’Tis the season. No, not for winter holidays – for ice hotels.
From Canada to Finnish Lapland and even Zermatt, the year’s most frigid travel novelty has returned to the frozen tundra across the northern hemisphere.
Built anew each winter and designed to melt away come spring, these ephemeral hotels are an engineering feat, a temporary exhibition and, increasingly, a luxury escape, too.
Ice libraries, frozen restaurants and Northern Lights
You can be forgiven for assuming an ice hotel is merely a room carved out of ice.
At more established properties, they are more like melting installations where you can stay with (almost) every luxury comfort you would expect from high-end hotels.
The interiors are planned months in advance, with artists sometimes commissioned to design individual rooms rather than repeating a standard layout.
At ICEHOTEL 36 in northern Sweden, the hotel features 12 suites, each built around its own concept. This season’s rooms include one with a frozen library carved into the walls and another where sculpted spheres appear to float above the bed.
Guests sleep on ice beds topped with insulated mattresses and thermal sleeping bags. Since interior temperatures hover around -5°C, the bathrooms and changing areas are located in heated buildings nearby, and guests are issued cold-weather clothing on arrival.
Elsewhere, the concept varies, although the comforts do not.
At Apukka Resort near Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland, accommodation is limited to heated glass-roofed igloos designed for viewing the Northern Lights, while Québec’s Hôtel de Glace combines carved rooms with hot tubs, saunas and themed suites rebuilt from scratch each winter.
At Hôtel de Glace, guests can move between multiple on-site restaurants and ice bars, where cocktails are served in hand-carved ice glasses. At ICEHOTEL, guests can have four-course meals featuring reindeer, cloudberry and local salmon roe in one of the two restaurants. Some of the dishes are served on clarified ice blocks.
How is an ice hotel built?
The process begins long before winter guests arrive. Ice harvesting usually takes place in late winter or early spring, when thick blocks can be cut from the nearby rivers and stored through the warmer months.
Construction starts once temperatures remain below freezing, often in November.
At ICEHOTEL, the winter hotel spans about 2,800 square metres and uses roughly 550 tons of ice, along with tens of thousands of cubic metres of ‘snis’ – a dense mix of snow and ice used for structural walls and ceilings.
The ice was harvested in the spring from the Torne River – even before ICEHOTEL 35 had melted, according to the hotel’s press team. It was then stored in a solar-powered hangar until the year’s new, unique property was ready to be built.
Every year involves a unique search for artists and designers to create a distinct hotel and program – the reason each year is often referred to by its number.
“[ICEHOTEL] 36 will never be replicated,” according to a hotel press representative.
Teams of nearly 90 artists, builders, lighting designers and engineers work simultaneously over ‘a mad dash’ of about six weeks to bring it to life. “Some of the artists came with years of experience and others never worked in snow and ice before,” says creative director Luca Roncoroni.
Once spring temperatures rise, the structure is left to melt naturally, returning its walls, beds and fixtures to the river.
Where can I stay in an ice hotel?
Despite the seeming discomfort involved with a night on ice, in reality you spend most of your time in warm rooms and sleep on cushions, according to ICEHOTEL.
Those comforts – and the fleeting seasonality of the experience – push overnight rates to €400 or more, depending on the location, room type and add-ons.
In Sweden’s far north, this year’s ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi features 12 art suites created by artists from 12 countries, alongside ice rooms and galleries. This season, there’s also a playable grand piano carved entirely from ice. Rates generally start from around €600 per night for two, including thermal gear and breakfast.
In the Swiss Alps, Iglu-Dorf Zermatt is rebuilt each winter at 2,700 metres on the ski slopes above the car-free resort. Guests stay in hand-carved igloos linked by snow corridors, with shared dining spaces serving fondue and alpine dishes. Overnight stays typically start from around €450 for two, including dinner and breakfast.
In Finland, Apukka Resort’s rooms range from glass igloos to compact cabins and spacious villas for seven guests or more. Winter rates usually start from around €400 per night.
Just outside Québec City, Hôtel de Glace is rebuilt each winter with around 45 themed rooms and suites, alongside ice bars, outdoor hot tubs and saunas. Overnight stays generally begin from around €500 per night, with higher-end suites priced above that.