TO 2006 – Perpetual Liberty room - The design of the interiors reflects the evolution of the new democracy
The German company, Rotel, has been operating since 1945.
They designed custom-made trucks, sometimes including a colossal trailer, to accommodate people inside small compartments.
It's like the Japanese capsule hotel concept, but on the move.
Are you ready to take a ride from Europe to India?
Rotel's 34-seater four-wheel-drive bus with compact little rooms.
Looking at the photo, you might question how this could be in Switzerland as the country has lavish, high-class hotels designed to impress and serviced to perfection.
Well, this is precisely the point of the artistic entrepreneur brothers, Frank and Patrik Riklin.
They created the Zero Star Hotel as a stark contrast to all of that. A place where according to them, the only star is you.
Or, if you count the nights, then the billions of stars above you.
Open-air zero-star hotel in the Swiss Alps
Austrian architects and local volunteers came up with a brilliant challenge to build a hotel in just a month.
The name is dedicated to honoring the work done by donkeys, as without them, it would not have been feasible—the project aimed to bring back tourists to the Italian town of Prata Sannita.
The cave-like rooms are built into the hillside.
You can roll a bed on wheels into a cage suspended from the main wall. Open-air nap? Yes, please!
There are escape resorts far away from towns and then the Manakau PurePod.
It's placed in the heart of the Seaward Kaikōura Mountain Range, about a 2.5 hour's drive from Christchurch, the largest city on the South Island of New Zealand.
You are, in fact, so remote that if you climb the tallest hills nearby, you will still not see signs of civilization.
It's just you (and someone you like) and Mother Nature.
Set in the proximity of Garrotxa Volcanic Nature Reserve in Northern Spain, Les Cols Pavellons has some out-of-this-world architectural designs.
The five pavilions use glass as the primary material to create the living space for the guests.
However, the unique design is not all. Your room includes a heated onsen (Japanese pool), a private bathroom, and a comfortable futon mat.
Every year the Swedish Lapland opens up a creative festival of artists, designers, and architects to push the boundaries of building an ice hotel.
The remarkable creations only stay for the brief time of winter and melt away to give the next bunch of architects, designers, and artists a chance to come up with even better ideas.
The ice is sourced from a local river, and its beauty is that when it melts, it goes back to where it belongs, to mother nature.
It seems like an identity crisis, but you conclude that it makes sense upon further inspection.
The Hotel Not Hotel is located in central Amsterdam, and it's an artist's paradise. The rooms, hallways, and lounge areas are part of a large art installation.
The choice of your room is like the choice of your art preference. If you ever felt so tired at an art exhibition that you could fall asleep, this is your time to act on it.
A Secret Bookcase room that opens from the attic's library
Hotel Everland is a project by artist duo Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann, better known as L/B. It was the first-ever hotel tour in the world.
The hotel changed locations, and people could book one of the 1000 nights between 2006-2009 in Yverdon, Leipzig, and Paris.
Hotel Everland was often placed on the rooftop of art galleries with unparalleled views like the skyline of Paris or a Swiss lake.
My favorite part of this project was the artist's hanging signs encouraging you to steal the gold-embroidered towels. Would you do it?
The traditional hotels are built around accommodating as many people as possible, stuffing the building with rooms. Hotel Droog turned this upside down.
The place is filled with things to do. There are shopping facilities, a dining room, lectures, a spa, and a relaxing garden.
Also, there is a bedroom. That's right, a single bedroom.
Art in the Garden of Life exhibition at Hotel Droog
The fear in the 21st could not be more real of robots served by the most advanced artificial intelligence taking over jobs.
People executed traditional jobs for centuries. Henn-na Hotel is the first in the line to replace human workers with robots that, among many things, can store your luggage and even check you in.
If you prefer human interaction, this might not be the place for you, but buy a ticket to Japan now if you want to glance into the future.
Dinosaur shaped robot receptionist will check you in.
And robots will carry your luggage to your room.
Located on the Eastern coast of South Korea, Haslla Art World Museum Hotel is ART with capital letters. It was designed with meticulous attention to detail.
You will find yourself staring at the innovative architecture, the art collection inside and outside, and the contemporary art rooms filled with unique furniture.
Smile suite with an oval "womb" bed.
Das Park Hotel has converted old sewer pipes into comfy small living spaces.
They might look like soulless concrete tunnels from the outside, but the colorful mural and the cozy bed inside make it a nice place to stay.
Dar Park Hotel has a "pay as much as you want" concept - which is a treat in Switzerland.
But don't expect any luxury here. The "bedroom" is an elevated mattress, and surprisingly there is electricity, but the bathroom is shared.
Corona Saves the Beach Hotel is an environmentally conscious project created to highlight the significant problem we face with the enormous plastic trash humanity has piled up over the past decades.
This hotel is built using just trash.
One of the people who helped with the project was artist HA Schult. He is quoted saying, "we are in the trash time. We produce trash, and we will be trash".
Dutch artist Joep Van Lieshout took a step further than anybody else. I'm not here to judge; you are here to judge.
Would you stay inside these giant-sized intestines?
The interior looks cozier than expected. It seems like you are better off inside the CasAnus than outside...
The dilemma of staying at a nice fancy hotel or saving money and sleeping in a bunk bed is solved.
In the heart of historic Chinatown in Singapore, the Adler Hostel came up with the idea of mixing luxurious looks with space-saving.
The result is a high-class interior and bunk beds.
What about privacy? – you might wonder. Fear not; curtains can fully enclose the bunk beds.
All I can say is that I have stayed here, and I approve of the concept.
Capsule hotels have been around since the first one opened in 1979, called the Capsule Inn Osaka.
It's intended to solve the affordability problem in costly, densely populated cities like Tokyo. But, let's face it, bunk beds are not too classy, and they pose the issue of privacy.
Capsules are fully enclosed spaces where you share the room with others in theory, but in reality, you are separated by (plastic) walls.
The design twist by 9 Hours Capsule Hotel is the minimalist interior and the space-ship-like capsules.