Destination guides
Where to stay in the world's best destinations, hotel by hotel, from The Hotelaholic.
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Every guide, A to Z
339 guides
A
18 guides
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 · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly AED 700-2,500 a night, lowest June to September
Adelaide and the Barossa, Australia
9 Barossa Hotels Within a Cellar Door Drive
The valley holds vines planted in the 1840s that survived phylloxera because it never reached South Australia. The cellar doors still shut at five.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly A$300-1,200 a night, peaking at vintage
Alsace and Strasbourg, France
9 Alsace Hotels Along the Wine Route
German bottles, French appellations, grape names on the label and half-timbered villages. Four changes of nationality in seventy-four years made it.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-800 euros a night, doubling at Christmas
AlUla, Saudi Arabia
4 AlUla Hotels Among the Sandstone Canyons
The same civilisation that carved Petra, 500 kilometres south, with almost nobody in front of the tombs. Tourist visas only began in 2019.
4 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,200 a night, peaking October to April
Amalfi Coast, Italy
6 Amalfi Coast Hotels With a Private Jetty, So You Never Touch the Coast Road
Before the road was cut in the 1850s the villages were connected by boat. Two hours by car in August is twenty-five minutes by sea.
6 hotels · $$$$ — roughly 700-2,000 euros a night, closed November to March
Amsterdam, Netherlands
11 Amsterdam Canal-House Hotels Where the Stairs Are Not Your Problem
Amsterdam's staircases run at 45 degrees because furniture was always hoisted through the window. Eleven canal hotels that fixed the vertical.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-700 euros a night, peaking in tulip season
Anguilla
6 Anguilla Resorts on Beaches With Nobody On Them
No cruise dock is the single fact that shapes this island. The arrival route filters the numbers, and the beaches show it.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $600-2,500 a night, peaking December to April
Antigua
8 Antigua Resorts on the Leeward Beaches
The 365 beaches are folklore but the indented coastline is real. What matters is which side of it the Atlantic trade winds reach.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $450-1,600 a night, peaking December to April
Antigua and Lake Atitlan, Guatemala
6 Guatemalan Hotels Between the Volcanoes and the Lake
Roofless baroque churches standing between inhabited houses, preserved by an administrative decision rather than by care.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-450 a night, peaking November to April
Antwerp and Bruges, Belgium
8 Flemish Hotels in Converted Merchant Houses
Bruges was preserved by its own decline when the channel silted up. Antwerp took the trade and has been rebuilding ever since.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-700 euros a night, peaking in summer
Aruba
11 Aruba Resorts Below the Hurricane Belt
The divi-divi trees all lean southwest at the same angle, permanently bent by air that does not stop. That wind is why 31 degrees is comfortable.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,200 a night, peaking December to April
Asheville and the Blue Ridge, USA
8 Asheville Hotels Below the Blue Ridge
Olmsted looked at exhausted farmland and told a Vanderbilt to plant a forest. The school it produced staffed the US Forest Service.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-900 a night, peaking in October
Aspen and Vail, Colorado, USA
8 Colorado Hotels That Are Genuinely Ski-In, Not Shuttle-In
Walking three hundred metres in ski boots carrying skis is a specific misery, and a lot of hotels describe it as ski-in access.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $600-2,500 a night, multiplying at Christmas and Presidents' weekend
Atacama Desert, Chile
6 Atacama Lodges Under the Clearest Sky on Earth
Sixty-six radio antennas were built on a plateau above San Pedro at 5,000 metres because of the atmosphere here. On a moonless night the Milky Way casts a shadow.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $600-2,000 a night, mostly fully inclusive of guiding
Athens, Greece
10 Athens Hotels Where the Parthenon Fills the Whole Rooftop, Not a Corner of It
The difference between a great Acropolis view and a technical one is geometry, not price. Ten hotels sorted by where they stand to the rock.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 150-600 euros a night, peaking May and September
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
12 Atlanta Hotels Within Walking Distance of the BeltLine
It started as a graduate thesis in 1999. A city built entirely around the car now has a linear park that restaurants turn to face.
12 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-800 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Auckland and Waiheke Island, New Zealand
11 Auckland and Waiheke Hotels a Ferry From the Vineyards
An island wine region running as a commuter service, in a rain shadow that ripens syrah in a country known for sauvignon blanc.
