The hard part of unusual accommodation website design is that your guest has never seen anything like your place and has nothing to compare it with. The site has to make the stay believable on the first screen, then answer the practical doubts that follow (cold, stairs, food, access) before the guest drifts back to a platform. Eight live websites show how, from treehouses in Sweden to Airstreams beside American national parks.
Each site is shown the way a visitor meets it: the home page scrolls inside a laptop screen and inside a phone. Three are projects of Hotel Web Design (Cabane Petit Bois, La Réserve de l’Aube and Les Cabanes Ju & Co). The other five are independent sites in Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Canada and the United States, picked for what they do well rather than for their size. Nothing is ranked: what matters is what you can borrow for your own place. After the examples you will find the three ways guests book, what to ask of a template or a custom design, and a checklist for phone and desktop.
What an unusual accommodation website has to do
A cabin in the trees or a pod on an alpine slope is bought on an emotion, and an emotion has to be followed by facts. Put side by side, the eight sites keep doing the same eight things.
- Lead with the place itself. Treehotel opens on a slider of its rooms, Whitepod on one photograph of a dome and its deck on a mountain slope, Free Spirit Spheres on a sphere hanging among the trees. The first screen shows the one thing a guest cannot find anywhere else. A date search can follow at once, as at Les Cabanes Ju & Co and AutoCamp.
- Give every unit a name and a sentence of its own. Treehotel names its nine treerooms and credits the designer under each, La Réserve de l’Aube names its three zomes after trees (Cherry Tree, Fig Tree and Chestnut), and Free Spirit Spheres gives Luna, Melody and Eryn a short portrait each. A name is easy to remember and easy to recommend.
- Answer the practical doubts early. The stranger the stay, the more a guest wonders about cold, stairs, food and access. Cabane Petit Bois lists the equipment room by room and says that access is by a staircase. Whitepod warns that the pods are about a 20-minute walk from the parking area, on foot only. Free Spirit Spheres has a Frequently Asked Questions page that says where to eat (restaurants within 5 to 25 km), that breakfast is not served and where the bathroom is. Juvet gives its opening season, its weekend minimum and its dinner time.
- Show the way in. A remote place has a getting-there problem. Treehotel gives How to get there a full row of the home page, Juvet has two menu entries for it (Where in the world is Juvet? and How to get here?), and Free Spirit Spheres has a Directions page.
- Keep booking within reach of every screen. Treehotel and AutoCamp show a Book now button, Juvet a Book button, Les Cabanes Ju & Co a Booking button, Whitepod a floating bar with Menu and Book now, and Free Spirit Spheres an Availability button in the menu.
- Sell the stay around the night. Cabane Petit Bois offers extras (a breakfast basket, a late departure, flowers), Whitepod lists activities, a spa, a restaurant and events, Treehotel has packages, and Les Cabanes Ju & Co lists fishing, walks, a bird hide and a pétanque pitch. Each gives the guest a reason to stay longer or to come back.
- Prove it, and reassure. Free Spirit Spheres says it has over a hundred five-star reviews and quotes three, Whitepod signs its reviews with a name and a line such as Guest, April 2026, and AutoCamp quotes guests by first name and initial. La Réserve de l’Aube gives Reviews a menu entry of its own and keeps a Secure payment bar, linked to its terms, at the very top of its pages.
- Work on a phone. Google indexes and ranks the mobile version of a page, so a site that is only comfortable on a laptop is judged on its weaker version. The checklist below goes through it.
8 unusual accommodation website examples, analyzed
Each card has two scrolling screens, one for a laptop and one for a phone, then what we noticed on the live site in October 2026 and what to take from it. Third-party prices that appear in a screenshot are blurred.
Treehotel
Nine treerooms, each credited to its designer, up in the forest · Harads, Sweden
A landscape hotel in Harads, Sweden, built as a set of rooms in the forest. The home page opens on a slider that moves through the treerooms under the headline Come and stay in the trees, each one with a View room button. Below, the nine rooms come as a grid of photographs (two columns on a laptop, one on a phone), and every tile carries a Designed by credit: Oasis by Nadén & Lind, Biosphere by BIG, Mirrorcube by Tham & Videgård, the 7th room by Snøhetta, Blue Cone by Sandellsandberg and four more.
