The most unusual holiday accommodation you can rent in Sydney and NSW

Tucked away in Bilpin in the Blue Mountains, this treehouse is a solid upgrade on that backyard shanty your dad built you. With huge, open windows, and a deck with expansive views out over Bowen’s Creek Gorge, Wollemi Cabins’ Treehouse is a little taste of luxury in the treetops. Designed to fit one couple, the treehouse has a kitchenette, one queen bed, a fireplace and a glass-roofed spa which looks out onto the stars above. You can also book a range of experiences to make your treehouse experience a truly indulgent one. Sink into a mud bath, or if you’re feeling adventurous, book in for an ethereal glow worm tour at twilight, or scale the mountain biking trails nearby. Book your stay online. 

Hidden in the undulating grounds of a reclaimed macadamia farm in the Byron Hinterland, this spaceship-like concrete bunker is entirely otherworldly in both its design and its story. Designed by the owner and built by hand, the Scandanavian-inspired space features a jade-tiled bathroom, brass-trimmed kitchen and handbuilt folding doors that open up onto rolling lawns from beneath a roof that's studded with tumbling native plants. Outside, you'll find a magnesium soak tank waiting for you beneath the gum trees. 

The glimmering waters around Palm Beach have just become the soft surrounds for a new, luxury stay unlike anything else seen on the high seas around the Northern parts. This bougie floating cottage is setting a new gold standard for getaway boltholes everywhere, with this sustainably-made paradise coming with its own masseuse, Champagne, a private tender boat and chef-prepared gourmet meals, all ready for your instant pleasure. The villa is all about emphasing peace and escape without compromising on eco-friendly privacy or the more luxurious high-end touches (aka, an infrared sauna onboard). However, Lilypad's latest incarnation is channeling an all-new aesthetic with even more luxe facilities. Full of creamy curves, glossy pale timbers and Scandinavian-inspired charm, Lilypad II comes with an open-plan fireplace, an on-board wine selection, and the ability to dip off your accom and straight into the azure depths of Pittwater.

Australia’s first bubble tent – aptly named Bubbletent Australia – is a chance to be up close and personal with nature while still retaining a fair few creature comforts. There are three tents to choose from, each overlooking a different aspect of the Capertee Valley, the largest valley in the world. All three offer total seclusion, which is not only pleasant but needed, since the central chamber of each one has a 360-degree view out, and in. Thanks to its high altitude and low light pollution, Capertee, two hours and 45 minutes west of Sydney, has some of the best stargazing near the city, so guests can lay back in their transparent hideaway and behold the cosmic wonders you can only really appreciate in such a remote area. If you’ve been dreaming of a night under the stars, but you’re the kind of royal baby who needs high-quality linens to function, this is the answer. A full-blown nature experience, without ever having to leave your bubble.

In 2019, Taronga Zoo took bold strides into the luxury accommodation market with its purpose-built 62-room Retreat. This complex of sleek, timber-clad lodges encircling a private bushland garden is a remarkably successful fusion of elegant sophistication and sustainable design, where wildlife and the high-life exist side by side. As soon as you enter the beautifully appointed reception lounge in the N’gurra Lodge, the uncompromising quality guests can expect is clear. After being greeted by friendly reception staff, there’s a chance to enjoy the stunning Sydney panorama on the terrace while you sip on a complimentary glass of rosehip ice tea. As your luggage is spirited away to your room, a member of the concierge team talks you through your overnight stay, which includes access to the zoo, privately guided animal tours, sunset cocktails and dinner at the Retreat’s exclusive fine-dining restaurant, Me-gal. Every room overlooks a purpose-built habitat full of native fauna and plants. This sanctuary for indigenous species – including bettongs, potoroos, wallabies, echidnas and that most recognisable of Australian critters, the koala – has been developed in collaboration with Cammeraygal elders, the traditional custodians of the land on which Taronga sits. This carefully landscaped bush scene, complete with babbling stream and waterfall, is solely for guests of the Retreat to enjoy, making it by far the most impressive amenity on offer here, and arguably, at any hotel in the city.

