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.

The post Places & Spaces: Free Spirit Spheres, Vancouver Island, Canada appeared first on EcoSalon.

After a month of living like a gypsy in my 1984 Volkswagen Westfalia, I finally arrive at the last stop on my West Coast synthetic beach tour: Tofino, British Columbia. Along the way, I’ve been looking at plastic pollution on beaches and talking with people from all walks of life engaged in the issue. It’s been sad, it’s been inspiring – and it’s been a hell of a time.

I’ve gone from one of the most densely populated place in North America – Los Angeles – to one of the most sparse.

Oh my sweet…I love you, Canada. I want to make out with you, Canada. Last night, I sat on a seastack talking with a new friend while watching the surf pulse in Cox Bay at the gloaming. He’s Canadian and perhaps what you’d think of as a typical surfer kid: Paints houses a few days a month to make just enough money to surf, live, eat and toke. An Orange County doppleganger might have you worrying for the future of humanity in the hands of slackers, but Canadians are different by design.

Some of this difference is practical in nature: Healthcare is universal in Canada’s provinces, so a standard day job isn’t absolutely necessary. Whatever your views of universal coverage, it does allow for people to live lives less ordinary – even extraordinary – without fear of medical financial disaster.

The difference extends from the practical to the political and philosophical. This surfer kid is also extremely well versed in geopolitical issues, commenting on the upcoming UK elections and how the outcomes will affect Canadian trade. He talks about impressionism in nature and argues Manet is the true father of modernism. He takes quiche in his surf bag for lunch and can identify nearly every species of plant along the seashore. I tell him about what I think would be his likely counterpart in the States; how I frankly can’t stand burnout, dropout sort of people.

He replies, earnestly, “This is Canada, man! That kind of shit isn’t allowed. You have to contribute here.”

Bad manners apparently aren’t allowed, either; it’s a cliche but true that Canadians are almost unbelievably civil. It’s more than refreshing, it’s mind-blowing. You bump into what looks like a gym-sculpted-steroid-buffed frat boy at the bar, spilling his beer. You prepare for the inevitable confrontation. Nope, this is Canada, man! All that happens is an exchange of Sorreees. Then his girlfriend asks if she can buy you beer?

I don’t know what it is that makes you this way, Canada, but I love you.

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