The menu has seven entries (Treerooms, Guesthouse, Activities, Event, Conferences, Restaurant and Packages) and a Book now button that opens a Bookvisit booking page. A How to get there block follows the rooms, then two tiles for the seasons and the activities. The site is in English only.
Key takeaways
- Naming the designer under each room turns nine rooms into nine stories worth retelling, and gives guests something to share.
- A View room button on every tile keeps the road from photograph to details to booking short.
- Type
- Treehouse hotel
- Location
- Harads (Sweden)
- Booking
- Bookvisit booking page
- Languages
- English
Cabane Petit Bois
One cabin on stilts with a spa and a sauna · Loiret, France
One cabin, sold as a whole. The home page puts the offer in its headline, Spa & Sauna near Paris, and the next line gives the size, 118 m², and the setting, among century-old oaks in the Loiret. The date form (check-in, check-out, adults and children) and a Book button sit right under it, so a visitor can search before reading anything else.
The page then lists what the guest gets: a 48 m² cabin on stilts between three century-old oaks and a 70 m² terrace with a three-seat spa, a four-seat Finnish-style sauna, an outdoor shower and a gas plancha. Inside are a lounge with a pellet stove, a parent suite, a mezzanine with two single beds, a kitchen and reversible air conditioning, and the list states that access is by a staircase. The site also sells extras around the night, such as a breakfast basket pulled up by a rope, a late departure and flowers, and it is available in five languages.
Key takeaways
- The headline sells the experience and the distance in four words, then the date form follows without a click.
- Stating the staircase access in the equipment list is the kind of plain answer that prevents a complaint later.
- Type
- Cabin on stilts with spa
- Location
- Boismorand, Loiret (France)
- Booking
- Booky
- Languages
- French, English, Spanish, Italian, German
Free Spirit Spheres
Three spherical treehouses, booked by phone · Vancouver Island, Canada
Three suspended spheres in a coastal rainforest: Luna, the newest, Melody, a yellow fiberglass sphere with a mural, and Eryn, handcrafted in Sitka spruce. The headline calls it the most unique accommodation in the world, and the home page backs the claim with over a hundred five-star reviews and three quotes signed with first names. The Rental Policies page adds that the spheres are for adults only, with a minimum age of 16, because of the insurance.
Booking is by phone: the number sits at the top of every page, with Book your stay today under it, and calls are taken between 9 AM and 8 PM. The Spheres page has an Availability section with a month-by-month calendar for each sphere (available, weekend, booked, maintenance), and each sphere’s own page warns that the calendar is updated twice a day and does not guarantee that a marked date is still free. Weekends require two nights. A Frequently Asked Questions page answers the doubts a forest stay raises: restaurants and eateries are within 5 to 25 km, breakfast is not served (a snack basket is provided on arrival) and each sphere has a private bathroom in the bath house, about 50 m away. Guests can also cook on site: the shared Cook House has a small galley kitchen and a barbecue.
Key takeaways
- When booking is manual, a public calendar and a plain warning about how fresh it is set the right expectation before the call.
- Answering the food question on the page (restaurants within 5 to 25 km, no breakfast but a snack basket, a shared kitchen and barbecue on site) removes a doubt that every remote stay raises.
- Type
- Spherical treehouses
- Location
- Vancouver Island, British Columbia (Canada)
- Booking
- By phone, with a public calendar
- Languages
- English
Whitepod
Domes and chalets on an alpine slope · Valais, Switzerland
An alpine estate in the canton of Valais that sells one idea in its headline, Total disconnection. A floating pill with Menu, the language switch and Book now stays on screen over the first photograph, and Book now leads to a booking page on the hotel’s own domain. Pods and Chalets have their own pages, shown as large rounded photo panels with text laid over them.