11 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly NZ$400-1,200 a night, peaking in summer
Austin, Texas, USA
11 Austin Hotels Between Rainey Street and the Lake
There is no single music district here. There are three, they do different things, and the lake trail underneath is what locals actually use.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-800 a night, tripling during SXSW and ACL
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31 guides
Baku, Azerbaijan
7 Baku Hotels Between the Walled City and the Flame Towers
No crater and no volcano. The ground is simply on fire, and has been for as long as anyone has been counting.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-450 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Bali, Indonesia
13 Bali Resorts Sorted by Which Bali You Actually Came For
Three places most visitors want to see, one to two hours apart on single-lane roads. Book one region and you spend a third of the trip in a car.
13 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,200 a night, peaking July, August and Christmas
Banff and Lake Louise, Canada
8 Banff and Lake Louise Hotels With a Lake Actually in View
One hotel on Lake Louise, one lodge on Emerald Lake. Nothing new is being built on those shorelines, ever, and summer books a year out.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly C$300-1,200 a night, peaking July and August
Bangkok, Thailand
13 Bangkok Hotels With Their Own River Pier, So You Never Sit in the Traffic
The Skytrain does not reach the old city and the Chao Phraya does. A hotel jetty means you leave by boat and skip the road entirely.
13 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 4,000-25,000 baht a night, peaking November to February
Bar Harbor, Acadia and the Maine Coast, USA
9 Maine Coast Hotels at the Edge of Acadia
Sixteen feet wide, graded for horses, seventeen stone bridges and no two alike. One man objected to the motor car and did something about it.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,000 a night, peaking in summer and early autumn
Barbados
9 Barbados Hotels on the Flat Caribbean Side, Not the Atlantic Side
The west is glassy and swimmable all year. The east is spectacular and mostly unwise. They are twenty minutes apart.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-2,000 a night, peaking December to April
Barcelona, Spain
13 Barcelona Hotels With a Rooftop Pool Above the Eixample Grid
At street level every block looks like the last. From a roof the grid resolves, and between June and September the pool is not optional.
13 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-800 euros a night, peaking June and September
Bariloche and the Lake District, Argentina
7 Patagonian Lake Hotels Around Bariloche
An architect was commissioned to give the town a look, and ninety years later it has not deviated. The chocolate followed the same logic.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-1,200 a night, peaking December to February
Bath, England
8 Bath Hotels, and the One With the Thermal Water
Rain that fell on the Mendips thousands of years ago, heated four kilometres down and forced back up through a fault. The whole city was built on it.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 220-750 pounds a night, peaking in summer and December
Bay of Kotor, Montenegro
8 Montenegro Hotels on the Bay of Kotor
Limestone walls rising 1,700 metres out of deep water, and Venetian towns on the few flat ledges. A glacier did not do this; a river did.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-900 euros a night, peaking July and August
Beijing, China
9 Beijing Hotels Sorted by Courtyard or Tower
Three thousand hutongs in the 1950s, and what survives sits in a few protected districts. Sleeping inside one is rarer than it should be.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,200 a night, peaking September and October
Belfast and the Causeway Coast
7 Hotels Between Belfast and the Giant's Causeway
Solid rock cracking vertically over decades as it cooled, into joints so regular they look manufactured. The legend is simpler.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly 180-500 pounds a night, peaking in summer
Belize
7 Belize Hotels Split Between the Reef and the Jungle
Two different holidays two or three hours apart. Almost every good Belize itinerary does both, and the country is small enough to make it easy.
7 hotels · $$$ — roughly $300-1,000 a night, peaking December to April
Bergen and the Norwegian Fjords
7 Norwegian Fjord Hotels Where the Water Is Below the Window
Build in more days than the itinerary needs so one of them is clear. Fjords in low cloud have their own quality and almost nobody about.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 2,500-6,000 kroner a night, peaking June to August
Berlin, Germany
12 Berlin Hotels in the Eastern Districts Where the City Is on Foot
Wide streets, gaps between buildings and long distances between things that look close. Berlin punishes a badly chosen district.
12 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-650 euros a night, peaking May to September
Bermuda
10 Bermuda Hotels on the Pink Sand South Shore
A thousand kilometres off North Carolina at the latitude of Charleston. The Gulf Stream keeps the reefs alive and the winter sea at nineteen degrees.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $500-1,600 a night, peaking May to September
Bhutan
5 Bhutan Lodges Along the Valley Road to Paro
A policy of low volume and high value means the monasteries are working religious buildings rather than attractions, and the valleys are not crowded.
