Check In Before It Melts: The Coolest Winter Experience At Sweden's Ice Hotel

Once a year, when the River Tome in Sweden’s Lapland freezes, an amazing establishment opens its doors: The Ice Hotel, with hand-carved rooms, welcomes guests for just three months from now until April when temperatures will rise above zero and the hotel will melt away and run back into the river.

This year’s 19 magical rooms, each created by a different artist chosen from 130 proposals submitted from around the world, were designed around the themes of animals and movies.

Gothic-like pillars grace the Flying Buttress Room created by Anna Katrin Kraus and Hans Aescht for the Sweden’s Ice Hotel Photo: Ice Hotel

Among them are the “Elephant in the Room,” its 10-foot elephant sculpture carved from ice and overlooking the ice-frame bed, “Counting Sheep” with ‘flying’ sheep sculptures, a 1970-inspired “Love Capsule,” “Labyrinth Saga” inspired by a Russian theater, and an ice cave that includes a forest of ice pillars.

An Ice table waiting for guests to sit and enjoy a meal Photo: Ice Hotel

Beds, tables, chairs and decorations are all carved from ice. The chandeliers are made from 1,000 hand cut ice crystals. Pile it all up and the material used to build the Ice Hotel is equivalent to 700 million snowballs.

The Elephant in the Room Suite by sculptor Anna Sofia Maa         Photo: Ice Hotel

The hotel also features an opulent chapel popular for baptisms and weddings, an ice bar for evening cocktails served in – you got it – ice glasses, a main hall, lobby and an ice restaurant. The beds in the rooms are covered in reindeer furs and guests sleep in polar-tested sleeping bags.

The pop up Ice Hotel, considered the world’s biggest igloo, is located in the town of Jukkasjärvi. Nearby, on the Finnish side of Lapland just below the Artic Circle, is the real home of  Santa Claus.

It takes two months, give or take, to build the Ice Hotel each year. It completely melts by the end of the season.

The Great Escape suite by Marjolein Vonk and Maurizio Perron Photo: Ice Hotel

Due to the hotel’s ephermeral popularity, the Icehotel group has announced plans to build a permanent version in time for next year’s winter season that would offer guests year-round, “permanent subzero ice experience.” But the group won’t sacrifice the original: The new one will assume pride of place next to its seasonal sibling.