Go Niche

If you find reusing hotel towels is a green step too far, this one is not for you. Kolarbyn prides itself on being Sweden’s most primitive hotel. An eco-lodge property in central Svealand, bedrooms here are huts dotted through woods.

With neither electricity nor running water to worry about, it pitches itself as a true wilderness experience, staying in tee-pee shaped structures made of planks and covered in earth and foliage.

Each hut has two hard beds covered in sheepskin rugs and, by way of in-room entertainment, you’re looking at an open fire, candles and matches.

There is, of course, no central heating, and if you want firewood, you’ll have to chop it yourself (axe provided).

Water has to be fetched from a nearby spring and breakfast is a self-service affair – museli taken from the hotel’s “storehouse”. In winter you bring your own.

Cooking is done – by you, of course – outside on a fire and, while there are outhouse toilets, bathing is a dip in the lake or quick scrub in the nearby creek.

If you’re feeling sociable there is a large communal hut for company. Then again, if you’re feeling sociable you’re not likely to choose a hut in the woods for a holiday, are you?

Activities include a chance to borrow the hotel’s canoe or, for an extra cost, renting the hotel’s floating sauna on the lake. You just have to cut your own firewood and heat it up first. It costs SEK 400 (about €46) per person, per night. Read it and weep hoteliers.

[ svenskaturistforeningen.se ]