Destination guides
Where to stay in the world's best destinations, hotel by hotel, from The Hotelaholic.
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
7 Abu Dhabi Hotels on Saadiyat, Ten Minutes From the Louvre
A genuine cultural district and a protected turtle-nesting beach, ten minutes apart, with almost nobody on either. That combination is rare.
7 hotels
Amalfi Coast, Italy
6 Amalfi Coast Hotels With a Private Jetty, So You Never Touch the Coast Road
Before the road was cut in the 1850s the villages were connected by boat. Two hours by car in August is twenty-five minutes by sea.
6 hotels
Amsterdam, Netherlands
11 Amsterdam Canal-House Hotels Where the Stairs Are Not Your Problem
Amsterdam's staircases run at 45 degrees because furniture was always hoisted through the window. Eleven canal hotels that fixed the vertical.
11 hotels
Aspen and Vail, Colorado, USA
8 Colorado Hotels That Are Genuinely Ski-In, Not Shuttle-In
Walking three hundred metres in ski boots carrying skis is a specific misery, and a lot of hotels describe it as ski-in access.
8 hotels
Athens, Greece
10 Athens Hotels Where the Parthenon Fills the Whole Rooftop, Not a Corner of It
The difference between a great Acropolis view and a technical one is geometry, not price. Ten hotels sorted by where they stand to the rock.
10 hotels
Bali, Indonesia
13 Bali Resorts Sorted by Which Bali You Actually Came For
Three places most visitors want to see, one to two hours apart on single-lane roads. Book one region and you spend a third of the trip in a car.
13 hotels
Banff and Lake Louise, Canada
8 Banff and Lake Louise Hotels With a Lake Actually in View
One hotel on Lake Louise, one lodge on Emerald Lake. Nothing new is being built on those shorelines, ever, and summer books a year out.
8 hotels
Bangkok, Thailand
13 Bangkok Hotels With Their Own River Pier, So You Never Sit in the Traffic
The Skytrain does not reach the old city and the Chao Phraya does. A hotel jetty means you leave by boat and skip the road entirely.
13 hotels
Barbados
9 Barbados Hotels on the Flat Caribbean Side, Not the Atlantic Side
The west is glassy and swimmable all year. The east is spectacular and mostly unwise. They are twenty minutes apart.
9 hotels
Barcelona, Spain
13 Barcelona Hotels With a Rooftop Pool Above the Eixample Grid
At street level every block looks like the last. From a roof the grid resolves, and between June and September the pool is not optional.
13 hotels
Berlin, Germany
12 Berlin Hotels in the Eastern Districts Where the City Is on Foot
Wide streets, gaps between buildings and long distances between things that look close. Berlin punishes a badly chosen district.
12 hotels
Bora Bora, French Polynesia
6 Bora Bora Resorts Where You Can Drop Off the Deck Into Swimmable Lagoon
The thatched roof is available in a dozen countries. The barrier reef is not. Six resorts sorted by what is actually under your deck.
6 hotels
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
10 Boston Hotels On or Beside the Red Line in the Pavement
A colonial street plan that was never gridded, a centre three kilometres across, and a trail designed to be followed on foot.
10 hotels
Budapest, Hungary
10 Budapest Hotels Plumbed Into Their Own Thermal Spring
Seventy million litres of hot mineral water a day under the city. Most visitors meet it as a queue and a locker at Szechenyi.
10 hotels
Buenos Aires, Argentina
10 Buenos Aires Hotels You Can Walk Home to After a Ten O'Clock Dinner
Arrive at eight and you will have the dining room to yourself. The room fills at ten and the second sitting runs past midnight.
10 hotels
Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, Australia
9 Cairns Hotels Positioned for the Early Reef Boats
The city fronts a tidal mudflat and swims in a built lagoon. What it has is the marina, and the boats leave before half past eight.
9 hotels
Cairo, Egypt
9 Cairo Hotels Where the Pyramids Are Actually in the Window
From the plateau hotels they are simply there, a few hundred metres away. From the Nile, fifteen kilometres east, only on a clear day.
9 hotels
Cancun, Mexico
10 Cancun Resorts on the Calm North-Facing Stretch, Not the Surf Side
The short leg faces a sheltered bay with no waves. The long leg faces open Caribbean with a rip. Both are the same hotel zone.
10 hotels
Cape Town, South Africa
13 Cape Town Hotels on the Sheltered Side When the Southeaster Blows
Locals check the wind and pick their beach accordingly, every day, all summer. The mountain splits the city into two weather systems.
