17 · Ice Hotels
Kirkenes Snowhotel
Kirkenes, Norway
A snow building beside a fjord in the far north-east of Norway, rebuilt for each winter since 2006
Corridors and rooms are cut in packed snow, with ice sculptures set into niches along the walls and lit from behind. A bed is a raised block with a base, reindeer hides and a sleeping bag made for low temperatures. The inside holds a few degrees below zero, so the carved surfaces keep their edges through the season.
The snow hotel has been built for every winter since 2006 and stands with a group of timber cabins on the same site, which stay open when the snow building does not. Vaults are made over forms and hollowed out, and a restaurant, a bar and the sleeping corridors are arranged along one axis. Reindeer and a kennel of sled dogs are kept beside the buildings.
Kirkenes is in Finnmark, at the head of the Bok fjord system in the far north-east of Norway, close to the borders with Russia and Finland. The land is low, bare and treeless near the water. The town is the end point of the coastal ferry route, and the polar night covers part of the winter here.
Last gone over · June 2026
Three distances, one hotel: none of it is a promise about a stay. We work from published sources and say so plainly; the month at the foot of the page is when we last went over them.