New Zealand nook
Who knows how J.R.R. Tolkien would have designed a motel, but the Hobbit Motel in New Zealand seems to have real fantasy appeal. The strange little building with porthole-style windows is built into the side of a hill in Waitomo, a region on North Island known for its caves and waterfalls.
Each Hobbit unit accommodates up to six people, with a double bed in the main living area and two sets of bunk beds in another room. All rooms also feature kitchenettes.
Prices, listed in New Zealand dollars on the motel’s website, start at $106 per night per couple, with $8.60 for each extra person.
Woodlyn Park, the site of the motel, started out as a working farm that turned into a restaurant-bar and was then fashioned into a string of unusual dwellings -- a refurbished 1950s Bristol Freighter plane, an old rail car and a World War II patrol boat dubbed the Waitanic -- in which you can book a room.
Info: www.woodlynpark.co.nz/thehobbitmotel.html.
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