Tripadvisor has released its 2026 Travelers’ Choice Best of the Best Hotel Awards, and the One-of-a-Kind category is back on the list. Leading it is the Faralda Crane Hotel in Amsterdam, a three-suite stay built into an old harbor crane and marketed as anything but ordinary.
The timing matters because travelers are already searching for the most unusual hotel stays they can book this year, and this list puts a fresh stamp on that hunt. Tripadvisor says the awards are drawn from the top 1% of more than 8 million listings, with the rankings shaped by the quality and number of traveler reviews posted during 2025. That gives the list prestige, but it also means the odd-looking properties at the top were still chosen through a familiar review formula rather than a special judge’s panel.
Faralda’s appeal is easy to see in the details. The Amsterdam property turns one of the city’s old harbor cranes into a hotel with three suites — Free Spirit, Secret Suite and Mystique — plus a private rooftop Jacuzzi. Tripadvisor described it as industrial chic taken to another level, with the hot tub and panoramic views doing much of the selling for a place that is as much architectural stunt as overnight stay.
Other names on the list show how broad the category has become. Valley Views Glamping sits on 100 acres in New Zealand’s Waitaki Valley near Kurow and offers six geodesic domes, including a larger deluxe dome that fits up to four people. Eagle Brae, between Glen Affric and Glen Strathfarrar, has 10 grass-roofed cedar cabins and runs on renewable energy. Tripadvisor pitched it as a Hobbit-like escape an hour from Inverness, a detail that helps explain why a remote cabin cluster can end up in the same conversation as a crane in Amsterdam.
The list also reaches into history. Taj Lake Palace, on Lake Pichola in Udaipur, began life as Jag Niwas, commissioned by Maharana Jagat Singh II between 1743 and 1746. It became a hotel in 1963 under Maharana Bhagwat Singh Mewar and now has 65 rooms and 18 suites. Tripadvisor’s description leans on the building’s former royal status and its boat-only access, a reminder that the category is rewarding places where the setting is the draw as much as the room count.
That mix of spectacle and standard scoring is what makes the awards worth a second look. The One-of-a-Kind label suggests a celebration of the rarest stays, from crane hotels and glamping domes to cedar cabins and palace residences, but the winners still have to clear a broad review threshold shared with the rest of Tripadvisor’s top-ranked properties. For travelers, that means the list is less a curated museum of eccentric lodging than a filterable shortlist of places other guests have already pushed to the top.
Tripadvisor has not signaled any follow-up beyond the 2026 announcement, so the immediate next step belongs to travelers deciding whether they want a sky-high crane in Amsterdam, a dome in New Zealand, a cabin in the Scottish Highlands or a former royal residence on an Indian lake. The category is back, the rankings are set, and the next judgment will come from whoever books first.
