If you want to get closer to nature, but not too close, then the Canvas Hotel is the first-class glamping operation for you.

Located on an island in the middle of a lake in southern Norway, the Canvas Hotel consists of nine yurts with sleeping accommodations, a specially designed sauna yurt, and large communal dinning area.

Mountain biking in the surrounding granite hills is very popular and staffed trail guides are available to show you the way. When you return, portable hot tubs can be placed out on the dock to help you unwind.

To visit this incredible sanctuary of pastoral pleasure, visit their website canvashotel.com for more details.

Not for the faint of heart or light of sleep, the Waldseilgarten adventure mountain resort in Bavaria Germany lets you spend a night up in the trees.

During the warm summer months the resort offers guests the ability to spend a night high above the ground in their very own portaledge, a platform tent system normally used by rock climbers on multiple day climbs.  This “hanging tent” is essentially a fabric covered metal frame with a top fly. It’s attached to a thick tree branch with a single rope and guests can only ascend and descend with assistance from the ground. So don’t drink a lot of water before bed.

Waldseilgarten offers a truly unique camping experience, however it doesn’t come cheap. A night sleeping in the trees on a portaledge will cost EUR250 ($336) per person.

For more information, visit their website: waldseilgarten-hoellschlucht.de

Embracing the slow food movement, Industrial Designer Xavier Lopez designed the Dome Oven to encourage people to take a moment and enjoy the simple pleasures of a slowly prepared meal.  “We are experts in precooked meals made in 5-15 minutes,” he said to design blog Knstrct. “The idea is to recover the idea of DOME cooking fire and slowly, as our ancestors did, generating a meeting around food because you have to wait to be done.”

Similar to a Tajine, the oven is handmade using refractory ceramic and is sculpted for optimal heat distribution. It has a dark black glaze on the inside so food appears to pop when presented. The Dome is lightweight and can be used either in the kitchen or out camping.

The worst part of setting up a tent, or best part, depending on how you look at it, is the slapstick routine of affixing the segmented poles, running them through the spiderwebs of loops and channels, and then finally pitching the tent upright.  For many people, this has ended poorly, very poorly.  No matter how many times you setup a tent it feels like a new adventure. In an attempt to simplify this process Hamburg-based company Heimplanet has developed The Cave, which uses inflatable airbeams instead of traditional poles.

The design of The Cave was inspired by the molecular structure of a diamond and the unique inflatable exo-structure offers much needed rigidity during windy nights. The double layered airbeams are modular and compartmentalized to prevent a potential leak from affecting the entire tent. Setup now only requires a foot pump and a few minutes.

For more information about The Cave tent check out Heimplanet’s website here.