Shell,Tipi,Yurt: Yours to Rent

I'm bored with hotel rooms, condos and the like. Next time I head toward Litchfield, Connecticut I want to stay in the geodesic dome featured by HomeAway.com, a major vacation rental site, in its gathering of "Top Ten Most Unique Vacation Rentals." Number One on the list: A curvy shell house in Isla Mujeres, Mexico on the beach, complete with a pool, that HomeAway says would be where the Little Mermaid would vacation on land. At $1,500 to $2,000 a week, it looks ideal for a honeymoon. Others: a tipi near Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, just over the Montana line...yurt in Santa Barbara, California...and two kinds of tree houses in Costa Rica and California.

Still Going Up: NC, Texas, Montana

Smile if you are selling a vacation home in North Carolina. The National Association of Realtors reports that's where the biggest total sales increase was for the third quarter. Existing-home sales rose 9.7 percent compared with the third quarter of 2005. In Texas the third-quarter resale pace rose 8.6 percent from a year earlier, while Montana experienced the third strongest gain, up 6.4 percent.