13 hotels
Cartagena, Colombia
9 Cartagena Hotels Inside the Walls, Not in Bocagrande
Booking Bocagrande for the beach misunderstands this coast. The good water is an hour away by boat and the city is behind eleven kilometres of stone.
9 hotels
Charleston, South Carolina, USA
9 Charleston Hotels South of Broad, Among the Houses
Pastel single houses turned sideways to the lot, two-storey piazzas facing the breeze, walled gardens and no commerce at all.
9 hotels
Chicago, Illinois, USA
12 Chicago Hotels Between the River and the Lake
Twenty-nine miles of public shoreline with nothing built between the city and the water. That was decided in the nineteenth century and it holds.
12 hotels
Copenhagen, Denmark
9 Copenhagen Hotels Where You Can Swim in the Harbour Outside
Two decades of separating stormwater from sewage produced free public swimming between office buildings. It is the best thing about the city.
9 hotels
Costa Rica
9 Costa Rica Hotels Split Between the Dry Coast and the Rainforest
Twelve climate zones in a country the size of Denmark. There is no single best season here, only a best season for each region.
9 hotels
Cozumel, Mexico
7 Cozumel Hotels With Their Own Dive Dock on the Leeward Shore
The reefs are all on the sheltered western side. A private pier saves an hour every morning and turns the house reef into a swim.
7 hotels
Cusco, Peru
9 Cusco Hotels That Take the Altitude Seriously
Altitude sickness is not a function of fitness. What helps is time, and starting six hundred metres lower in the Sacred Valley.
9 hotels
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
15 Dubai Hotels Split Between the Sand Side and the Skyline Side
Twenty-five minutes apart in light traffic and an hour on Sheikh Zayed Road at six. Most visitors pick by brand rather than geography.
15 hotels
Dublin, Ireland
9 Dublin Hotels One Street Back From Temple Bar
It is the neighbourhood name visitors know, so it is the one they book. Two streets south the Georgian squares begin and the noise stops.
9 hotels
Dubrovnik, Croatia
9 Dubrovnik Hotels Positioned for the Hours the Ships Are Gone
Between ten and five the Stradun is a slow-moving crowd. Before nine and after seven it is one of the most beautiful places in Europe.
9 hotels
Edinburgh, Scotland
10 Edinburgh Hotels on the Flat Side of the Castle Rock
The Old Town has the atmosphere and the stairs. The New Town has flat pavements and larger rooms, ten minutes downhill from both.
10 hotels
Fiji
8 Fiji Resorts You Reach Without a Second Flight After Nadi
A remote island means a flight, then a flight, then a boat. For a week, that is a large share of the holiday spent in transit.
8 hotels
Florence, Italy
10 Florence Hotels Inside the Centro Storico Where Nothing Needs a Taxi
The camera-enforced traffic zone makes the centre almost car-free. Ten hotels inside it, where the Uffizi and the Duomo are both a walk.
10 hotels
Haifa, Israel
7 Haifa Hotels on the Carmel Slope, Facing the Terraces and the Bay
Nineteen terraces descend 300 metres from the ridge to the port. Which tier you sleep on decides which half of that view you get.
7 hotels
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
9 Ho Chi Minh City Hotels With a Rooftop Above the Scooters
The sound is constant from six in the morning. Six floors up it drops away and the air moves, which is why this city built upward.
9 hotels
Hong Kong
9 Hong Kong Hotels on the Kowloon Side, Because the View Is the Island
Stay on Hong Kong Island and you are inside the skyline looking out. Every window that faces the picture is on the other shore.
9 hotels
Honolulu and Waikiki, Hawaii, USA
8 Waikiki Hotels Actually on the Sand, Not Across Kalakaua Avenue
One set has a lawn, a pool deck and then sand. The other has a crossing signal. Both call themselves Waikiki beachfront.
8 hotels
Istanbul, Turkey
13 Istanbul Hotels Within Five Minutes of a Ferry Landing
The thing that makes a city on two continents work is not the bridges. It is boats that cost the same as a bus and run until late.
13 hotels
Jaipur, India
8 Jaipur Palace Hotels Still Run by the Families Who Built Them
Courtyards, chhatris and frescoes that were commissioned rather than commissioned to look old. It is easy to confuse the real thing with the styled one.
8 hotels
Jerusalem, Israel
9 Jerusalem Hotels Within Walking Distance of Jaffa Gate
You will enter and leave the walls several times in three days, on foot, often in the heat. Which gate you use decides the whole trip.
