It’s hard not to make jokes about having to build your own bed when you stay in the world’s only IKEA Hotell, but I resisted the temptation when I checked into this unique property in Älmhult: the remote, lake-studded region of southern Sweden where IKEA’s founder Ingvar Kamprad grew up.
I reached the flatpack furniture giant’s only hotel after a two-hour train ride from Copenhagen. With that iconic blue and yellow sign outside, it was hard to miss.
The 254 rooms – which range from cabins with bunks beds and shared bathrooms to doubles with plump queen beds – stay true to IKEA’s budget-friendly ethos, with one-night stays coming in well under €100. And – as you’d expect — they’re all furnished with some of IKEA’s most iconic products: Lisabo tables, Poang easy chairs, Boomerang coat hangers. It’s a bit like walking into one of those staged sets you find in an IKEA warehouse, only with a shower tacked on.
Although the rooms are Scandi-style bland, with blonde parquet floors, beige walls and white cotton curtains, there are excellent IKEA-style add-ons that travellers and digital nomads (like me) will love. Included is a free-to-use communal lounge area complete with fridge, sink and dishwasher, plus a laundry room – also free – where you can put a wash on before heading down to IKEA Hotell’s gleaming restaurant for a fika (that’s Swedish for snack) or – you guessed it – lingonberry-smothered meatballs.
IKEA was founded by Ingvar Kamprad back in 1953, which means it’s celebrating its eightieth anniversary this year. To mark the occasion, the company’s (also unique) IKEA museum just across the car park has several new exhibitions, including ‘IKEA Through the Ages’: a showcase of hard-to-find vintage items that will thrill hardcore fans. ‘We all grew up with some IKEA,’ exhibition curator Mats Nilsson tells me. ‘This is all about nostalgia.’
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