12 Trippy Tree Houses

This whimsical tree-top teahouse was designed by architect Terunobu Fujimori and sits perched among cherry trees in the Kiyoharu Shirakaba Museum, in Hokuto City, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.

Located in the Swedish village of Harads, Treehotel offers a unique experience: its "rooms" are tree houses designed by top Swedish architects. This one, called The UFO, was designed by Bertil Harström of the firm Inredningsgruppen. It looks small, but it packs in two floors, sleeps two adults and two children, with a common space and even a toilet.

Located near Mohican State Park in central Ohio's rolling hills, Treehouse Brewing Company is a tree house where—you guessed it—small-batch beer is brewed and served. It's run by Mohican Cabins, a campground that includes a mix of luxury cabins and tree houses, and was built by tree house genius Pete Nelson.

This two-level design on private property in Northern Germany is built, as the name says, upon both an alder and oak tree. It was designed by Andreas Wenning at the German firm baumraum, which specializes in tree houses. It has two decks, a bed with chest of drawers, and windows overlooking a meadow.

Vancouver's coastal rainforest is home to a small resort called Free Spirit Spheres, which consists of spherical tree houses "suspended like pendants from a web of rope," according to the website. Designed by owner Tom Chudleigh, these three spheres—named Eve, Eryn and Melody—are impressively outfitted with electricity, plumbing, dining areas and beds. Be careful, though: they sway if you shift your weight around too much.

Although not strictly a tree house, this 40-foot-tall sculpture on the grounds of Delaware's Dogfish Head brewery is made to look like one, sitting in a metal tree with metal branches. Although it's viewable by all visitors to the brewery, the interior is only open to employees for use as a creative space.

Looking something like a deconstructed cuckoo clock, with a rope swing instead of a pendulum, this recycled-wood  tree house was designed by artist Michael Ince of Brookhaven, Long Island.

This huge, multi-story tree house looks like something straight out of Middle Earth, but inside it has a restaurant complete with roaring log fireplace and locally sourced food. It's built into a copse of lime trees on the grounds of Alnwick Castle, built in the 11th century. Although it's a castle in its own right, the tree house only dates back to 2004.

Nestled between snow-capped mountains and the South Pacific on New Zealand's South Island, the town of Kaikoura is home to the Hapuku Lodge, which offers luxury hotel rooms built into the canopy of a natural teatree grove.

This charming Airbnb.com listing, set in a nature park near the base of southern Spain's Sierra Nevada, is accessible by rope bridge and sleeps two. It currently rents for only $42 a night.

Those afraid of heights had best stay elsewhere. Perched 72 feet above the ground, the Eagle's Nest is the highest in a France-wide network of roughly 200 tree houses-for-rent, called La Cabane en l'Air. It's part of the Château de Canon property on a teaching farm in Calvados, home of the eponymous apple brandy. Accessible by rope ladder and hanging bridge, it has a small terrace for visitors to survey the surrounding landscape from lofty heights.