Nights to Imagine by Peter Guttman

Anybody can go to a big hotel on vacation and have a good time. Even some of the smallest tourist places might have a bed and breakfast to stay in, or a motel or a campground where you can experience the outdoors or find a place to sleep after a long, eventful day. But there are always those who crave something different- an experience that few others can have, or are even willing to undergo in exchange for a once in a lifetime experience.

Instead of looking for something normal, why not go off the beaten track to the truly unusual? Nights to Imagine gives people tired of the same and the usual ways of spending a night in a place something new and different to look forward to. Instead of a hotel, imagine spending the night in an actual old West jailhouse. Or on a houseboat on a lake in the everglades, where only mosquito netting stands between you and the great outdoors.

Imagine sharing the keeper's cottage on a lonely island home only to a lighthouse. Or staying in an actual mill. Or in a colonial era tavern. If getting away from it all is your thing, but camping or backpacking isn't something you particularly enjoy, you could stay in a Shaker Village, or in a lookout tower high in the hills where it is only you, your loved one, and the spectacular views everywhere around you. Or on your own private island in the Gulf of Mexico, just big enough for two to relax and enjoy and never be bothered with the outside world.

Then there are places where you can find out for yourself how the other half lived- spend a night or two on an actual battleship, in bunks where once only sailors could find rest. Or travel on a real New Orleans Riverboat or spend your time in a modern-day pyramid in Las Vegas, the Luxor. Or spend your time in a treehouse such as the Swiss Family Robinson could only dream of, or in a small hut where your next door neighbors (or all your neighbors) are Walruses.

Nights to Imagine can fill your head with so many ideas for where to go on vacation- whether you want to be in the center of it all or just find a private place to sleep and spend your time exploring. Not all of the places shown are small (certainly, the Luxor, the Delta Queen and the U.S.S. Massachusetts are not places where you will be far from it all or alone), but for those people looking for something different- more adventurous, more quiet, more out of the way or different, this book shows incredible places to think about when planning your next vacation.

These places certainly aren't for everyone- not even for many or most people, but if you ever do decide to, say, overnight in a building literally shaped like a shoe (The Shoe House in Pennsylvania), you will certainly be the person whose vacation is most talked about at work or amongst your friends. And even if none of these places is right for you, you can still dream about them, or use the ideas to make your next getaway something special and off the hook.

I loved this book for the pictures and the ideas it gave me, not just for me, but for some of my characters as well. It's always beautiful to see what's available, and to maybe seek out other unusual places as well, because this short list of thirty places is hardly likely to be the only unusual places out there. Highly recommended if you like to dream of the unusual.