Stilted Lover

There’s a lot to love about hotels on stilts. Unlike your past romantic partners, when your hotel room leaves you high and dry, it’ll leave you with nothing but positive memories.

There are some things you can rely on when it comes to stilt-borne hotels. If your room is raised, it’s a good bet that you’re near a large body of water, or high up in the canopy of a forest, or perched over the side of a mountain. You’re probably also enjoying unobstructed views and uninterrupted privacy. And it’s damn likely that you’re in a part of the world often described as “paradise” — a word you wouldn’t necessarily use to describe your stupid ex.

This list has stilts of all kinds: tall ones, short ones, stilts over land and stilts over the sea. There’s even a hotel in a train on a bridge. There’s something here for everyone, including you. It’s okay to love again.
 

Loire Valley Lodges

Esvres-sur-Indre, France

Not every Loire Valley hotel has to follow the wine-château model. Loire Valley Lodges turns to nature for inspiration, its 18 treehouse-like lodges standing on stilts among the oaks, chestnuts, and Douglas firs of this 750-acre forest. There’s no wi-fi and no TV, just a Nordic modernist vibe, a front-row view of the woods, and a full complement of rather high-end comforts, including a jacuzzi on each one’s terrace.

Thatch Caye Resort

Coco Plum Range, Belize

A 25-minute boat ride from the mainland is the only way to get to Thatch Caye’s private-island location. Once there, you’ll find five overwater cabanas, four larger casitas with rooftop patios, and a single Family Villa, essentially a triple unit on stilts above the sea. There isn’t a bad view to be had anywhere.

Boca de Agua Bacalar

Bacalar, Mexico

There’s visiting the Yucatán, and then there’s fully immersing yourself in it. Boca de Agua Bacalar offers an experience that falls firmly in the latter camp, plopping you right on the banks of the Bacalar lagoon and its outrageously clear turquoise waters. Rooms come treehouse style, lifted on stilts to minimize their footprint while also affording sweeping vistas of the jungle — and, if you’re lucky, a spider monkey or an iguana.

Kruger Shalati – the Train on the Bridge

Skukuza, South Africa

Kruger Shalati – the Train on the Bridge is very much a train on a bridge, now immobilized and transformed into a truly one-of-a-kind luxury boutique hotel. The setting is South Africa’s Kruger National Park, and the train is, it must be said, a welcome departure from the tented-camp concept and aesthetic. It’s as luxurious as any of them, of course, but with the added inducement of a truly unique, extra-elevated vantage point above the Sabie River.

Hotel Palafitte

Neuchâtel, Switzerland

Hôtel Palafitte is a South Pacific-style overwater bungalow hotel, located not in the Maldives but on the waters of Switzerland’s Lake Neuchâtel, at the foot of the Jura mountains, with a stunning view of the Alps across the lake. It’s an utterly futuristic execution of a timeless concept: farmers lived in houses on stilts above the waters of this very lake some five thousand years ago — but never quite like this.

Nomade Holbox

Holbox, Mexico

The focus at Nomade Holbox is on wellness: Mayan-inspired sound healing, breathwork, and yoga are offered inside a structure that’s unironically called the Gratitude Tent. And even outside the tent there’s plenty to be grateful for, starting with the hotel’s series of modern treehouses, each with a queen-sized bed facing the water, an indoor-outdoor shower, and a rooftop terrace offering 360-degree views over the island scenery.

Sala Lodges

Siem Reap, Cambodia

The Sala Lodges are no reproductions — these are authentic handmade houses, some fifty years old or more, transported from all across the Cambodian countryside and reassembled here on this site. The houses differ widely in style and plan, though all of them are elevated at least a few feet, in traditional Khmer style.

Rio Perdido

Bagaces, Costa Rica

This sustainably built hotel takes its name, “lost river,” from one of two waterways that converge in a dwarf forest in Costa Rica’s San Bernardo Lowlands. The twenty bungalows, connected by a system of elevated pathways and hiking trails, stand on stilts near the edge of the two rivers’ deep gorges. Built of stainless steel, they’re stylish but efficient — and, of course, designed to make minimal impact on the environment.

Floris Green Suites

Siusi, Italy

In the South Tyrolean village of Siusi, the very traditional Parc Hotel Florian has been joined by a very modern addition: Floris Green Suites is a ten-suite treehouse-style hotel within a hotel, its abstracted lodge-like forms elevated on stilts to minimize their footprint. The interiors use classic Alpine materials like timber floors, combined with clean-lined modernist furniture and fixtures, and dark, rich colors that lend an urban-boutique aspect.

Bio Habitat Hotel

Armenia, Colombia

Here there are no mere accommodations, but Habitats — most of them suites, designed in an unapologetically modernist style, with vast picture windows that take in the expansive views of the surrounding coffee plantations, as well as outdoor terraces with sun beds. For those looking for total immersion, stay in one of the Aviaries, elevated structures tucked into the forest, with glass on all four sides.

Zannier Phum Baitang

Siem Reap, Cambodia

You didn’t come to Cambodia to eat Italian food and sleep in a chain hotel. You’re here for the temples, the markets, the Cambodian circus — and checking into a villa at Phum Baitang completes that immersive fantasy. The name means “green village,” and it’s an apt description. Thatched-roof wooden villas rise up on stilts amid landscaped gardens and paddy fields, and the large swimming pool, like a mirror, reflects the image of towering palms overhead.

Private Resort Hotel Renn

Miyakojima, Japan

A stone’s throw from coral reefs and natural pools, Private Resort Hotel Renn is a simple but stylish boutique hotel on the southern coast of Japan’s Miyako Island. It’s perched high on stilts, resembling a collection of futuristic glass boxes from the outside; inside, the look is minimalist, with little to distract from the views of water and sky.

Orion Treehouses

Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France

It’s not easy to choose between the ethereal cabins at Orion Treehouses, but then again, it’s a good problem to have. The boutique hotel, located in a peaceful wooded setting just outside the medieval village of Saint-Paul de Vence, consists of four treehouses suspended high over a lush garden with flowering rose bushes and an ecological swimming pool. All are light-filled and lined with natural wood, featuring private baths and large terraces framed by oak branches.

COMO Cocoa Island

South Male Atoll, Maldives

We could’ve populated this entire list with the overwater bungalow hotels of the Maldive islands, perched on wooden stilts in the shallow waters of the Indian Ocean. COMO Cocoa Island takes it a step further — each villa is in the form of a dhoni, a traditional fishing boat. At high tide it feels as if you’re adrift at sea, the gentle waters lapping against the edges of the balcony.