8 tiny Airbnb homes that may inspire you to live small

Even if you could never imagine living in a tiny house, you have to admit there's something inspiring about them. In about 400 square feet, with some clocking in much less, these mini dwellings challenge inhabitants to think big about how to live small. We've rounded up 8 tiny homes, cottages, and cabins we found on Airbnb that manage to accomplish two things: they satisfy our wanderlust and our curiosity for tiny living. From a family-friendly cottage in Norway on its own private island to an A-Frame cabin nestled in the woods of an off-grid village, there's a range of options depending on your definition of "roughing it". Whichever compact getaway you choose (even if it's only to put on your wishlist for now), these retreats may encourage you to live more simply and explore the bigger picture, including the gorgeous natural surroundings.

 

1. “Half-Moon” Cabin in California

It may be tiny, but there’s a lot to tiny living love in this off-grid cabin nestled deep in the woods of Northern California. The rustic half-moon shaped structure was hand-built as part of an off-grid village which counts chickens, dogs, and frogs, as well as a few humans hard at work, as its neighbors. Located in the Six Rivers National Forest, the cabin includes a lofted bed and a wood stove. Despite the dwelling's high coziness factor, you probably be spending most of your days exploring the national forest beyond the cabin, hiking over mountains and streams, or perusing the organic gardens for ingredients for a meal in the shared outdoor kitchen. Just make sure you bring a flashlight-the cabin doesn’t have electricity.

2. Industrial tiny house near Seattle

The owner of this tiny house is an artist, designer, and welder, who brings those sensibilities together in a sleek space located a few miles from downtown Seattle. Industrial touches such as a steel ladder leading up to the lofted bed, metal shelving in the kitchen area, and lockers for stowing your stuff are warmed up by the wood floors and bright walls. The house feels surprisingly spacious and can accommodate three people for sleeping, with a high ceiling that keeps the home from feeling cramped. It also has a bathtub with wooden planks instead of fussy claw feet.

3. Writer’s Cabin near Stockholm

For travelers who want to get away from it all but still have the security blanket of a city nearby, this cozy Swedish writer’s cabin may be the answer. Located in Trolldalen (which means “Troll Valley”), about a 15 minute drive from Stockholm, this basic cabin with a cheery exterior is ideal for either holing up when those Scandinavian days are short or serving as a place to collapse after a full day’s adventure in the city. Or just explore nearby: depending on the season, there’s hiking, blueberry picking, ice skating and cross-country skiing nearby. The writer’s desk does look like the perfect place to complete the finishing touches on your own masterpiece, or simply for catching up on the works of some Swedish masters. If you find your muscles are cramping from being hunched over your laptop, head on down to the property’s sauna to melt away the tension.

4. Atlanta treehouse

This trio of rooms connected by bridges is the ultimate treehouse fantasy, and we’re not the only ones who think so. It’s been featured in magazines and TV shows as well as being Airbnb’s “#1 Most Wished-For Location Worldwide”. It certainly checks off a lot of boxes: minutes from downtown Atlanta, a living room, a bedroom, and a deck, and plenty of windows for admiring the lush natural surroundings. Twinkling lights on the bridges and a hammock add to the rustic chic vibe.

RELATED: 7 exotic off-grid Airbnb rental homes for adventurous travelers

5. A Norwegian cottage on its own island

Because everyone should feel like the king or queen of an island at least once. Another example of Scandinavian ingenuity and tiny house charm, this waterside cottage is located in the Hvaler archipelago in Norway. The cottage can be a getaway for two or a family that doesn’t mind tight quarters: a seat in the dining doubles as a convertible bed for two and the attic can sleep up to three kids or two adults. Cottage renters also have the use of a boat; swimmers can take advantage of the area’s safe waterways and a floating dock. A marina and several restaurants and stores are only minutes away by boat, but we doubt you’ll make it that far. Pretending you are shipwrecked or pirates is just too much fun.

6. Mushroom Dome in California

Steal away for a few nights to a cottage with a geodesic dome loft and a deck that overlooks a grove of redwoods. Part-treehouse, the mushroom dome is compact, yet light-filled: even the bathroom (with self-composting toilet) has a skylight. This unique retreat tends to book up months in advance given its ideal location for stargazing. It also makes a great temporary home base for hiking or heading out to the nearby beach. Hummingbirds, goats, and chickens will anticipate your arrival.

