TRAVEL TALES

The Weirdest Places I Stayed At

From castles to beach camps

A place to rest our head is more than just a bed. At times it can be less. People sleep on planes and in trains. They sleep on airbeds and wooden floors. And they sleep in floating houses and hammocks.

Finding an interesting yet comfortable accommodation for the night has never been easier and trickier at the same time. Airbnbs have become the biggest destroyer of the hotel industry and many guesthouses have vanished.

Yet at the same time, homestays, remote mountain huts and other unconventional places have popped up all around the world. I have certainly not seen or stayed in all of them but I have accumulated a fair selection of different places I have stayed at. Or in.

A tent in the wilderness

The picture above doesn’t seem too interesting. A tent in nature. Might not be for everything but in the end it’s just a tent.

However, if I tell you where I pitched that tent, many of you might frighten by dropping the phone they’re holding or forgetting to breathe for a moment.

The Okavango Delta.

Just a while ago Jillian Amatt - Artistic Voyages wrote about a horrifying plan on drilling oil in this sensible ecosystem and very unique natural inland delta. I still wanted to dive into that topic as well but didn’t get around to it. Yet.

And that is where I pitched the tent. Inside a national park. All alone with one guide and his rifle. No other protection separated me from all wildlife living out there in the wilderness.

Hippos were housing just in the water below, lions were roaring through the night and snakes could have been curling their way around everywhere.

On a morning and evening walking safari, the guide and I encountered a herd of wildebeest, countless antelopes and zebras, saw hippos in the pool, walked past two elephant bulls and stared up at gigantic giraffes feeding on the trees next to us.

I guess it was good I slept inside that tent without much thought. After a long day out in the great outdoors, I was tired. Too tired to worry.

I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

Only waking up once to the roaring sound of lions I hoped they were not coming my way…

Cottage in the sand on the beach

Not so adventurous was the next stay. A beach accommodation that was built on the beach. In the sand only meters away from the Atlantic Ocean.

In Ghana, I stayed in one of these beach cottages that didn’t even have a floor in them. And yes, I did wake up to countless bites on my body. Sand flies were not only in the sand but in the bed as well.

And yet I will never forget how I fell asleep to the soothing sound of the waves.

On the edge of a cliff

This was one of the more comfortable and relaxing places I’ve stayed in. Our rooftop tent. Over the period of three years, we slept a total of almost 4 months inside that tent. We made it comfortable and safe. With two mattresses and a mosquito net.

So sleeping inside the tent on top of our car was rather normal to us by the time we pulled into this night’s camping spot. A patch of grass at the edge of a mountain at 2,000 meters in altitude in the Eastern Highlands in Zimbabwe.

Yet not our bed but the location made this night’s stay so special. Parking the car just meters away from where the mountain drops down a cliff, we would have slept better if we put some rocks behind the wheels as a storm was moving across our home and strong winds blew across that night.

We slept well but woke up more than once worrying about if we’d get blown off that mountain.

Bed on the walls of a castle

A few years ago during a solo backpacking trip where I hiked along the coastline in Ghana, I got to a small fishing village one afternoon where the local who walked with me the last few meters brought me to the castle.

Fort Gross Friedricksburg used to be a German castle in the 17th century. Located on a hill overlooking endless beaches, the fort offered a spectacular view.

While it stood in ruins and was rather abandoned, someone told me I could sleep out on the walls of the castle. There was a mattress. And a mosquito net. I didn’t need more.

In a tree house in the jungle

Still in Ghana but on a different trip, I visited the Kakum National Park where I stayed one night in the jungle. In a treehouse high up above the ground.

The toilets and showers were downstairs and it was quickly clear I wouldn’t go to use the bathroom at night. Not with all the creatures that were lingering around there.

The reception was about half an hour away. Half an hour of walking through the thick jungle. The guide dropped my friend and me off and said he’d come back at 11 pm for the night safari.

It was a walking safari. In the dark. All I remember were the millions of insects that stuck to my face disregarding if I had the red light on my torch or the normal light.

And it was ridiculously humid. Sweat was running down my face and I could barely breathe. Or sleep that night by any means. No AC or fan.

And it was loud. It felt like we were outside in between insects, snakes, monkeys and whatever else was wandering around. The wooden treehouse had just some mosquito nets to protect us from the wilderness. Nothing soundproof.

Even though I barely slept that night, I loved the night in the treehouse.

In a floating bungalow

Switching the continent, I remember the first trip to Thailand in 2018 where David and I booked a 3-day trip to the Khao Sok National Park.

Sleeping inside a floating cabin was certainly the highlight of the trip. We had kayaks out front of our bungalow which we could use for free to explore hidden bays and paddle along the thick jungle.

On top of a mountain

Back to Africa.

Things you do when you’re young. It was somewhere in Namibia. There is an official campsite at Bloedkoppie, a mountain in the Namib desert. And if I say official, there is no reception, no ablution block, running water or electricity.

Anyway, we thought sleeping down at the bottom of the mountain would be pretty boring and so we packed all our equipment including firewood, food and drinks, and walked up that steep rock. To sleep inside the semi-cave at the top.

It was worth it.

In caves in the vastness of a crater

And while we are on the topic of caves, there was one more during the same road trip.

Messum Crater used to be a volcano millions of years ago. Today, it is one of the least explored regions in Namibia. The crater can only be recognized as a crater from the air. That is how big he is.

I remember we had no real maps, roads or signs leading us there. We followed the tracks we were told about. Somehow we made it there.

You should be going with two vehicles and enough supplies for a couple of days in case you break down. There is no cellphone reception for miles or any human settlement.

It was the last day of our trip. We had barely enough water for the night. Yes, we were young. We had fun.

During the day, we drove around and hiked on top of some hills, in the afternoon, we found some caves in the mountains and selected them as our sleeping grounds.

Possibly one of the most remote places I ever slept at.

On a mattress in the desert

Talking about remote and basic. During my years living in Namibia, I went camping in the desert a lot. My friends told me from the beginning I wouldn’t need more than a mattress. It’s safe out there.

They simply didn’t mention the snakes, scorpions, leopards and other wild animals I could be meeting. And so I slept well out there. On a mattress in the middle of nowhere.

I learned though to take a warm sleeping bag with me as the nights could be very cold.

Final words

So, this was my selection of unconventional places I’ve spent a night at. There were probably a lot more but these are the ones that came to my mind and where I found a picture of.

Looking back at these places I do have fond memories of all of them. They were all part of some great adventure.

What about you? Have you stayed in some interesting, fascinating or scary places? Respond in the comments below or right your own prompt response linking back to my article. Please don’t forget to tag me so that I don’t miss you article.

Erika Burkhalter | Jillian Amatt | Sh*t Happens - Lost Girl Travel | JoAnn Ryan | Adrienne Beaumont | The Sturg | Linda Ng | Dan Carlson | Ronald Smit | Scott-Ryan Abt | Michael Rhodes | Michele Maize

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