5 Nature-Themed Hotels to Add to Your Summer Travel List

Because vacations should be relaxing and a chance to get away from everyday life, hotels find ways to bring the natural environment to guests. Family travelers will find hotels making the most of their natural settings or bringing nature closer, even in a big city.

Opened in March, in the heart of Manchester, United Kingdom, Treehouse Hotel Manchester is all about trees, with small ones decorating the lobby, and lots of greenery overhead to give the feeling of a forest canopy. Wood interiors, indoor tree trunks and wood-grain details create a warm, family-friendly atmosphere.

Another English city gets guests even closer to nature with safari-style lodgings overlooking Chester Zoo’s new 22.5-acre Heart of Africa zone. Opening in August, The Reserve luxury lodge brings guests within a few yards of the savannah, so they can spot giraffes, antelopes, zebras, ostriches and more than 50 other species living there. Guests can go behind the scenes for exclusive wildlife experiences; stays directly fund the zoo’s wildlife programs in Africa.

Away from urban areas, other hotels maximize guests’ contact with nature by offering outdoor experiences in outstanding natural areas.

Deep inside Austria’s Hohe Tauern National Park, Naturhotel Outside invites guests to step outside, breathe the mountain air and immerse themselves in the magnificent scenery. The hotel provides guests with e-bikes, backpacks, Nordic walking and hiking sticks, and snowshoes. Guided hiking, biking and snowshoe tours leave from the front door, led by experienced mountain guides.

Spotlighting its oceanfront setting, Maine’s Spruce Point Inn invites guests to learn more about this rocky coastline, the wildlife living there and Maine’s seafaring traditions. They can join immersive workshops and island boat tours with a staff marine and micro-marine biologist, go fishing, or spot seals and sea birds from the inn’s kayaks.

Elsewhere in Maine is perhaps the most unusual nature-themed hotel. Stars are a big part of the identity of the celestial-inspired Hotel Ursa, located on University of Maine campus in Orono.

This summer, the 1-year-old hotel launches a new stargazing and walking experience in partnership with renowned astronomer and planetarium innovator Shawn Laatsch, director of the university’s Astronomy Center. Guests can join expert-led stargazing walks in Hirundo Wildlife Refuge, one of the region’s darkest and most serene nighttime landscapes. On the same campus, the university’s Versant Power Astronomy Center presents a regular schedule of astronomy programs to add to guests’ celestial experience.