Offbeat Overnights : A Guide to the Most Unusual Places to Stay in California

This guide reveals more than two-hundred unusual California lodgings that are all marked by character, spirit, and originality. Illustrated and indexed.

Only in California could you abscond for weekend retreat to a solitary monastery on a mountain, a satin-sheeted, candle-bedecked 1934 ketch, a luxury suite with two fireplaces, ornate four-poster bed, and shower with seven heads, or a Cadillac convertible bed with its own drive-in movie screen. You can stay in a geodetic-domed bed and breakfast in Bodega, a French chateau on a thoroughbred racing farm (complete with Rolls Royce chauffeur service, limestone fireplaces, and croquet lawns) in Carmel, or a clothing-optional retreat near Palm Springs. Lucy Poshek's Offbeat Overnights reviews close to 200 extremely unusual places to stay that range from budget hostels to off-the-scale luxury splurges.

The chapters are arranged by location, from the Far North to the San Diego Area, the Central Coast to the Desert Region, assuming that most folks are geared toward a certain locale and are looking for a cool place to stay in the area, but Poshek has also indexed the lodgings by name and by offbeat classification. The offbeat interest index is by far the most entertaining way to search. A quick scan shows hotels in categories like Bathrooms and Bathtubs, Bagpipers, Gnomes, and Cliff Hangers. There are Egyptian Themes, Organic Gardens, Chicken Feeding, and Remote As You Can Get. Where you stay should be more than just four walls and a roof. Poshek's guide provides a fun way to plan an unusual holiday stay. --Stephanie Gold