5 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $800-2,500 a night, plus the nightly Sustainable Development Fee
Big Sky and Bozeman, Montana, USA
7 Montana Hotels in the Gallatin Valley
A fifteen-person tram to 3,403 metres and a skier density low enough that anyone used to Colorado will find it disorienting.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,500 a night, peaking at Christmas and in February
Big Sur and Carmel, California, USA
7 Big Sur and Carmel Hotels on the Right Side of Highway One
When a section of the coast road goes there is no detour, only a long inland route. Which side of the slide zone you book matters.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $700-2,000 a night in Big Sur, less in Carmel Valley
Bodrum and the Turkish Riviera
10 Bodrum Hotels Around the Peninsula Bays
A wonder of the ancient world stood here until earthquakes took it, and the Knights quarried the stone for the castle that replaced it.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-1,200 euros a night, closed much of the winter
Bogota, Colombia
8 Bogota Hotels Between La Candelaria and Zona G
A chief covered in gold dust, rowed onto a lake and washed clean. The ceremony was real; the golden city Europeans went looking for was not.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-450 a night, steady year round
Bologna and Emilia-Romagna, Italy
9 Bologna Hotels Under the Porticoes
Owners were allowed to extend upper floors over the street provided the space beneath stayed public. Nine centuries later you can cross the city in rain.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-800 euros a night, peaking May and September
Bora Bora, French Polynesia
6 Bora Bora Resorts Where You Can Drop Off the Deck Into Swimmable Lagoon
The thatched roof is available in a dozen countries. The barrier reef is not. Six resorts sorted by what is actually under your deck.
6 hotels · $$$$ — roughly $900-2,500 a night, peaking in August
Bordeaux, France
11 Bordeaux Hotels Split Between the City and the Chateaux
Two centuries of soot came off the limestone in the 1990s and the frontages turned out to be pale gold. The wine is still forty-five minutes away.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-900 euros a night, peaking at harvest
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
10 Boston Hotels On or Beside the Red Line in the Pavement
A colonial street plan that was never gridded, a centre three kilometres across, and a trail designed to be followed on foot.
10 hotels · $$$ — roughly $350-900 a night, peaking in October
Boulder, Colorado, USA
4 Boulder Hotels Under a 55-Foot Height Limit
The first American city to tax itself to buy its own surroundings, and then to legislate that nothing block the view. Two votes made the town.
4 hotels · $$$ — roughly $300-600 a night, peaking in summer and at graduation
Budapest, Hungary
10 Budapest Hotels Plumbed Into Their Own Thermal Spring
Seventy million litres of hot mineral water a day under the city. Most visitors meet it as a queue and a locker at Szechenyi.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 150-550 euros a night, the best value of the three capitals
Buenos Aires, Argentina
10 Buenos Aires Hotels You Can Walk Home to After a Ten O'Clock Dinner
Arrive at eight and you will have the dining room to yourself. The room fills at ten and the second sitting runs past midnight.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-500 a night, peaking October to December
Burgundy, France
8 Burgundy Hotels Along the Climats of the Cote d'Or
Monks worked out over generations that fifty metres changes the wine, walled the plots they judged distinct, and some of those walls still stand.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-700 euros a night, peaking at the November auction
Busan, South Korea
8 Busan Hotels Where the Beach Is Downtown
A port squeezed between mountains and sea, which forced it upward. In summer the city puts about a million people on two kilometres of sand.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-500 a night, peaking in summer
Byron Bay and the Northern Rivers, Australia
8 Byron Bay Hotels Between the Lighthouse and the Hinterland
The easternmost point of the mainland sees the sunrise first. The town below it has not been allowed to grow and the demand has not stopped.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly A$400-1,500 a night, peaking over the summer holidays
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29 guides
Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, Australia
9 Cairns Hotels Positioned for the Early Reef Boats
The city fronts a tidal mudflat and swims in a built lagoon. What it has is the marina, and the boats leave before half past eight.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly A$250-700 a night, peaking in the dry season
Cairo, Egypt
9 Cairo Hotels Where the Pyramids Are Actually in the Window
From the plateau hotels they are simply there, a few hundred metres away. From the Nile, fifteen kilometres east, only on a clear day.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-600 a night, peaking October to April
Cancun, Mexico
10 Cancun Resorts on the Calm North-Facing Stretch, Not the Surf Side
The short leg faces a sheltered bay with no waves. The long leg faces open Caribbean with a rip. Both are the same hotel zone.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-900 a night, peaking December to April
Cannes and Antibes, France
11 Cannes and Antibes Hotels, and the Calendar to Check First
A town of 74,000 hosting fifty major events a year. Book the wrong week and you pay several times the price for the same room.
