Secret Wonders – RR March 2014
For some, there are the ultra-luxury branded hotels that go all out to offer the best services and experiences to their guests.
Many others may prefer the solitude offered by a private villa within a 4,000-acre conservation in the Blue Mountains, an 11-bedroom palatial mansion in the south of France, or for that matter a bespoke tent resort atop a glacier in Iceland. Many of these don’t have a name and can hardly be pulled up during an online search. But they still match up to everything that the leading names in hospitality offer, and often, much more.
Fancy a spa, riding school, beach, berthing dock, all for yourself?
Check-in to one of these six highly secluded and sought-after nameless hotels.
This is a destination that literally lives up to the phrase ‘in the middle of nowhere’. A 40-minute helicopter ride away from Reykjavik in Iceland gets you to the Langjokull glacier on the 64-degrees northern latitude. You’d think that the most you can get of this location, which is surrounded by nothing but ice, is an aerial view of the top of the Arctic ice. Until, you see 12 igloolike structures that measure up as a luxury tented hotel and can offer features such as a full-service dining dome and a sauna, which you’d rather expect from a brick-and-mortar hotel.
What would you do when you’re isolated in such a location, you’d ask?
Well, a chopper ride to explore a live volcano, a meal 60 metres inside a volcanic cave, an expedition to find polar bears, ice-skating in a volcanic crater, or, a course in glacier surviving skills are just a few to start with.
To ensure that you capture all this action for your memory wall back home, the host also moonlights as a professional photographer.