How the list works
This page sets out how the eighteen entries were chosen, what they are written from, and what has been left out on purpose. It also explains the two habits of this guide that most often prompt questions: how the winter section is read, and how the index is divided.
How the hotels were chosen
The four sections were fixed first, then filled with working addresses that clearly belong to each. A hotel is included when its building, its format or its setting can be described from published material without guesswork. Nothing was added for variety alone, and no address appears in two sections.
What the entries are written from
Each entry rests on what the hotel publishes about itself, on architects’ and operators’ statements, on mapping data for location, and on published articles where those agree with the rest. Where a detail could not be confirmed, the sentence was rewritten until it held without that detail. Dates carry a month and year in the facts at the end of each entry.
What is not here
No prices, no stars, no categories, no room counts, no reviews, no reservation buttons and no partner addresses. Nothing on this site is placed in order of merit, and no hotel is measured against another. Photographs are used to show a building or a room, never to stand in for a claim the text does not make.
Reporting a mistake
If something here is out of date or wrong, write and say so. Corrections are made against a published source rather than a recollection, so a page or a document to point at helps. The address is on the Contact page.
Reading the winter section
Buildings of ice and packed snow stand for one winter and are constructed again the following year, usually to a fresh design. This guide therefore names the winter season without promising dates, and asks you to confirm them with the hotel. Domes of glass, which some operators keep beside their snow buildings, are heated structures and are not the same thing as a carved chamber of ice. Where an operator also keeps warm buildings open through all twelve months, the entry says so.
Reading the index
The index on the home page is divided by working pattern rather than by country or section: fourteen addresses stay open all year, and four open only in winter. That split is the one fact true of every entry, so it makes the plainest ordering. In the capsule section, compact hotels outside Japan are described as small standardised rooms, not as capsules, because that is what they are.