One of the best parts of the adventure — en route to unplugging from the world as we know it — is the fantasy of the unknown.

My guy and I were advised to use all-wheel drive and pack tire chains if arriving in winter and hope our compact car rental will suffice. I wonder if a rockslide, rutty road or lack of signage would complicate the journey.

Our destination is Lostwood Lane, twice as close to Olympic National Park backcountry than the nearest northwest Washington town. An ominous name, perhaps, but the day doesn’t end lost in any woods, nor roughing it in a sleeping bag, pup tent or rustic lean-to. Inside our remote accommodations are numerous comforts of home, efficiently packaged in 250 square feet.

This ESCAPE Homes unit, for rent in Washington, fits ample accommodations into a tidy 250 square feet of space. (Mary Bergin / Chicago Tribune)

Think air conditioning, a ceiling fan, radiant heat under flooring, a shower and flushing toilet, modern kitchen appliances, an array of handsome stoneware and cookware for dining. Eight steps up is a compact loft with a plush queen-sized bed. At the opposite end is a second loft with two twin beds, accessible by hooked ladder.

Homey décor, table games and movies (on the flat-screen TV, near a cushy couch and dining area for two) ease the disconnect from Internet, cell service and television networks. At daybreak, deer graze until spooked by the motion of a window blind being raised.

Not your average backwoods cabin, and much more about living large in a small space than roughing it.

The view from a loft of the ESCAPE Homes unit near Olympic National Park in Washington. (Mary Bergin / Chicago Tribune)

In a second loft are two twin beds, accessible by hooked ladder, inside a rentable tiny home near Washington state's Olympic National Park. (Mary Bergin / Chicago Tribune)

Along with housing a growing number of thrifty millennials and ever-wise minimalists, tiny homes are becoming go-to lodging for travelers looking to embrace that simple-living mindset or get up close and personal with their destination.

They are used as getaways or guesthouses from the Catskills in New York to Vail ski trails in Colorado. Some companies, like Tiny Home Vacations in northern Texas, feature clusters of tiny homes that cater directly to tourists. Airbnb dedicates a section of its website exclusively to its finest tiny home listings.

In the Northwoods of Wisconsin, ESCAPE Homes founder Dan Dobrowolski and his wife, Lisa, have constructed a finely outfitted fleet of petite dwellings near Rice Lake as part of their burgeoning tiny home empire. What began as a lodge built on the site of an abandoned church camp near Chetek, Wisconsin, in 1993 has morphed into high-end Canoe Bay Resort, with accommodations designed by Frank Lloyd Wright protégé John Rattenbury. Most expensive is the 2,000-square-foot Edgewood Villa, $999 per night, but smaller rentable homes start at $348.

How’s business? “It’s exploding — like a bonfire,” says Dobrowolski, who fished on the 280 acres of northern Wisconsin land as a boy (and worked long ago as a weatherman for WFLD-TV in Chicago). The pandemic “was gas on the fire” of the trend, because “people want to feel safe” yet have a vacation spot or accommodate visitors, he says.

ESCAPE Homes primarily functions as a builder of its custom tiny homes. Dobrowolski’s first design, the 269-square-foot Traveler, caught the attention of HGTV as a design contest finalist in 2015. Then came a 319-square-foot Traveler XL. Not long after, Forbes declared the Vista model “the world’s most beautiful tiny house.”

As of 2021, ESCAPE Homes builds six basic models, starting with the Vista BoHo (187 square feet) priced at $45,989. With add-ons like a spa tub, electric fireplace and screened porch, customized homes can hit six figures.

Owners of the brand’s homes can list the spaces for rent on ESCAPE’s network for tiny home tourism. Stays range from a monthly rental minutes away from Disneyland, to a perch in the Smoky Mountains, to the Sugar Shack, parked in the courtyard of a hotel and nightclub in downtown Vegas.

Clusters of the brand’s homes form villages in a couple locations. New is Tampa Bay ESCAPE Village in Florida, featuring almost three dozen units under development, each of which looks like a miniature Prairie-style house with streamlined cedar siding and spacious windows.

The ESCAPE Village of tiny houses at Canoe Bay Resort is a part of a long-ago church camp in northern Wisconsin. (Mary Bergin / Chicago Tribune)

In Wisconsin’s Canoe Bay Resort, stays in one of the six tiny houses offer a compact getaway and, for an extra fee, the adult-only resort’s amenities, such as delivered meals; free use of canoes, snowshoes and other recreational equipment; a lounge with a library of books, hit movies and games to borrow; and access to hiking trails.

During our visit to Wisconsin, our ESCAPE Traveler feels roomy, because most storage areas were empty and everything was on one level (we noticed an unfurnished half-loft that could have accommodated one or two additional beds).

Six tiny houses blend with nature at the ESCAPE Village at Canoe Bay Resort near Chetek, Wisconsin. (Mary Bergin / Chicago Tribune)

An electric fireplace crackles below a large television. Along with a clear view of Mallard Lake, the home features a table for two sporting a vase of fresh flowers, along with a full-sized sink, refrigerator, microwave and a full tub and shower. There are plenty of nooks to stash snacks, clothing, duffel bags.

At dusk, we see a dozen whitetail deer. A couple of does graze near sunrise. On our house’s deck are two Adirondack chairs, facing the lake and good for eavesdropping.

The next tiny house is roughly 100 yards away, but it’s quiet enough to hear our neighbor on the phone as she lounges on a screened deck. “We’re in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin and absolutely love it,” she says; the two-night getaway was her combo birthday and Mother’s Day present.

At our house, we order meals from the Canoe Bay kitchen instead of cooking or driving 10 miles to Chetek, the nearest town. Choices are limited but good quality: made-from-scratch granola and muffins, salad with veggies from the resort’s robust garden, pasta with a long-simmered sauce.

Dobrowolski recommends staying at a tiny house before buying one. But there seems to be an appetite for petite-sized homes — whether it be for affordability or in search of minimizing one’s carbon footprint with all-electric or solar- and battery-powered homes — that is showing no signs of slowing down.

“What’s surprising is that a lot of people could own much more, be more extravagant,” he says. “We sell to all age groups and all types of people.”

Mary Bergin is a freelance writer.