Below, the site sells everything around the night: activities as cards with tags (family-friendly, group activity, all levels) and a duration, a spa, a restaurant, events such as weddings, seminars and immersive retreats, and a gift voucher. Guest reviews are signed with a name and a line such as Guest, April 2026. The access question is answered in plain words: the pods can be reached only on foot, roughly 20 minutes from the reception and parking area, with advice on what to wear.
Key takeaways
- A floating bar keeps the way to booking in reach while the visitor scrolls past large photographs.
- Activity cards with tags and durations let a guest picture the days, not only the night.
- Type
- Alpine pods and chalets
- Location
- Valais (Switzerland)
- Booking
- Own booking page
- Languages
- French, English, German
La Réserve de l’Aube
Three wood-and-glass zomes with wood-fired baths · Champagne, France
Three zomes for two guests, named Cherry Tree, Fig Tree and Chestnut. The banner says what the place is in three lines: unusual accommodations for couples, each with a private Nordic bath; zomes of wood and glass 100 km from Paris; and sky-view showers, private terraces and total calm. A green Discover our homes button follows, then an Accommodation block gives the facts that matter at check-in before the guest has asked: arrivals from 4 to 8 pm, departures until 11 am, a late departure until 1 pm as an option. Each zome appears as a full-width photograph with its guest count and a note about a reduced rate for two nights or more. One line sums up what each zome comes with: its own terrace, a fully glazed bathroom and a wood-fired Nordic bath.
A thin bar at the very top of the pages says Secure payment and links to the Terms and Conditions, so the reassurance comes before the booking. The menu has eleven entries, from Home and Gallery to The Zome, Excursions, Reviews, Store and FAQ, with Booking last, plus a switch to French. The site is in French and English.
Key takeaways
- Arrival, departure and late-departure times printed above the zomes save the first email a guest would otherwise send.
- A Secure payment and terms bar at the very top puts the reassurance before the booking, not after it.
- Type
- Zomes with wood-fired Nordic baths
- Location
- Champagne (France)
- Booking
- Booky
- Languages
- French, English
Les Cabanes Ju & Co
Unusual slow living by a lake · Burgundy, France
The home page opens on a photograph taken through an arched wooden window, with the lake outside, and the date search (check-in, check-out, adults, children) laid over it, plus a Booking button in the corner. The headline sets a mood, Unusual slow living by a lake, and the next section turns it into a promise: make your stay a suspended moment.
A line about the hosts, who welcome guests all year, is followed by an icon grid of what to do on the spot: fishing on the Lac du Rousset (with an optional permit), walks and hikes, a birdwatching hide, a pétanque pitch and a fitness trail. Behind the Accommodation entry, four stays each get a short portrait and a Booking button: a Burgundian barrel with a private Finnish bath, a Finnish kota for families, a dome for stargazing and a bohemian tent. The menu has seven entries (Accommodation, Services, Private hire, Booking, To discover and Contact, after Home). The site is in English and French.
Key takeaways
- The date search sits on the most emotional photograph of the site, so the wish and the action share one screen.
- An icon grid of on-site activities answers the question of what the guests will do there at a glance.
- Type
- Barrel, kota, dome and tent by a lake
- Location
- Le Rousset-Marizy, Saône-et-Loire (France)
- Booking
- Booky
- Languages
- English, French
Juvet Landscape Hotel
A seasonal hotel in the Norwegian landscape · Valldal, Norway
The home page says little and shows a lot: a full-width photograph of a cloud-covered valley, the headline Leave the world behind, a short introduction, then the rooms (Landscape Rooms, Bird Houses, Writer’s Lodge) and the facilities (Conference Room, Bath House, The Barn and dining) as captioned photographs. A Book button stays in the header and opens a Mews booking page. The site is in Norwegian and English, with the switch next to Book.
The practical page is the model to copy. Booking & information states that the hotel is open from early March to early November, requires two nights on weekends, gives the cancellation terms for one to three rooms and for groups, says that dinner is served to hotel guests at 7:30 pm every evening, and adds that pets are not allowed in the rooms. The menu also has two entries for the access problem, Where in the world is Juvet? and How to get here?