7. California A-Frame cabin

In the wise words of Emerson, “Simplify, simply.” Staying in this off-grid A-Frame cabin will certainly inspire you to minimize even if just for a night or two. There’s just enough space for a futon mattress and a candle or two to light the way at night. Located in the same village as the Half-Moon Cabin, it has a shared outdoor kitchen, wood stove sauna, and acres upon acres of surrounding natural beauty.

8. Garden Caravan

The owners of this 200-square-foot Garden Caravan on wheels squeezes a lot in without creating a cramped environment. The property has RV appliances, a kitchen stocked with pots and utensils, a toilet, and a shower. Situated on the hosts’ 5-acre plot, the caravan was built by hand with plenty of recycled materials by a boat builder accustomed to making the most of tiny spaces. The tiny home is located just a few miles from Sandpoint, Idaho, so you can sip your morning coffee while watching the ducks, head into town for some shopping or to the nearby lake for a swim, and be back in time for an evening cocktail.

All images via Airbnb. Lead image by Lindsay Appel

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Sleep in sustainable luxury inside this eco-friendly jungle treehouse

Travelers looking to indulge in a different perspective of the beautiful Yucatán coastline will do well by ascending the eco-friendly Treehouse at Papaya Playa Project. As the newest addition to the luxury resort’s 85 casitas and cabañas, this hotel room nestled in the heart of the jungle offers luxury with an environmentally friendly twist. Elevated on stilts to minimize site impact, the Treehouse was built of locally sourced materials and recycled wood using age-old Maya construction techniques.

The Papaya Playa Project is a resort that stretches across 900 meters on the Caribbean coast in the Mexican town of Tulum, around 130 kilometers south of Cancún. Like all of the resort offerings, the recently unveiled Treehouse is ecologically built with local materials such as thatched palapa roofing, wood-and-plaster composite walls, and bamboo window coverings. Unlike most of the cabañas, however, the Treehouse is removed from the coastline and instead offers a retreat deep in the verdant jungle though views of the azure Caribbean Ocean can still be enjoyed from its panoramic windows.

Related: Eco-friendly resort in Australia mimics the surrounding sand dunes

“Sustainability means life for future generations and integrity for the current one,” says Emilio Heredia, owner of the Papaya Playa Project. “Elevating the structure encourages the growth of jungle plants around the treehouse and ensures the building does not interfere with nature. We wanted to show the utmost respect to all the wildlife living in the jungle when building the treehouse.” Experiencing sustainable luxury in the 35-square-meter treehouse won’t come cheap however—one night at the Treehouse can set you back $1,400 for two.

+ Papaya Playa Project

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Everything in this LA store was built with repurposed cardboard rolls

Looks like some swanky LA shops are swapping glitz for green. Aesop, a popular skin care company, has just unveiled a new store completely built with repurposed cylindrical cardboard tubes. Inspired by the stripped fabric bolts discarded by nearby costume shops and fashion houses, designers Brooks + Scarpa went with the unique material to best represent Aesop's natural, soothing aesthetic.

The designers repurposed the six-inch cylindrical cardboard tubes, which are made out of cross laminated engineered paper by a local manufacturer, as the principal building material for the store. The bolts are repurposed from the Los Angeles fashion district just two miles away. Before installation, they were coated with a special flame-retardant material to add durability and strength.

Related: Apple’s new Regent Street store is filled with daylight and living trees

To build the walls, the tubes were placed in a vertical position to cover the entire layout of the store. From there, everything else was also made out of the recycled tubes, including paper display shelving, door jambs, countertops, cabinets, and a custom light fixture. The store is a resulting monochromatic, pared-back aesthetic is further enhanced by the three vintage porcelain sinks that were repurposed from a local salvage yard.

+ Aesop

+ Brooks + Scarpa

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8 teenage inventions that could save the world

Sometimes the brightest ideas come in young packages. Teenagers from around the world demonstrate you don't need a high school diploma to come up with a life-changing invention. From $13 germ-killing door handles to Braille printers, check out these eight teenage inventions that revolutionize the way we view energy, food, and, of course, the oceans.

14-year-old designs pedal-powered washing machine

When assigned with laundry duty after her mother got sick, Remya Jose, a 14-year-old girl from India, designed an ingenious pedal-powered washing machine to save the time of doing laundry by hand in a nearby river. Jose made her clever washing machine with recycled bicycle components, creating an appliance that could greatly assist families who lack access to electricity.