9 hotels
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
10 Kuala Lumpur Hotels Where the Petronas Towers Fill the Window
Too close and the towers foreshorten into a wall of steel. The framing depends on distance, floor and which way the room faces.
10 hotels
Kyoto, Japan
11 Kyoto Hotels and Ryokan East of the Kamo, Where the Temples Are Empty at Seven
Kiyomizu-dera opens at six and fills by ten. Those four hours are the difference between Kyoto as described and Kyoto as most people see it.
11 hotels
Lake Como, Italy
10 Lake Como Hotels at a Village the Ferry Actually Serves
In the central basin three villages are fifteen minutes apart by boat. At the ends of the lake the same day is a drive behind a coach.
10 hotels
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
11 Las Vegas Hotels Where the Walk to the Next Casino Is Actually Short
Pedestrian bridges, set-back frontages and casino floors designed to keep you inside. The map lies about Las Vegas distances.
11 hotels
Lima, Peru
9 Lima Hotels on the Miraflores Clifftop
The Malecon runs ten kilometres along the cliff with paragliders off the edge. It is the most pleasant public space in South America.
9 hotels
Lisbon, Portugal
9 Lisbon Hotels at the Top of the Hill, So You Walk Down Instead of Up
The gradients beat San Francisco and the pavement is polished stone. Stay on the ridge and the city stops being a workout.
9 hotels
London, United Kingdom
14 London Hotels With a Royal Park on One Side and the West End on the Other
London's biggest hidden cost is transit. Stay on the mile and a half between the parks and the theatres and it disappears.
14 hotels
Los Angeles, California, USA
11 Los Angeles Hotels in the Few Pockets Where You Don't Need the Car
The standard LA trip is 90 minutes a day behind a windscreen. There is another version and it depends entirely on where you sleep.
11 hotels
Los Cabos, Mexico
7 Los Cabos Resorts on a Beach You Can Actually Swim From
Most of this coast flies a red flag. Only four beaches in Los Cabos let you walk into the sea, and these are the resorts on them.
7 hotels
Madrid, Spain
11 Madrid Hotels Inside the Golden Triangle, Between the Prado and the Reina Sofia
Nobody sees the Prado properly in one visit. Staying ten minutes away is what turns a four-hour march into three short sessions.
11 hotels
Maldives
5 Maldives Resorts With a House Reef You Can Swim to From the Sand
Half these islands sit on knee-deep sand flats with nothing under them. The house reef is the one thing to check and the thing nobody checks.
5 hotels
Marrakech, Morocco
8 Marrakech Riads Behind the Medina Walls, Where the Cars Can't Follow
The derbs are under two metres wide and nothing motorised gets in. Eight riads where the arrival is on foot and the courtyard is silent.
8 hotels
Melbourne, Australia
8 Melbourne Hotels With a Laneway at the Door
The 1837 grid looks like a business district. The second network that filled in between the blocks is where the city actually happens.
8 hotels
Mexico City, Mexico
12 Mexico City Hotels in Roma and Condesa, Within a Walk of the Tasting Menus
Stay somewhere that needs a car for every meal and you will eat two good meals a day instead of four. Eating is the reason to come.
12 hotels
Miami Beach, Florida, USA
14 Miami Beach Hotels on the Ocean Side of Collins Avenue
Across the road you cross four lanes with towels and go once a day. On the sand side you go four times, and the lounger is already set up.
14 hotels
Milan, Italy
10 Milan Hotels in the Quadrilatero That Are Better on a Sunday
Tables that need three weeks' notice on a Thursday are free on a Sunday. Most visitors come midweek and conclude Milan is not worth it.
10 hotels
Montreal, Canada
7 Montreal Hotels With Underground City Access for the Winter Months
From December to March a door into the RESO means reaching the metro, the shops and the concert hall without putting on a coat.
7 hotels
Mumbai, India
9 Mumbai Hotels Facing the Sea Along the Marine Drive Arc
A room facing inland gives you twenty million people at full volume. A room facing the water gives you distance and the best light in India.
9 hotels
Munich, Germany
9 Munich Hotels Inside the Altstadt Ring, All of It on Foot
Dinner is at seven and the halls close early. Being able to walk home at eleven without planning a tram is worth more than it sounds.
9 hotels
Mykonos, Greece
10 Mykonos Hotels on the Sheltered South Coast, Out of the Meltemi
On a windy day the northern beaches are whipped and empty and the southern ones are flat and full. Everyone on the island knows this.
