About

hitaball lists twelve hotels and tries to explain, in a few paragraphs each, why they are worth knowing about.

Two circles

Draw one circle for a place: a riverbank in Lapland, a boulevard in Helsinki, a ridge above Niagara. Draw another for a purpose: art, sleep cut to essentials, an evening out, a room made of ice. Every hotel on this site lives in the shaded part where the two meet. That is the whole idea, and it is why the logo looks the way it does.

Choosing

Category comes first. A capsule hotel has to be built around the bed. An art hotel has to put art in the guest's path, not in a storeroom. The casino hotels are read as resorts with rooms, dining and entertainment, gaming included. Icehotel holds the ice page alone because it set the template for everything that followed.

Leaving things out

Stars, points, rankings and reviews have no place here, and nothing can be booked. Hotels do not pay to appear and cannot pay to move.

Keeping it current

Entries stick to traits that last: setting, building, what a property is known for. When a hotel renovates or changes owner, its entry gets reworked. Spotted something stale? Write to editor@hitaball.com.

Reach

Uruguay to Japan, Sweden to Singapore, with four stops in Canada. No country gets top billing.