Places & Spaces: Free Spirit Spheres, Vancouver Island, Canada

At Free Spirit Spheres you can literally hang out in a Canadian forest.

How often do you stay in a handcrafted room? Not furniture wise, strictly speaking. But in an entire, spherical handcrafted structure (capsule, really) made from wood and fiberglass, which is then suspended from trees in a coastal rainforest on Vancouver Island? Never, you say. Well, it’s time to plan your next glamp-out in a circular porthole of your own.

Like something out of a surrealist Spanish movie, these convex structures look like giant eyeballs.

There are three Free Spirit Spheres: meet Melody, Eryn and Eve (whose details page is, naturally, called All About Eve). Well, they’d have to be female, offering such curvy, womb-like accommodation. Be warned: since they’re suspended, they do sway.

Designed with comfort and compactness in mind, rather than high style, each pod has a double bed and a small table for two. It’s a tight fit. Measuring three metres diameter, Eve (cedarwood) is on the cozy side, while Eryn (spruce) is slightly roomier, at 3.2m, with a second bed on a loft gallery, plus fridge and sink. Melody is the deluxe version, in yellow fiberglass with a walnut interior. She also features a drop-down bed.

Get back to nature when nature calls in the mushroom-shaped composting outhouse.

As if it needed mentioning, there’s no WIFI here, although there are speakers fitted for you to plug in your iPod: the very definition of surround sound. In a separate nearby building are bathrooms with showers, a sauna, and a barbeque deck.

Rates from $269 including tax, arrival snacks, and the gentle croaking of Pacific Tree Frogs.

Images: Free Spirit Spheres

Places & Spaces is a travel guide that will inspire you to carve out a vacation on your calendar. All of the gorgeous locations and accommodations in our guide share our concern for the environment. From tent glamping to lavish built environments, fair warning, you’ll feel compelled to pack your suitcase.

Fiona Flores Watson

Fiona Flores Watson covers Places & Spaces for EcoSalon and currently resides in Seville, Spain.