10 hotels
Napa and Sonoma, California, USA
10 Napa and Sonoma Hotels on the Valley Floor Rather Than the Ridge
The floor has the tasting rooms and the traffic. The hillsides have the views, the cooler air and a drive down for every meal.
10 hotels
Naples and Capri, Italy
10 Capri and Naples Hotels Above the Funicular, Not Below It
Every ferry lands at sea level and the island you came for is 140 metres above it. Arrival here is a boat, a funicular and a porter.
10 hotels
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
9 Nashville Hotels Far Enough Off Broadway to Sleep
The bands start at ten in the morning, run in shifts until two, and it carries several blocks. Broadway is worth a night, not a week of them.
9 hotels
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
7 French Quarter Hotels Built Around a Courtyard, Where Bourbon Street Can't Reach You
The Spanish rebuilt New Orleans facing inward after the fires of 1788. Two centuries later that architecture solves the noise problem.
7 hotels
New York, New York, USA
11 Manhattan Hotels Within One Block of a Central Park Entrance
The gate at 59th and Fifth means carriages and queues. The gate at 90th means the reservoir and no one. Both are Central Park.
11 hotels
Nice and the French Riviera
12 Riviera Hotels Facing the Baie des Anges
South-facing means light on the water all day rather than a slice of morning. On this coast the direction of the window is the product.
12 hotels
Osaka, Japan
8 Osaka Hotels Within Walking Distance of the Late Counters
Kuidaore means ruining yourself through food and the city uses it with pride. The trains stop long before the kitchens do.
8 hotels
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
9 Palma Hotels in the Casco Antiguo, Away From the Resort Coast
A plain stone facade on a lane, a heavy door, and a patio with a well and orange trees behind it. Most visitors to the island never see this.
9 hotels
Paris, France
11 Paris Hotels With a Garden You Can Actually Sit In
Central Paris rooms are small and that is structural. The hotels worth paying for are the ones whose shared space makes up for it.
11 hotels
Perth, Australia
8 Perth Hotels on the Swan River Side, With Cottesloe Twenty Minutes Out
The coast would be famous almost anywhere else and it has almost no hotels. Base yourself on the river and take the train.
8 hotels
Phuket, Thailand
10 Phuket Resorts on the West Coast Beaches That Stay Swimmable in Season
Same sand, same hotels, completely different sea. In Phuket the season decides whether the water in front of you is usable at all.
10 hotels
Portland, Oregon, USA
10 Portland Hotels Within a Walk of the Cart Pods and the Pearl
Two-hundred-foot blocks mean twice as many corners and twice as many shopfronts. It is why a city this size feels dense.
10 hotels
Porto, Portugal
9 Porto Hotels on the Ribeira Bank, Not the Lodge Bank
Porto is built on a steep slope with the river at the bottom and everything else at the top. Getting the bank wrong costs several hundred steps a day.
9 hotels
Prague, Czech Republic
11 Prague Hotels on the Quiet Bank of the Vltava
Four hundred metres and one bridge separate the loudest square in central Europe from a quarter where the loudest thing is a tram.
11 hotels
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
12 Punta Cana Resorts on the Stretches Sargassum Tends to Miss
Season, orientation and luck. No resort here is immune, and any that says otherwise is overselling, but the odds are not evenly spread.
12 hotels
Quebec City, Canada
9 Quebec City Hotels in the Upper Town, Above the Funicular
A hundred metres of cliff, a funicular and a staircase called Breakneck. In January that split stops being picturesque.
9 hotels
Queenstown, New Zealand
10 Queenstown Hotels on the Lake Side of the Road
The hill side gives you a car park and a view over a roof, at a rate only slightly lower. The lakefront here is short and the rooms on it are few.
10 hotels
Reykjavik, Iceland
8 Reykjavik Hotels Positioned for the Airport-to-Lagoon Run
Doing the lagoon from the city means driving past the airport and back. Doing it on arrival day costs nothing and fixes a red-eye.
8 hotels
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
12 Rio Hotels on the Beachfront Avenue, Where Only the Road Is Between You and the Sand
One block back is a hundred and fifty metres and psychologically another city. In Rio the beach is the living room, so the front row matters.
12 hotels
Rome, Italy
12 Rome Hotels in the Centro Storico Where Everything Is a Walk
The Pantheon to the Trevi is six minutes. Book near a metro station and you will spend the week underground for no reason.
12 hotels
Sabi Sand and Kruger, South Africa
8 Sabi Sand Lodges With the Traversing Rights That Matter
A leopard on a kill stays put for a day. Wild dogs cover thirty kilometres before breakfast. Traversing decides whether you can follow.
