298 Unique Hotels in North America

The Cold War's most ominous legacy in Arkansas has been transformed into one of the most unusual places you can spend a night in America. The 6,000-pound blast door doesn't budge at first. You pull, and nothing happens, and then you pull harder, and eventually the thing that was built …

Somewhere on a mountaintop above Lake George, tucked behind life-size lion statues and Gothic iron gates, sits a place that has no real business existing. Highlands Castle is the kind of property that sounds like a fever dream until you're standing on its terrace watching the light change over the …

Most airport hotels are functional in the way that airport food is functional - they'll do the job, but nobody is bragging about them at dinner. The Grand Hyatt at SFO is something else entirely. Opened in late 2019 on the grounds of San Francisco International Airport, it is the …

There are 26 pyramid-shaped villas arranged around a thermal lake in Fort Myers, Florida. The water bubbling up from 30 meters below the surface smells faintly of sulfur, changes color with the seasons, and is loaded with magnesium, potassium, calcium, and selenium. And yes, people keep coming back. Pyramids in …

There are places that photographs simply cannot do justice to, and Emerald Lake in British Columbia’s Yoho National Park is one of them. The water shifts between seafoam green, bright teal, and a blue so vivid it looks edited – and then the light changes, and it starts all over …

In the heart of Palm Springs, a bright pink motel rises from the desert landscape like a fever dream made real. This is the Trixie Motel, the only drag queen-owned hotel in the United States, and quite possibly the world. It's a seven-room passion project in which every surface, fixture, …

Walking into what looks like a castle on a leafy Mexico City street and finding yourself surrounded by monochromatic rooms splashed with stained glass and contemporary art isn't your everyday hotel experience. Maison Lézard, which opened in September 2025, is the sort of place where herringbone floors meet electric violet …

Staying in a hotel that once served as a Union hospital, where faucets allegedly turn on by themselves and children's footsteps echo through halls at night, is delightfully odd. The Marshall House, Savannah's oldest operating hotel, doesn't shy away from its peculiar past. Built in 1851, this Greek Revival landmark …

Sleep in a human-sized nest perched in the trees. Wake to whales breaching offshore from your solar-powered tent. Dine on sushi made with herbs picked minutes earlier from the garden. At Treebones Resort on California's Big Sur coast, the line between camping and luxury blurs into something altogether more interesting …

A neoclassical church with 60-foot vaulted ceilings and patinated copper doors now houses one of Washington DC's most distinctive hotels. The LINE DC transformed a century-old First Church of Science into a boutique property that actually feels like it belongs in its Adams Morgan neighborhood – complete with an in-house …

Four miles up from Santa Fe, where piñon pines and junipers blanket the Sangre de Cristo foothills, sits something that shouldn't really exist: a faithful recreation of a Japanese mountain onsen, complete with cedar-scented hot tubs, sake bars, and guests padding about in yukata robes. You can soak under falling …

A historic bank building in downtown Versailles has been transformed into a 29-room boutique hotel with its own craft distillery, a steakhouse that channels 1950s glamour, and a rooftop bar on the way. The former Woodford Bank and Trust Company now offers clawfoot tubs, equestrian-inspired design, and the kind of …

Canada's first hotel room intentionally designed for sex. A retrofitted Airstream trailer in the parking lot. A water slide that runs year-round. Hotel Zed Victoria – a riot of neon, velvet, and unapologetic fun – operates far outside the standard business hotel playbook. Working rotary phones sit beside QR codes …

This 1886 mountaintop hotel in the Ozarks offers ghost tours through a former morgue, a rooftop bar with sunset views, and the kind of dark history most hotels would rather forget. In the 1930s, a con man named Norman Baker ran a fraudulent cancer hospital here, injecting dying patients with …

Standing a mere 20 feet from the Grand Canyon's edge, El Tovar has been perched on this precipice since 1905, when the notion of building a luxury hotel in the middle of nowhere was either visionary or mad. Theodore Roosevelt stayed here. So did Albert Einstein. The dining room still …

On Savannah's historic riverfront, where cobblestones meet the water and tourists queue for trolley tours, sits something entirely unexpected: a chrome-dipped dinosaur skeleton stretching 135 feet across a hotel lobby. The JW Marriott Savannah Plant Riverside District isn't your typical riverfront accommodation. It's part hotel, part museum, part entertainment complex, …

In the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains near Walland, Tennessee, Blackberry Farm occupies 4,200 acres of wilderness where exceptional hospitality, serious food, and genuine Southern warmth converge. This isn't your typical resort where you're shuffled through generic experiences. Here, you'll find 68 accommodations ranging from cozy historic rooms to …

There's a certain magic to staying somewhere without electricity or running water, somewhere a five-minute hike takes you to views of the Colorado River and Lake Powell, and where the night sky is so unmarred by light pollution that the stars seem to multiply the longer you stare at them. …

From the street, El Palacito Secreto looks unassuming, just another modest colonial facade tucked into the historic heart of Merida. You would never guess what awaits inside. But the moment you step through the entrance, the ordinary world dissolves. What emerges is something far more extravagant: a sprawling, meticulously designed …

Many Glacier Hotel sits on the shores of Swiftcurrent Lake in Glacier National Park's northeastern corner, a five-story structure with brown wood siding and Swiss chalet flourishes that has been welcoming visitors since 1915. When a forest fire roared down the mountain in 1936, employees fought flaming debris with fire …