Ice Hotels

Seasonal hotels rebuilt each winter from ice and compacted snow, then allowed to melt in spring. Every one of them pairs its cold rooms with heated accommodation on the same site.

Four ice hotels

Ice Hotels · 01

Icehotel

Jukkasjärvi, Sweden

The original, and still the reference point: since 1989 a new hotel has been built each winter from ice harvested out of the Torne River, then allowed to return to it in spring. Artists apply to design the suites, so no two winters look alike and no room is ever repeated. A permanent, solar-cooled section now runs year-round alongside the seasonal one. Warm accommodation, a sauna and a restaurant sit a few steps away, and nobody is expected to spend an entire stay at minus five.

Rebuilt annually since 1989
Torne River ice
Artist-designed suites
Year-round cooled wing

Ice Hotels · 02

Hôtel de Glace

Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, Quebec, Canada

North America’s ice hotel, rebuilt each January just outside Quebec City and open for roughly two months. Vaulted corridors, an ice chapel and a bar where the glasses are also ice give it a slightly ceremonial quality, and a large share of visitors come for a few hours rather than a night. Those who do stay are briefed properly beforehand and given expedition sleeping bags; the adjoining resort holds the heated rooms, the spa and the outdoor baths.

Rebuilt each January
Near Quebec City
Ice chapel and bar
Attached heated resort

Ice Hotels · 03

Kirkenes Snowhotel

Kirkenes, Norway

Far up on the Barents Sea coast, close enough to the Russian border that the town has two languages on its signs. The snow hotel is rebuilt every winter with carved rooms off a central corridor, but the site around it is what people tend to remember: a working husky kennel, reindeer, king crab fishing through the ice, and a set of heated glass cabins by the fjord for guests who want the aurora without the cold. The dark season here is long and genuinely dark.

Barents Sea coast
Husky kennel on site
King crab excursions
Heated fjord cabins

Ice Hotels · 04

Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel

Alta, Norway

Sorrisniva is family-run, built each winter beside the Alta River on land the same family has worked for generations, and the tone is domestic rather than theatrical. Around thirty snow rooms and suites are carved fresh each season, with an ice bar and a chapel that sees a steady run of winter weddings. A conventional lodge and a well-regarded restaurant using Finnmark ingredients operate year-round on the same site, which is where guests thaw out over breakfast.

Family-run
Beside the Alta River
Ice chapel and bar
Year-round riverside lodge