11 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 350-2,000 euros a night, far higher in festival weeks
Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, USA
10 Cape and Islands Hotels on the Ferry Side
The island went broke when whaling ended, the population fell by two thirds, and nobody rebuilt anything for a century. That is why it looks like that.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $450-1,500 a night, roughly double in August
Cape Town, South Africa
13 Cape Town Hotels on the Sheltered Side When the Southeaster Blows
Locals check the wind and pick their beach accordingly, every day, all summer. The mountain splits the city into two weather systems.
13 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly R4,000-18,000 a night, peaking December to February
Cappadocia, Turkey
11 Cappadocia Cave Hotels, and When to Book the Balloon
Volcanic ash compacted into stone soft enough to cut by hand and hard enough to hold a ceiling. People have been carving into it since the Bronze Age.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 150-700 euros a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Cartagena, Colombia
9 Cartagena Hotels Inside the Walls, Not in Bocagrande
Booking Bocagrande for the beach misunderstands this coast. The good water is an hour away by boat and the city is behind eleven kilometres of stone.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-800 a night, peaking December to April
Cayman Islands
6 Cayman Resorts on Seven Mile Beach
No rivers means no runoff and no silt. That one geological fact is why the diving here has the reputation it does.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $450-1,500 a night, peaking December to April
Chamonix and Mont Blanc, France
8 Chamonix Hotels Below the Aiguille du Midi
An upper span rising 1,400 metres without a pylon. You step out at nearly four thousand metres in whatever you wore in the valley.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 300-1,200 euros a night, peaking in February and August
Champagne, France
6 Champagne Hotels Above the Chalk Cellars
The Romans dug the pits for building stone. The houses found they held exactly the conditions a second fermentation needs.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-900 euros a night, peaking May to September
Charleston, South Carolina, USA
9 Charleston Hotels South of Broad, Among the Houses
Pastel single houses turned sideways to the lot, two-storey piazzas facing the breeze, walled gardens and no commerce at all.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-800 a night, peaking in spring
Chengdu, China
8 Chengdu Hotels Near the Pandas and the Teahouses
A channel cut through a mountain before gunpowder, by heating the rock with fire and dousing it with water until it cracked. It took eight years.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-450 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Chiang Mai, Thailand
11 Chiang Mai Hotels Inside the Moat and Up the Valley
A season the city does not advertise fills the valley with smoke from February. The mountains that make the region beautiful also trap it.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $100-800 a night, peaking November to February
Chicago, Illinois, USA
12 Chicago Hotels Between the River and the Lake
Twenty-nine miles of public shoreline with nothing built between the city and the water. That was decided in the nineteenth century and it holds.
12 hotels · $$$ — roughly $300-800 a night, peaking May to October
Cinque Terre and Portofino, Italy
7 Ligurian Hotels Near the Cinque Terre, Because There Are None In It
A national park on a vertical coast with no flat ground and no permission to build. You stay outside the villages and come in by train.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 300-2,000 euros a night, quiet in winter
Comporta and the Alentejo, Portugal
7 Alentejo Hotels Behind the Rice Fields
A stretch of Atlantic an hour from a European capital stayed empty because a single owner had no reason to build. The bank failed in 2014.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-900 euros a night, peaking in summer
Copenhagen, Denmark
9 Copenhagen Hotels Where You Can Swim in the Harbour Outside
Two decades of separating stormwater from sewage produced free public swimming between office buildings. It is the best thing about the city.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 1,800-5,000 kroner a night, peaking June to August
Corfu and the Ionian, Greece
9 Ionian Hotels on the Green Side of Greece
Venice paid a bounty per olive tree and Corfiot landowners took the money in quantity. The Ottomans never took the island, and the architecture shows it.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-900 euros a night, closed much of the winter
Cornwall, England
10 Cornwall Hotels Sorted by Which Coast You Want
The same latitude as Newfoundland, growing tree ferns outdoors. A warm current pushes against the peninsula and the Victorians planted accordingly.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-800 pounds a night, peaking in the school summer holidays
Corsica, France
8 Corsica Hotels Between the Maquis and the Sea
Genoese for five centuries and French since 1768, with eighty-five watchtowers still standing against raids that stopped two hundred years ago.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 300-1,500 euros a night, closed November to April
Costa Rica
9 Costa Rica Hotels Split Between the Dry Coast and the Rainforest
Twelve climate zones in a country the size of Denmark. There is no single best season here, only a best season for each region.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,500 a night, peaking December to April
Costa Smeralda, Sardinia
8 Costa Smeralda Hotels With Their Own Granite Cove
Empty scrubland until a consortium bought it in 1962 and imposed a code. Sixty years on, the code is why it does not look like anywhere else.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 500-3,000 euros a night, closed November to April
Courchevel and the Three Valleys, France
11 Courchevel Hotels Sorted by Which Altitude Level You Want
France has a state classification above five stars and roughly thirty hotels hold it. One Alpine village holds several of them.
