The Original Icehotel in Kiruna, Sweden

On my last day exploring Sweden’s beautiful & rugged Lapland, I had the opportunity to visit the world-famous Icehotel.

Located in Kiruna, Sweden, the Icehotel Winter has between 15 to 20 ice rooms and 12 one-of-a-kind art suites.

The art suites are sculpted anew each winter from ice harvested from the year prior. It is also a year-round property, so even travelers who visit outside of the winter season can stay in one of the Icehotel 365 suites for an extra “cool” summer experience!

Fun fact: There are now two dozen or so ice hotels, but this is the original property that started them all. It is this frosty hotel that inspired the rest and is the only property that can officially be called Icehotel. The company also has a handful of bars (named Icebar by Icehotel) in places like Stockholm and London where they import ice directly from Kiruna – incredible!

During the day, the Icehotel is more like an art museum than a hotel.

Visitors can tour around the sparkling, frozen resort to see the different rooms, ice sculptures, and architecture of this incredibly unique hotel. After touring hours finish up around 6pm, guests staying overnight at the hotel are welcome to move into their rooms.

I was really impressed by the scale of the Icehotel. The lobby was HUGE and the whole place was so much bigger than I expected! It was beautiful, ornate, and artistic. The lobby had great pillars of ice holding up the snow-white ceiling from which hung a glittering chandelier. The hotel even has a movie theatre with ice-carved benches.

The rooms were equally as impressive and were designed by several different artists in different themes. One I particularly enjoyed was sculpted to look like a library, complete with a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf entirely made of ice. Other great features found in the Icehotel are a beautiful bar with changing lights and a slip & slide that takes guests zipping through an ice tunnel.

Staying overnight at the Icehotel is a completely unique and unreal experience.

It goes without saying that a hotel entirely made of ice is…well, more than a little chilly. Luckily, for guests who are on the fence about staying in cold accommodations, the permanent rooms have easy access to a nice hot sauna. It was funny (and unsurprising) to hear from our guide that sometimes hotel staff will come to the rooms in the morning and learn that a guest has decided to spend the night sleeping in the sauna after they have had enough of the ice experience – smart!

The Icehotel is absolutely something to experience in your lifetime. If you’d like to hear more, reach out to me to learn more about putting together a trip to this super unique resort and my top recommendations on crafting a trip to Sweden you’ll never forget!

–Michael Rathauser