Key takeaways
- One page gathers the season, the minimum stay, the cancellation terms, dinner and pets, so the doubts are answered before the guest books.
- Two menu entries are devoted to where the hotel is and how to get there, which is the first worry of a remote stay.
- Type
- Landscape hotel
- Location
- Valldal (Norway)
- Booking
- Mews booking page
- Languages
- Norwegian, English
AutoCamp
Airstreams, cabins and tents beside national parks · United States
The home page opens on a full-screen video with a dark booking panel laid over it: location, dates, adults, kids and a yellow Check availability button. Under the headline Where boutique hotel meets nature escape, two columns, Inspired Design and Iconic Destinations, state the brand’s two promises, and a slider moves through seven locations, from Yosemite to Joshua Tree, each with Learn more and View offers buttons.
The stay types come as a short list with one line each: Airstreams (31 feet, with a private bathroom and a kitchenette), Family Cabins, Cabins, Adventure Tents and BaseCamps, an Airstream paired with a tent for up to six. The booking itself happens on a separate page at reservations.autocamp.com. Wellness, dining, events, offers and guest reviews follow. On a phone, a Book now button and the booking panel stay at the top of the page, under the opening image.
Key takeaways
- Putting the location first in the booking panel lets one site serve several destinations without losing the guest.
- A one-line description per stay type lets a couple and a family each find the unit that suits them.
- Type
- Airstream and cabin camps
- Location
- Several locations across the United States
- Booking
- Booking panel, then a booking page
- Languages
- English
The eight unusual accommodation websites at a glance
Treehouses, spheres, pods, zomes, cabins, a landscape hotel and a brand of Airstreams: the structure of the site changes with the number of units, the principle does not. The Booking column shows what happens when a guest decides to book. Use it to compare the eight accommodation examples in one pass.
| Website | Location | Type | Booking | Languages |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Treehotel | Harads (Sweden) | Treehouse hotel | Bookvisit booking page | English |
| Cabane Petit Bois | Boismorand, Loiret (France) | Cabin on stilts with spa | Booky | French, English, Spanish, Italian, German |
| Free Spirit Spheres | Vancouver Island, British Columbia (Canada) | Spherical treehouses | By phone, with a public calendar | English |
| Whitepod | Valais (Switzerland) | Alpine pods and chalets | Own booking page | French, English, German |
| La Réserve de l’Aube | Champagne (France) | Zomes with wood-fired Nordic baths | Booky | French, English |
| Les Cabanes Ju & Co | Le Rousset-Marizy, Saône-et-Loire (France) | Barrel, kota, dome and tent by a lake | Booky | English, French |
| Juvet Landscape Hotel | Valldal (Norway) | Landscape hotel | Mews booking page | Norwegian, English |
| AutoCamp | Several locations across the United States | Airstream and cabin camps | Booking panel, then a booking page | English |
Which example is closest to your place?
- A single unusual unit, sold on its story. Cabane Petit Bois and Free Spirit Spheres show how to make one cabin, or three spheres, feel like a destination.
- A handful of units on one site. La Réserve de l’Aube shows three zomes with the arrival times printed above them, Les Cabanes Ju & Co lays a date search over its lake photo, and Whitepod keeps pods and chalets on separate pages.
- A collection of designed rooms. Treehotel turns the designer of each room into part of the pitch, and Juvet keeps the home page nearly silent so that the photographs speak.
- Several locations under one brand. AutoCamp starts its booking panel with the question that matters first: where.
- A remote place where the practical page matters most. Juvet and Free Spirit Spheres both publish their conditions in full, with the weekend rule and the cancellation terms (and, at Juvet, the opening season).
Unusual accommodation web design: three ways guests book
After the photos, the biggest design choice is the road from “I want to sleep there” to “it is booked”. The eight sites use three of them.