11 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 600-4,000 euros a night, peaking at Christmas and February
Cozumel, Mexico
7 Cozumel Hotels With Their Own Dive Dock on the Leeward Shore
The reefs are all on the sheltered western side. A private pier saves an hour every morning and turns the house reef into a swim.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $200-500 a night, peaking December to April
Crete, Greece
11 Crete Hotels Within Reach of Both Knossos and the Gorges
Five hours from one end to the other, and the two things most visitors want are at opposite ends of the drive.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-1,200 euros a night, peaking July and August
Curacao
7 Curacao Hotels Around the Floating Bridge
Sixteen pontoons that swing open against the bank whenever a ship passes, with anyone standing on it going along for the ride.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,000 a night, steady year round
Cusco, Peru
9 Cusco Hotels That Take the Altitude Seriously
Altitude sickness is not a function of fitness. What helps is time, and starting six hundred metres lower in the Sacred Valley.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-900 a night, peaking May to September
Cyprus
9 Cyprus Resorts and the Longest Season in the Mediterranean
Seven months of swimming, which is longer than Greece, Italy, Spain or Turkey can offer. October here is often warmer than June.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-800 euros a night, peaking July and August
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7 guides
Delhi and Agra, India
11 Delhi and Agra Hotels for the Taj at First Light
Pink at dawn, white by mid-morning, and the crowds arrive between the two. A surprising number of visitors turn up on the day it is closed.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-1,200 a night, peaking October to March
Denver, Colorado, USA
10 Denver Hotels at Exactly One Mile Up
The Capitol step has been re-surveyed twice as measurement improved. Nobody markets the city as the altitude stop, which is strange.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-800 a night, peaking in summer
Djerba and Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia
7 Tunisian Hotels Between Carthage and the Island
A painter settled above Tunis in 1912, fell for the architecture and had its palette written into law. The blue was thought to repel insects.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-450 a night, peaking in summer
Doha, Qatar
6 Doha Hotels Near Souq Waqif Rather Than West Bay
Pulled apart and rebuilt in mud render from 2004, and busy with Qataris rather than only visitors. Whether that counts as authentic is a fair question.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-900 a night, peaking November to March
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
15 Dubai Hotels Split Between the Sand Side and the Skyline Side
Twenty-five minutes apart in light traffic and an hour on Sheikh Zayed Road at six. Most visitors pick by brand rather than geography.
15 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly AED 900-4,000 a night, halving in the summer months
Dublin, Ireland
9 Dublin Hotels One Street Back From Temple Bar
It is the neighbourhood name visitors know, so it is the one they book. Two streets south the Georgian squares begin and the noise stops.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-600 euros a night, peaking in summer and on rugby weekends
Dubrovnik, Croatia
9 Dubrovnik Hotels Positioned for the Hours the Ships Are Gone
Between ten and five the Stradun is a slow-moving crowd. Before nine and after seven it is one of the most beautiful places in Europe.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-900 euros a night, peaking July and August
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3 guides
Edinburgh, Scotland
10 Edinburgh Hotels on the Flat Side of the Castle Rock
The Old Town has the atmosphere and the stairs. The New Town has flat pavements and larger rooms, ten minutes downhill from both.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 220-700 pounds a night, tripling during the August festivals
El Calafate and Argentine Patagonia
5 El Calafate Hotels Near an Advancing Glacier
A five-kilometre wall of ice that has held the same position for a century while almost every other glacier on earth has gone backwards.
