9 of the World’s Most Beautiful and Unique Pools

I recently moved from Houston to New York, so my access to actual swimming pools is a lot more restricted than it used to be. I have dealt with this by spending a disproportionally large amount of time looking at pools on the internet. Which is probably not great for me, but good for you, because over the past year or so I have amassed an enormous collection of pictures of beautiful pools, some of which are so mind-blowingly cool and unique that I couldn’t help including them in this collection of the world’s most beautiful and unique pools.

Above: The pool-within-a-pool at the Laucala Island resort, in Fiji (via Conde Nast Traveler).

The marble-sided pool at the Sala Ayutthaya Hotel, in Thailand, has a beautiful, almost otherworldly feel.

A gorgeous limestone quarry turned swimming pool, on a family estate in Massachusetts.

This dramatic cantilevered pool is the centerpiece of an uber-modern golf course home in Portugal. The house itself is u-shaped and wraps around the pool, because with a pool like this, why would you ever want to look at anything else?

This swimming pool is surrounded by a sculpture garden, but the pool itself is a sculpture all on its own.

The stripes of tile on the pool’s bottom make this pool, at the Alavya hotel in Turkey, extra refreshing.

This elegant lap pool combines swimming and swinging for the best of both worlds.

The pool at the Siam hotel in Bangkok looks extra cool and refreshing, thanks to the dark tiled bottom (with jaunty white stripes).

This is possibly the most unique pool of all… and it’s a DIY! All you need is a little bit of space, a really big tarp, and 70 bales of hay. (Via 1001 Gardens.)