This spectacular bohemian farmhouse was built by hand by relationship councellor turned farmer turned interiors wizard Susan Weil. Set on a biodynamic farm in the hills behind Bellingen, the family farmhouse has been designed to blur the boundaries beteween outdoors and in – with folding windows that open up onto the wraparound verandah, an outdoor bathtub and a plunge pool with views across the mountains. You can pick vegetables from the garden for dinner, and a chicken may well hop through the window while you're cooking – that's all part of the fairytale farmhouse magic.

Tiny homes have caused something of a revolution in Instagram travel porn. Cosy yet wild, compact but open to the elements, each small cabin in the countryside sparks a sense of adventure with just enough comfort for your average Joe City Mouse – and hundreds of people are booking into the remote getaways, like this Unyoked cabin, across the country. Coralie, the name of this weatherboard cabin in the Kangaroo Valley region, is rated ‘mild level of spice’ on the Unyoked website – a grading system that cofounders Cam and Chris Grant use to prepare their guests for the level of adventure they will encounter during their stay: dirt roads, possible wildlife sightings, distance from the nearest town, for example. Once you’re settled down, there really is no need to leave. Sure, you could venture out to find the hidden creek, or climb the nearest mountain after sunrise, but a stay is just was well spent simply crawling out from under the blanket on the bed to watch noisy rosellas swooping between the trees, or the early morning fog roll over the hills.

It’s not every day that you have the opportunity to spend the night in an honest-to-goodness movie set. Unless of course, you live in Broken Hill. Immortalised in the 1994-released Aussie cinema classic The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Dessert, the aptly name Priscilla Suite at the Palace Hotel is available for paying guests. It's been painstakingly preserved so that it appears exactly as it does in the movie. Or at least the bedroom has. The kitsch-as-hell decor, including a very politically incorrect lamp, velour headboard and tacky bakelite vanity, is counterpointed by the fabulousness of the rest of the suite, which includes a luxurious, sparkly bathroom with a roll-top bath and crystal chandelier, an eye-popping multicoloured dressing room, and a disco ball in the room’s entrance hall. This may sound like a lot, but at the Palace Hotel, too much is never enough. The vivid murals of bucolic landscapes that cover the suite's bedroom walls, painted by a local First Nations artist Gordon Wayne, match similar landscapes, painted by both Wayne and the pub’s former owner Mario Celotto, which cover virtually every surface of the Palace's ornate interiors. Constructed in 1889 as a grand coffee salon during the height of Broken Hill’s mining boom, the Palace is today best known for its cinematic legacy and as the home of the annual Broken Heel Festival, a celebration of drag and queer culture that attracts LGBTQIA+ people from all over the country every September.

Enter into the earthen-walled Enchanted Cave for a truly unusual stay. Also situated in Wollemi National Park, this accommodation option is an immersive one, designed to take you back to the primordial days. Close your laptop lid and switch your phone onto aeroplane mode – screens just seem jarring against the brushed stone surfaces and expansive views of the Enchanted Cave. Your holiday digs are kitted out with a slow-combustion fireplace, a queen bed set into the bedrock of the stone structure, and an ensuite bathroom with an intricately carved sun basin and an external shower, so you can take in the majesty of the surrounding natural beauty of the area at every point of your day.

It’s time to get wild! Nestled in the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, the Zoofari Lodge is a wildlife-adjacent oasis set on a savannah where roaming rhinos, zebras, giraffes and antelope might just saunter past your window. Here, you’re booking an experience rather than just a room. As well as accommodation in a lodge, your stay comes with dinner, breakfast, an exclusive tour of the wilderness surrounds, and a two-day zoo entry pass. Choose from an Animal View Lodge, which fits up to four people and comes with a private viewing balcony for the majestic creatures, or a Bushland Lodge, which houses up to six and is located just a little walk away from where the wild things roam.