8 hotels
San Diego, California, USA
9 San Diego Hotels Split Between the Bay, Balboa and the Coast
Book downtown for the price and you will drive to La Jolla daily. Book La Jolla and dinner downtown is a forty-minute round trip.
9 hotels
San Francisco, California, USA
11 San Francisco Hotels on the Right Side of a Block That Changes Fast
An unusually low rate for a central San Francisco address is information, not luck. Check the cross-streets before you book.
11 hotels
Santorini, Greece
13 Santorini Hotels Where the Sunset Happens on Your Own Terrace
Photographs of the crowd watching the Oia sunset now outnumber photographs of the sunset. A private terrace is the whole product here.
13 hotels
Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
10 Scottsdale Resorts Built for the Shade Rather Than the View
Deep overhangs, courtyards that trap cool air and pools that are chilled rather than heated. In July that last detail decides the trip.
10 hotels
Seattle, Washington, USA
9 Seattle Hotels Above Pike Place, Where the Water Is the View
The market is the best thing downtown and the delivery bays run at four a.m. Stay above it and you get one without the other.
9 hotels
Seoul, South Korea
10 Seoul Hotels on the Palace Side, Where the Old City Is on Foot
The palaces close at five and Gangnam is forty minutes away with a change. Most visitors make that decision without noticing.
10 hotels
Seville, Spain
10 Seville Hotels Built Around a Shaded Patio
Air cools over the fountain, sinks into the courtyard and draws through the rooms. Passive cooling that predates air conditioning by a thousand years.
10 hotels
Singapore
11 Singapore Hotels Where the Rooftop Pool Faces Marina Bay
At street level the heat is trapped between towers. Twenty floors up there is a breeze, and the city becomes something you look at.
11 hotels
St Lucia
8 St Lucia Resorts Sorted by Whether the Pitons Are in View
Soufriere has the scenery and small dark beaches. The north has the sand and no Pitons. They are ninety minutes of hairpins apart.
8 hotels
Sydney, Australia
11 Sydney Hotels Where the Harbour Room Is a Real Room, Not a Room Category
A great many Sydney hotels have a few rooms that see the harbour properly and a lot that do not. Ask about floor, aspect and what blocks the rest.
11 hotels
Tel Aviv, Israel
10 Tel Aviv Hotels Directly on the Promenade, Not a Street Behind It
Swimmers at six in the morning, matkot until dark, the whole city out at sunset. Proximity decides whether you join that or watch it.
10 hotels
Tokyo, Japan
15 Tokyo Hotels Within Ten Minutes of a Counter That Seats Eight
Pick the ward that matches how you want to eat, then pick the hotel. Doing it the other way round means commuting to dinner.
15 hotels
Toronto, Canada
10 Toronto Hotels Between the Lakefront and the Distillery District
Everything worth walking to sits within two kilometres of the water. Visitors book Yorkville because that is where the familiar names are.
10 hotels
Turks and Caicos
8 Turks and Caicos Resorts Sorted by Which End of Grace Bay
Unlike most beaches with this reputation, Grace Bay has no bad stretch. What varies is what sits behind you and how far the restaurants are.
8 hotels
Valencia, Spain
8 Valencia Hotels Between the Old Town and the Turia Riverbed
After the 1957 flood the city moved the river and refused to build a motorway in the bed. What it built instead is the reason to stay here.
8 hotels
Vancouver, Canada
9 Vancouver Hotels Where the Seawall Starts at the Front Door
The longest uninterrupted waterfront path in the world runs past some lobbies and six blocks below others. That is the whole decision.
9 hotels
Venice, Italy
5 Venice Hotels With a Water Door, Where You Arrive by Boat and Never Carry a Bag Over a Bridge
Four hundred stepped bridges and no wheeled vehicles. The palazzi that still use their water entrances remove the problem entirely.
5 hotels
Vienna, Austria
9 Vienna Hotels You Can Walk Home to After the Opera
Nobody mentions the twenty minutes after the curtain: the cloakroom queue, the taxi rank, and the wait in a coat in February.
9 hotels
Washington, DC, USA
9 Washington Hotels Close Enough to Walk the Mall Twice
Two hours in a museum, back to the hotel, out again at five when the memorials are lit. That rhythm needs a ten-minute walk, not a Metro ride.
9 hotels
Zanzibar, Tanzania
9 Zanzibar Hotels Where You Can Swim at Low Tide
On the east coast swimming happens in a window around high tide, and the window moves fifty minutes a day. Almost nobody knows before booking.
9 hotels