Ice Hotels

The original, rebuilt each winter since 1989 from ice harvested out of the Torne River and returned to it in spring. Artists are invited annually to carve the individual art suites, so the interior is never repeated twice.

Guests sleep on ice beds under reindeer hides in thermal sleeping bags at around minus five, then thaw in a heated service building with saunas and hot drinks. Warm rooms are available for anyone who would rather not.

A year-round section, Icehotel 365, is kept frozen through the summer by solar power from the midnight sun. The village sits well above the Arctic Circle, which puts the aurora in play from autumn to early spring.

North America's ice hotel, raised each January from snow and ice and open for roughly ten weeks before it melts. Vaulted corridors, an ice chapel and a bar where the glasses are cut from ice have been fixtures since the early years.

Themed suites are sculpted to a different brief each season, some with fireplaces and private spas. Outdoor hot tubs and a sauna sit alongside the building for the necessary warm-up.

It shares a site with a village resort near Quebec City, so day visitors tour the structure while overnight guests have it to themselves after hours.

Perched by a fjord in Norway's far north-east, close to the Russian border, Kirkenes rebuilds its snow hotel every winter with carved walls and a snow-built restaurant alongside.

Guests sleep at a steady minus four in expedition sleeping bags. The site also keeps a group of huskies and a small reindeer herd, and runs sledding and king crab trips from the water at the bottom of the slope.

Heated glass-roofed cabins along the shoreline give the alternative for anyone wanting to watch the aurora from a warm bed.

About half an hour out of Rovaniemi, this Lapland property pairs a rebuilt snow hotel with a field of heated glass igloos, and most guests try both — a night in the snow, a night under the glass.

The snow rooms are carved fresh each season and kept just below freezing; a snow sauna and an ice restaurant sit within the same structure, with hot tubs outside in the forest.

Being outside the town's light means the aurora forecast is genuinely usable here, and the reception will wake guests in the igloos if the sky goes green.