Some of the most powerful liminal experiences aren’t found in abandoned malls or empty corridors, they’re places you can actually stay the night.

These hotels and unusual lodgings exist in a strange in-between state: suspended between trees, carved into ancient caves, floating on water, built from ice that will soon melt, or sitting half-empty in the desert. They feel slightly removed from ordinary reality, whether through isolation, surreal design, temporary architecture, or the quiet emptiness of spaces built for crowds that never come.

Here are ten of the most compelling liminal stays from around the world.

Treehotel – Harads, Swedish Lapland, Sweden

Suspended high among the pines of Swedish Lapland, Treehotel offers a collection of uniquely designed treerooms so surreal, they appear almost like portals within the woodland. The mirrored cube reflects the forest so perfectly it almost disappears; and the UFO hangs between the trees, accessed only by a retractable ladder, as if it is being beamed into place. Quiet, isolated, and otherworldly, each room exists in a permanent state of being neither fully on the ground nor truly airborne. The perfect hideaways to disappear into.

Clown Motel – Tonopah, Nevada, USA

In the middle of the Nevada desert, the Clown Motel surrounds you with thousands of clown figures while a historic cemetery sits directly next door. The combination of cheerfully kitsch clown ornaments, long sparse corridors, and isolation, produces a uniquely unsettling atmosphere of quiet unease and childhood nostalgia, giving this motel is simultaneous ‘Weirdcore’ and “America’s scariest motel” reputation.

Holiday Inn Express – Heathrow T4, London, UK

The internet’s favourite “real Backrooms hotel.” Tucked into the infrastructure of Heathrow Airport, reached through long, institutional corridors that already feel like Backrooms. Once inside, the endless identical hallways, muted lighting, and constant low hum of the airport create a strong sense of being stuck in transit, a place designed for brief passage that somehow feels endless when experienced at quiet hours.

Aquatio Cave Luxury Hotel & Spa – Matera, Italy

Carved into the ancient Sassi of Matera, Aquatio occupies a series of cave dwellings that open onto a striking underground pool. The soft stone walls, filtered light, and quiet subterranean spaces create a powerful feeling of being completely disconnected from the modern world. It is one of the most atmospheric cave hotels in Europe.

House in the Clouds – Thorpeness, Suffolk, UK

Originally a water tower disguised as a house, this tall, isolated structure rises above the Suffolk landscape like something from a dream. Its unusual proportions, elevated position, and sense of floating above the trees give it a quietly surreal, fantasy quality – a building that never quite belongs to the ground it stands on.

InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland – Shanghai, China

Built into a former quarry, this hotel plunges dramatically below ground level, with some rooms looking directly into the water-filled pit. The combination of raw rock, modern glass, and the strange vertical drop creates a powerful sense of dislocation, as if the building has been inserted into a landscape that still feels half-finished or abandoned.

TWA Hotel (Flight Center) – New York, USA

Eero Saarinen’s 1962 TWA terminal at JFK, restored as a hotel: blood red carpets, stark white tube corridors, a sunken lounge, a rooftop pool looking over the runways, and the feeling of a departure hall that never fully emptied. with When quite, the empty seating and endless corridors can feel like somewhere between a dream and a time warp.

Book and Bed – Shinsaibashi, Osaka, Japan

Literary and slightly dreamlike, guests sleep in narrow, book-lined cubbies that feel halfway between a library and a capsule hotel. The soft lighting, endless shelves, and quiet, enclosed sleeping spaces produce a gentle but distinctly surreal atmosphere. A place designed for reading and resting, that exists slightly outside normal hotel logic.

ICEHOTEL – Jukkasjärvi, Swedish Lapland, Sweden

Rebuilt every winter from ice and snow harvested from the Torne River, the ICEHOTEL exists only for a few months before melting back into the landscape. Its silent, blue-lit corridors and artist-carved suites feel temporary and fleeting, and like waking up inside of a winter wonderland only ever spoken about in fairytales.

Primm Valley Resort & Casino – Primm, Nevada, USA

Right on the California–Nevada border, and saved from closure in June 2026: this large casino resort often runs at strikingly low occupancy. Vast empty parking lots, quiet corridors, retro decor, and half-lit gaming floors create a powerful sense of a place built for crowds that never fully arrive – a strong “forgotten mini-Vegas” atmosphere that feels constantly in limbo. The resort, strangely, also exhibits the bullet-riddled car Bonnie and Clyde were driving when they were killed.

If any of these locations call to you, you can find fuller details, practical information, and more atmospheric notes on their individual listing pages. If you have visited any of these locations, or know of another hotel/stay that feels genuinely liminal – whether it’s a quiet airport hotel, a forgotten resort, or something even stranger, I’d love to hear about it! Let me know via either the Contact or Add a Location form.