9 Ice Hotels to Freeze Your Toes and Melt Your Face

Matt Shaw Matt Shaw

Every winter, the small Swedish village of Jukkasjärvi builds an Icehotel. Almost 50,000 people will visit each season, and artists from around the world come to build sculptural, light-based or even typographic installations for themed rooms. This year is the 25th edition of the iconic frozen palace, which uses almost 1,000 tons of frozen water and about 7 million gallons of snow and ice from the nearby Torne River. The hotel is structurally sound and the ephemeral installations are inspired by everything from love and baroque architecture to the inner workings of a clock.

Here are a few of this year’s rooms, along with some other Icehotel madness.

’7 , 5 °’ Rø by Wolfgang-A. Lüchow, Sebastian Andreas Scheller, Anja Kilian, Germany

‘Two as One’ by Jose Carlos Cabello Millán

‘Borderland’ by Tomasz Cjazkowski & Eryk Marks

24th Jukkasjärvi Icehotel, 2014

23rd Jukkasjärvi Icehotel, 2013

22nd Jukkasjärvi Icehotel, 2012


Image via www.hoteldeglace-canada.com

Hotel De Glace, Quebec

© Chris Burton

© Chris Burton


Image via www.fodors.com

Hotel of Ice, Balea Lac, Romania


Image via www.fodors.com

Snow Village Finland, Kittilä, Finland


Image via www.fodors.com

Eskimska Vas, Slovenia


Image via www.fodors.com

The Snowcastle of Kemi, Kemi, Finland

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