15 Very Bizarre Things You Can Do at Hotels Around the World This Winter

As the sun hits the two-meter-thick sheet of ice that covers Tignes Lake in France’s Val d’Isere, the water below transforms into a mesmerizing display of light and texture. It’s a sight that few will ever have the chance to experience, apart from the adventurous guests staying at the Airelles Val d’Isere, Mademoiselle. This ski-in, ski-out luxury hotel sends guests underwater—through a single entry/exit point—during the winter with a qualified diving instructor to explore the icy waters of the lake and watch the sunbeams dance off the ice above. Divers can then warm up at the Guerlain spa or with a cocktail next to the open-log fire in the bar.

The only legal way to harvest wild oysters in Canada’s Prince Edward Island is by tonging, which is essentially a method of manually scraping the riverbed with long rakes. When rivers freeze over during the winter months—the time when oysters are their most plump—fishermen cut holes in the ice to reach the water and the oysters below. Tranquility Cove Adventures offers a wild oyster tonging experience from their Tranquility Cove Beach Suite on the Brudenell River where guests can get test their tonging skills before enjoying oysters cooked over a bonfire on the ice.

Said to be the original Viking horses, this resilient breed picked up a few tricks during its more than 1,000-year isolation on the rugged island of Iceland. Not only do Icelandic horses thrive in winter climates, but they also have five natural gaits, as opposed to the three gaits other horse breeds can perform. Along with galloping, walking, and trotting, Icelandic horses can also tölt (a “smooth as silk” trot) and skeið (often described as a flying pace). Guests booking the Icelandic Trail Riding Adventure from the Hartstone Inn & Hideaway get a first-hand look at these magnificent creatures during a 90-minute introduction and experience riding through the wintry woods before a chef-packed picnic lunch.

Surfing isn’t just a summer season sport in Nova Scotia; it’s a lobster season one, which means whipping out the wet suit since the season is open from November through May. Water temperatures swell just barely above the freezing point during the winter surf season, but it’s when the waves are most consistent. The White Point Beach Resort in Queens County has an onsite winter surf shop and offers lessons and rentals for guests. Surfers staying at the resort often end the day with handcrafted s’mores roasted around a roaring bonfire on the beach.

Fat biking in the snow is fun, but fat biking down an Icelandic volcano is nothing short of thrilling. Hotel Ranga, a Small Luxury Hotel, sets guests up with local activity partner Midgard Adventure to take a Super Jeep ride up to the top of the Eyjafjallajökull glacier (a volcano that erupted in 2010) only to zoom down 1,400 meters on fat bikes. If that’s not enough, guests can add on an ice climbing adventure up a frozen waterfall or do some winter surfing off the black sandy beach—which is encrusted with snow and ice crystals during winter—of Landeyjafjara.

Many of Italy’s most famous via ferrata (“iron path”) routes were installed in the Dolomites during WWI as a way to move troops and supplies high up into formerly inaccessible terrain of the mountains to establish bases. Hiking the via ferrata is often a summer activity, where hikers climb the treacherous terrain using the steel cables as a guide along the climbing path. But at the Cristallo, a Luxury Collection Resort & Spa, Cortina d’Ampezzo, it’s an all-year event as climbers brave the weather by strapping on crampons and using ice axes to climb the icy trail with an experienced guide from Cortina Alpine Guides.

Alaska’s remote backcountry is home to this meditative midwinter activity. Guests of the Winterlake Lodge strap into a pair of snowshoes as they head off with Within the Wild adventure company for a meditative stroll along an ice-candle-lit labyrinth on a frozen lake beneath a possible Northern Lights enflamed sky. Other winter wellness experiences at the hotel include Northern spirit cleansing in a steaming cedar banya or bonfire meditation with a letting go ceremony.

The word “skijoring” translates literally to “ski driving” in Norwegian, although the first skijorers did so in central Asia during the Tang Dynasty. Most often, skijoring involves a skier being pulled by a team of dogs or a snowmobile, but, at Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St. Moritz, skiers grab hold of a harness attached to a racing horse as the speed along an icy track.

Kite skiing, or snowkiting, has been popular in Europe for some time, but this extreme sport is taking off—literally—at the Utah SnowKite Center in Salt Lake City. The sport is similar to windsurfing or kiteboarding, except the water is frozen and skiers’ feet are locked in with either a snowboard or pair of skis. Skiers staying at the Washington School House Hotel will have the easiest commute for lessons among the vast snowkiting fields around the slopes of Park City, where riders sail through the scenic mountaintops.

Many snow tubing hills around the world offer tubing into the late hours of the night, where icy lanes are illuminated by simple floodlights, but the lanes at Camelback Resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania are enhanced by something much more memorable. Every night during the winter season, colorful LED lights and dancing disco lights glow up the 42 lightning-fast lanes and two magic carpet lifts for a Galactic Tubing experience like no other, complete with a DJ and food truck serving gourmet soup and sandwiches and craft beer.

A skibock is basically the unicycle of snow equipment. This Swiss invention was first introduced in the early 1900s when a local from Adelboden placed a simple seat on a wooden ski and zoomed down a mountain in record time. The skibock has been a beloved winter pastime in Adelboden ever since, and today visitors can add a skibock experience to their stay at The Cambrian, a Design Hotel, where they are transported to the groomed tobogganing hills of Tschentenalp to choose between riding the traditional skibock or any of the other extreme sleds (i.e., snooc, skigibel, airboard, etc.).

This Winter Olympic sport is often played on an indoor rink with two fixed hacks and rubber-lined holes, but at the Halcyon, a hotel in Cherry Creek, players play alfresco on the rooftop among the buckets of beer and winterized yurts of the Elevated Rooftop Bar. Packages start at $85 for hotel guests, where they get an hour-and-a-half time slot on the lofty ice with a bucket of beer.

Headlamps help guide trekkers armed with crampons and snowshoes along their journey beneath the polar night sky as the Larsglacier begins to come into view. Basecamp Explorer Svalbard guides lead the way deep inside this glacier so guests can wander and explore around the moon-like landscape of the ice cave inside. The experience lasts five hours, including the challenging hike in the snow that it takes to arrive at this remote glacier.

Sleeping in an ice hotel is one thing, but building your own igloo is on an entirely different level. At Iglu-Dorf Kuhtai in Austria’s Tyrolean mountains, guests of the igloo hotel set out to learn how to construct an igloo as an experienced guide and builder instructs how to build the snowy structure, block by block.

Not to be confused with tame sledding hills, the sledge runs in Switzerland are a bit more thrilling. Many sledge runs are formed from retired ski runs, where sledgers can reach speeds up to 50 km/h. Some runs pass through village streets and active ski runs, but for 10 nights during the winter season, guests staying at the Gstaad Palace can book a trip up with the Sparenmoos Active Club to speed down the moon and torch illuminated Family Sparenmoos-Heimchueweid.