Sweden's Icehotel the ultimate place to chill

I've never been a fan of the cold. As a kid, my favorite part of skiing was the hot chocolate, and I relished blizzards for the snow days, not the snowball fights. So when I booked a trip to the Icehotel in northern Sweden, my family and friends were amused -- and a bit concerned, especially when I got sick days before my flight. "You can't go to the Arctic with a cold!" my mother admonished.

The hotel in northern Sweden opens every year in early December and closes at the end of April.

But I had good reason for wanting to sleep in a glorified freezer: As an environmental reporter, I was curious to see a place where people have turned snow and ice into a moneymaker, one that's spawned copycats in frigid spots from Canada to Romania.

Conceived by Yngve Bergqvist, a river-rafting guide who wanted to lure visitors to the Arctic north during the winter, the Icehotel started out in 1990 as nothing more than a crude igloo. Now, it's a fanciful ice castle that's rebuilt every November with an unparalleled level of artistry -- which explains why each winter 16,000 guests pay hundreds of dollars a night to sleep on a slab of ice and thousands more make the trek just to tour the rooms for the day.

The 30 most elaborate suites are the handiwork of a team of artists -- sculptors, painters, architects, even comic book illustrators -- many of whom have never worked with ice before. Wielding chain saws and chisels, they spend weeks crafting frozen furniture while electricians install lights to provide an ethereal glow. Surreal? Exceedingly.

This winter, German furniture maker Jens Paulus and American industrial designer Joshua Space created a space-station room straight out of "Star Trek," with giant carvings of the sun and moon on opposing walls and twinkling lights in the ceiling. British decorator Ben Rousseau and graffiti artist Insa devised the Getting Cold Feet suite, with oversize high-heeled ice shoes beside the bed. Twenty-nine unadorned snow caves offer a somewhat less pricey and more purist experience.