Treehotel Harads, Swedish Lapland, Sweden

 Treehotel Hotel Review, Swedish Lapland | Travel (telegraph.co.uk)

The latest addition to this extraordinary collection of tree houses, the 7th Room, comes courtesy of Norwegian architects, Snøhetta. It joins, amongst others, a UFO, a bird’s nest and a mirrored cube, all of which hang in a pine forest far above the ground in deepest Lapland.

 Relatively remote, in the little town of Harads, about 70 minutes from the airport of Luleå, in Swedish Lapland. Reindeers with their Sámi herders and the Arctic Circle are easy day trips away and the hotel is well placed for fishing in summer or ice fishing in winter with the wide Lule River a few minutes away. There is a small clearing above the tree houses from which the Northern lights can be seen well on a clear night.

Owners Kent and Britta offer a friendly, personalised service; they take you up by foot through the woods to learn the trail and your luggage up by van.  There are snowmobiles and snowshoes in all sizes.  There are two saunas and one hot tub.  Classic Swedish massages are available on request. There is a zip line on site and activities from moose safaris, ice-fishing, dog-sledding and photographing the northern lights to choose from.

Although there are eight guest rooms in Britta’s Pensionat, it is the Tree Hotel, made up from the seven different tree houses that people travel from all corners of the globe to experience. The first ones include the Mirrorcube, (with one double bed) and the Bird’s Nest, with a double bed and two bunk beds housed in an extraordinarily realistic construction of birch twigs which you climb up to on a ladder which you pull in behind you. There is also the Blue Cone, with a double bed and two singles, approached by a ramp way and the rectangular shaped Cabin, a favourite for honeymooners, with one double bed and mesmerising views onto the surrounding forest.  

The UFO appears somewhat ghostlike amongst the trees, and comes with a double bed and three single beds and also a retractable ladder. The Dragonfly comprises two separate bedrooms with four single or two double beds.  All of the above have eco-friendly waste systems where at the push of a button waste is dropped into an incinerator beneath and basins come with a water saving system.

The most recent, the 7th Room, is the only tree house which comes with a shower (showers are available in both sauna houses) and is the largest house, with a capacity to sleep five. The highest of them all, it also has a rope platform and windows from which to watch for the elusive Northern Lights.

Delicious home cooking done by Britta and served in the cosy wooden dining room at the Pensionat, draws on local ingredients from arctic char to moose or reindeer with blueberry cheesecake a favourite pudding.  If you are lucky Kent might offer you a nip of his home-made birch vodka.  Breakfast is both buffet with cheeses and fruits and eggs to order. There are coffee machines and minibars in all the tree houses.