Treetop digs at the Post Ranch Inn
For weary travelers who spend much of their
life in cookie-cutter hotels, the occasional escape to an
out-of-the-ordinary guest room is all the more refreshing.
Properties set among treetops, in caves or on promontories
certainly will do the trick.
Welcoming guests among the trees is the Post Ranch Inn in Big
Sur, Calif. (www.postranchinn.com), a high-class eco-hotel on 98
acres. Seven of the property’s 30 luxurious rooms are built at the
tops of trees, complete with wraparound windows and slate spa tubs.
At the Rainforest Tree Houses in Tarzali, Australia (www.rainforesttreehouses.com.au), five of the forested
suites offer hammocks and kitchens; the larger Bower suite has
three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Go underground at the Desert Cave Hotel in Coober Pedy, near
opal fields in South Australia (www.desertcave.com.au). Of the property’s 50 suites,
19 are tucked into the rocks. In Cappadocia, Turkey, at the 18-room
Gamirasu Cave Hotel (www.gamirasu.com), visitors stay in former monks’
quarters carved out of the hillside or made from volcanic rock.
Some suites have vaulted ceilings and valley views.
For sea views, Rose Island (www.roseisland.org), a mile off Newport, R.I.,
offers a lighthouse run by anyone who wants to stay for a week in
the keeper’s apartment. The house also has two rooms that can be
reserved on a nightly basis. The light station on East Brother
Island (www.ebls.org) in Richmond, Calif., offers four former
keepers’ quarters.