Related: 13-year-old Maanasa Mendu invents groundbreaking clean energy device that costs just $5

16-year-olds discover way to increase crop yields for Combating the Global Food Crisis project

Garden-loving teenagers Ciara Judge, Émer Hickey, and Sophie Healy-Thow of Ireland won the Google Science Fair 2014 with their Combating the Global Food Crisis project. The 16-year-olds paired a bacteria often found in symbiotic relationships with legumes with crops it doesn't typically associate with, namely oats and barley. Crops that tested their unique pairing were wildly successful, germinating in about half the time and producing a 74 percent greater drymass yield. Increasing crop yields is vital as the global population grows, and discoveries like this one could greatly impact the way we combat food poverty.

19-year-old invents Ocean Cleanup Array

For several years now, Inhabitat has been covering the efforts of The Ocean Cleanup CEO Boyan Slat of the Netherlands, who at 19 years old invented an Ocean Cleanup Array, and we're continually impressed by his persistence. The Ocean Cleanup recently completed their first aerial reconnaissance mission of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The results weren't pretty - 1,000 large plastic pieces spotted in two hours - but there's still hope to clean up the mess we've made. The Ocean Cleanup won the Katerva Award in 2016, and feasibility studies indicate one 63-mile array could "remove 42 percent of the Great Pacific garbage patch in only 10 years."

12-year-old builds inexpensive, working Braille printer

12-year-old Shubham Banerjee of California utilized a Lego Mindstorms EV3 kit and about $5 of hardware from Home Depot to design an innovative Braille printer, the Braigo v1.0, that cost way less than similar devices. Around 285 million people are visually impaired worldwide, according to World Health Organization data, but as Braille printers cost over $2,000 when Banerjee invented his device, his disruptive technology held the potential to change how the blind communicate. He went on to start a company, Braigo Labs, and about three years later, has released an app and web platform and continues to develop his groundbreaking printer (and he's still in high school.)

17-year-old creates a device that can purify water and produce clean energy simultaneously

Millions of people around the world live without electricity or clean water, and 17-year-old Cynthia Sin Nga Lam of Australia decided to tackle both issues at once with her portable H2Pro device. The H2Pro unit harnesses photocatalysis, or using light to speed up a chemical reaction, to sterilize water. As a side bonus, the process also yields hydrogen, which Lam said could be used to produce electricity.

17-year-old designs human waste bioreactor to turn human poo into clean energy

When Kenya's Maseno School opened up new dormitories for over 700 students in 2013, the area around the students' home often smelled because of pit latrines and a defective sewage system, which also polluted local freshwater. High schooler Leroy Mwasaru and four friends came up with a solution: a human waste bioreactor that could transform waste into a clean cooking fuel for the kitchen, which had been using firewood. Today, Mwasaru is the founder of Greenpact, a group aiming to provide biogas solutions to over six million Kenyans who lack access to adequate sanitation and renewable energy.

17-year-old and 18-year-old design $13 germ-killing door handle

17-year-old Sun Ming (Simon) Wong and 18-year-old King Pong (Michael) Li of Hong Kong knew bacteria spreads via handles on doors or shopping carts touched by hundreds of people daily. So they hunted for a material that could kill that bacteria and found an answer in titanium oxide. Instead of simply coating a handle in titanium oxide, though, they added an LED light into a bracket holding the handle to truly activate the compound, which can then annihilate 99.8 percent of germs. Even better, the device only costs around $13, meaning it could be accessible for more people worldwide.

16-year-old utilizes ingredients found in pencils and sunscreen to create pollution-cleansing coating

Sunscreen and pencils might not be the first two items you'd go to for answers to clean up pollution, but 16-year-old Samuel Burrow of England utilized two ingredients found in those common items to create a "paint-like coating" that has the power to break down pollutants with the help of light. He mixed titanium dioxide with graphene oxide for a concoction with not one, but several applications, in addition to a surface paint. As a sponge, Burrow's mixture can purify water, and when combined with sand, it has the potential to filter heavy metals out of water. Just imagine how clean the world could be if all buildings were painted with Burrow's marvelous mix.

Images via Brit + Co; Ciara Judge, Émer Hickey and Sophie Healy-Thow on Google+; The Ocean Cleanup; Shubham Banerjee; Google Science Fair; Innovate Kenya; Student Society for Science; and screenshot

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