A date search on the site, a booking page behind it
Cabane Petit Bois, La Réserve de l’Aube and Les Cabanes Ju & Co put a date search or a Booking button on the home page, and Booky takes over from there. AutoCamp lays a panel over its opening video (location, dates, adults, kids) and Whitepod floats a Book now button over its first photo. Both lead to a booking page on a domain of their own, reservations.autocamp.com and reservations.whitepod.com. The guest never has to write to anyone, and a guest in another time zone can book at any hour.
Hand off to an outside booking page
Treehotel sends the guest to a Bookvisit page and Juvet to a Mews page. The advantage is that an established system keeps working. The cost is that the guest changes site at the last step, which is why the booking page should repeat the name, the photos and the dates of the stay.
By phone, with a public calendar
Free Spirit Spheres takes all bookings by phone, during set hours, and shows a month-by-month calendar for each sphere with four states: available, weekend, booked and maintenance. Each sphere’s page notes that the calendar is refreshed twice a day and that a date shown as free may already be gone. That works for three spheres and a host who answers the phone. As soon as requests multiply, or guests write from other time zones, a booking engine is what closes the gap. It also applies rules by itself, such as the two-night weekend minimum that both Free Spirit Spheres and Juvet require.
Booky and calendar sync
On the three sites we built, the booking engine is Booky. Bookings taken with Booky carry no commission. Booky synchronizes calendars both ways with Booking, Airbnb, Homelidays and other platforms, so a night sold elsewhere is blocked on your site and the other way around. It also handles seasonal rates, minimum stays and arrival days, online payment in two steps (a deposit, then the balance), a card imprint as a guarantee, legal invoices and scheduled emails to the guest. If you already use another engine, the site can integrate it.
Google Hotels, with a caveat
Hotel Web Design is listed in the official Google Hotels connectivity partner directory. Google handles vacation rentals separately from hotels, so whether a given cabin, pod or treehouse can show its availability there has to be checked case by case before anything is set up.
Template or custom design for an unusual place?
Many owners start with a template or a site builder, and for a first site that can be a fair choice. The test is what it can do for a place whose whole appeal is that it looks like nothing else. Open the demo on a phone, then go through these six points.
- Can each unit have its own page? Treehotel puts a View room button on each of its nine rooms, and each sphere at Free Spirit Spheres has its own page, while the Availability section keeps one calendar per sphere. A single page for everything leaves no room for the details that sell.
- Is there a booking path? A template that offers photos and a contact form leaves the calendar and the payments to you, by hand. Ask which booking engines it works with, or whether it has its own.
- Does it sync calendars? If your cabin is also on Booking or Airbnb, the engine should import and export calendars (iCal) so that one night cannot be sold twice.
- Do the photos lead? Look for full-width images, one series per unit and a layout that does not jump while they load. Juvet and Whitepod leave most of their home page to photography.
- Can it carry your languages? Each language should have its own address and a translated menu. Whitepod offers French, English and German, and Cabane Petit Bois five languages.
- Can you edit it yourself? Opening dates, extras and house rules change every season. If every change needs a developer, the site will lag behind the place.
A template stops being enough when the design is part of the product. Treehotel credits the designer under every room, Whitepod lays its text over large rounded photographs, and Juvet gives its conditions a page of their own. Layouts like these are drawn around one particular place, and that is what a custom design is for.
Unusual accommodation website checklist: phone and desktop
On a phone
- The Book button or the date search is visible without scrolling. Whitepod keeps Menu and Book now in one bar on its first phone screen, Juvet keeps Book in the header, and AutoCamp puts its booking panel right under the opening image.
- Each unit’s name, capacity and one-line description can be read without zooming. On a phone, Treehotel gives every room a full-width photo, a name, the designer’s credit and a View room button.
- Where booking is by phone, the number sits in the header and works as a tap-to-call link, as at Free Spirit Spheres, with the opening hours next to it.
- Text and buttons are large enough to tap, and the page never scrolls sideways.
- You have run the booking path yourself, from the first screen to the confirmation, on a real phone.
