The Treehouse

Little girls dream about being princesses and raising children.
Boys dream about exploration and discovery.

Almost every boy, at one stage or another (in my case still today) fantasises about having his own secret hideaway. A place to which you can retreat for some alone time. Top of the list of possible hideouts (besides the Bat cave obviously) has got to be the Tree House.

I would love to build and live in my own tree house! That way the crocodiles can't get me!

....I should probably explain that statement. Well, when I was little I used to play this game with myself where I'd pretend that any part of the floor (in the entire house!), other than my bunk bed, was shark, or crocodile infested water and if I touched the floor I would be gruesomely devoured by the creatures who were waiting for me to make the slightest mistake. This required me to climb, clamber and crawl over furniture, along stair handrails and onto my parents shoulders (it's not strange I love monkeys really).

The idea of having a hideout in the trees where (once you've pulled up the ladder) nobody can get to you sounds pretty awesome to me. Well supplied with drinks, crisps and other goodies. A stash of books, binoculars to check out the girls and a Swiss army knife. Can't have a tree house without a Swiss Army knife! Designing and building your own tree house is a boyhood dream.

Joel Allen from Canada decided to make that dream come true by building a secret tree house hiding in the woods of Whistler...

Part of the charm of tree houses, especially for boys, comes from the climbing involved. Climbing things, trees in particular is inherent to adventure and being young. There was a time when I was little that I climbed anything and everything. The higher the better.

Here are some other amazing tree houses...