On a desktop screen
- The menu is short. Treehotel and Les Cabanes Ju & Co keep it to seven entries each, Juvet to eight.
- Every unit has a photograph large enough to judge it, as in the full-width photos of La Réserve de l’Aube, one per zome.
- The conditions are one click away: Juvet has a Booking & information page, Free Spirit Spheres a Rental policies page.
On both
- The phone and the desktop versions hold the same content. Google uses the mobile version to index and rank, so text, headings and image descriptions that exist only on the desktop version may never be indexed.
- The pages are fast. The Core Web Vitals targets are a largest contentful paint within 2.5 seconds, an interaction to next paint of 200 milliseconds or less and a layout shift of 0.1 or less, measured at the 75th percentile of visits and reported for mobile and desktop separately.
- The opening season, the minimum stay, the arrival and departure times, the cancellation terms, the meals and the pet policy are written down before the booking starts, as on the Juvet site. La Réserve de l’Aube prints its arrival and departure times right on the home page.
- Every language version is translated all the way, menu included. One entry of the English menu at Juvet still reads in Norwegian, which is how a guest spots a site that is not finished.
- Reviews carry a name and a date, as at Whitepod, and the payment and terms link stays in view, as at La Réserve de l’Aube.
Other accommodation websites
Unusual accommodations sit between a holiday rental and a small hotel. For the same exercise on other kinds of lodging, see our vacation rental website examples, our holiday cottage examples, our bed and breakfast website example and our guide to campground websites. In French, we also cover bed and breakfasts and holiday cottages, mountain chalets and hotels.
Questions about unusual accommodation websites
What should an unusual accommodation website include?
Large photos of every unit, the capacity, the equipment, a way to check dates and book, the practical rules (opening season, minimum stay, arrival and departure times, cancellation, pets), how to get there, what there is to eat and do nearby, and reviews from past guests. Each of the eight examples above covers most of these in a different way. An unusual place needs one more thing than an ordinary hotel: a plain answer to every doubt its strangeness creates, such as cold, stairs, food and access.
How do I get guests to book on my own site?
Keep the booking path short and visible: a date search or a Book button on the first screen, as at Les Cabanes Ju & Co and AutoCamp, then a booking page that repeats the name, the photos and the dates of the stay. Put the conditions on the page before the booking starts, so a guest has no reason to go and check a platform. Bookings taken with Booky carry no commission, whereas platforms typically charge one.
Does an unusual accommodation need a booking engine?
No, but without one every booking starts with a call or a message. Free Spirit Spheres takes all its bookings by phone and publishes a calendar that it updates twice a day, which works for three spheres and a host who answers the phone. Once guests write from other time zones, or you add units, an engine that shows the free dates and takes the reservation at any hour does more. Bookings taken with Booky carry no commission; with another engine, check its contract.
How do I avoid double bookings if my cabin is also on other platforms?
By synchronizing the calendars. Booky synchronizes both ways with Booking, Airbnb, Homelidays and other platforms, so a night sold on one is blocked on the others. With another engine or a channel manager the principle is the same: ask whether the sync goes one way or both ways, and how often it refreshes. A calendar updated only twice a day leaves a gap between two updates, which is exactly what the Free Spirit Spheres page warns about.
How do I present a place that is hard to reach?
Give access its own space and say it plainly. Treehotel puts How to get there in a full row of its home page, Juvet has two menu entries (Where in the world is Juvet? and How to get here?) and Free Spirit Spheres has a Directions page. Whitepod says that its pods are about a 20-minute walk from the parking area and reachable only on foot, and lists what to wear. Cabane Petit Bois states that the cabin is reached by a staircase. Add a map, the distance from the nearest town or station, and what to bring.
Which languages should the site offer?
The languages of the guests you actually host. Among the eight examples, Treehotel and Free Spirit Spheres work in English only, Whitepod offers French, English and German, and Cabane Petit Bois five languages. Whatever the number, each version should be complete: the English menu at Juvet still has one entry in Norwegian, and guests notice. A good translation of a few pages beats a partial translation of all of them.