5 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,200 a night, peaking December to February
El Gouna and the Egyptian Red Sea
9 Red Sea Hotels on the Egyptian Coast
Two thousand kilometres of coast and not one permanent watercourse reaching it. That is why you can see thirty metres and why the reef reaches the shore.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-500 a night, peaking October to May
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5 guides
Fez, Morocco
8 Fez Riads Near the Tanneries and the Medersas
Older than Marrakech, larger, less restored and far less used to visitors. That is the argument for it and the warning at the same time.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 120-500 euros a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Fiji
8 Fiji Resorts You Reach Without a Second Flight After Nadi
A remote island means a flight, then a flight, then a boat. For a week, that is a large share of the holiday spent in transit.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly F$500-1,800 a night, peaking July and August
Finnish Lapland
9 Lapland Hotels Where You Watch the Aurora From Bed
Most aurora trips solve the waiting with snowsuits and thermoses. Finland solved it with a heated glass roof angled north.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 300-1,500 euros a night, peaking December to February
Florence, Italy
10 Florence Hotels Inside the Centro Storico Where Nothing Needs a Taxi
The camera-enforced traffic zone makes the centre almost car-free. Ten hotels inside it, where the Uffizi and the Duomo are both a walk.
9 hotels · $$$ — roughly 350-900 euros a night, peaking May and September
Fukuoka and Kyushu, Japan
9 Kyushu Hotels Near the Hottest Springs in Japan
Steam rising from drains and the gaps between houses, from around 2,200 vents. Eight of the ponds are too hot to enter and are kept for looking at.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 35,000-120,000 yen a night, ryokan usually with meals
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5 guides
Galapagos Islands, Ecuador
7 Galapagos Hotels for a Land-Based Trip
Four islands are inhabited and three have hotels worth booking. You take day boats out and come back each evening, which suits more people than the brochures suggest.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,500 a night, plus park fees and day boats
Goa, India
10 Goa Hotels Split Between the North and the South
Portuguese for 451 years, which is longer than it has been Indian. Churches, verandahs and a cuisine built on vinegar and pork.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-700 a night, peaking at Christmas
Granada, Spain
8 Granada Hotels, and the Alhambra Slot You Must Book First
A half-hour window printed on the ticket and tied to your identification. Miss it and you do not get in. Book it before the flights.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 150-600 euros a night, peaking at Easter and in autumn
Grenada
6 Grenada Hotels on the Spice Island
A nutmeg takes seven to nine years to bear fruit. In 2004 the island lost close to a generation of them between dusk and dawn.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,500 a night, peaking December to April
Guilin and Yangshuo, China
7 Yangshuo Hotels Among the Karst Towers
A Devonian seabed uplifted and dissolved along its joints until only the hardest cores were left. Chinese landscape painting was painting this.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-500 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
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12 guides
Haifa, Israel
7 Haifa Hotels on the Carmel Slope, Facing the Terraces and the Bay
Nineteen terraces descend 300 metres from the ridge to the port. Which tier you sleep on decides which half of that view you get.
1 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-400 a night, peaking in spring and at holidays
Hakone and Mount Fuji, Japan
9 Hakone Ryokan With a Private Onsen on the Balcony
Seventeen hot spring areas and twenty water compositions in one volcanic caldera. The bathing is the point, not the scenery.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 60,000-200,000 yen a night, usually with dinner and breakfast
Hamburg, Germany
9 Hamburg Hotels Between the Warehouses and the Water
Red brick on oak piles with canals between the blocks so barges could winch cargo into the upper floors. A hundred kilometres from the sea.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-700 euros a night, peaking in summer
Hangzhou and Suzhou, China
9 Hangzhou and Suzhou Hotels by the Water Gardens
Ten named scenes, each with a stone tablet, a poem and an hour at which to stand there. Listed for being an idea about how to look at scenery.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-800 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Hanoi, Vietnam
11 Hanoi Hotels Beside the Old Quarter's 36 Streets
Silver street, silk street, tin street. Craftsmen from the same village clustered together from the fifteenth century and the names stuck.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $120-600 a night, peaking October to April
Hawaii Island (Big Island), USA
9 Big Island Resorts on the Kohala Lava Coast
Eleven climate zones on one island, three metres of rain on one side and desert on the other. The resorts are all on the dry strip.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,800 a night, peaking December to April
Helsinki and the Finnish Lakes
8 Finnish Hotels Between the Design District and the Lakes
Roughly one sauna for every 1.7 people, counting apartments, offices and the parliament building. It is a room in the house, not a treatment.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-600 euros a night, peaking in summer
Hiroshima and Miyajima, Japan
7 Hiroshima and Miyajima Hotels for the Tide Under the Torii
Whether you see the gate floating or walk out and stand beneath it is entirely a matter of which hour you arrive.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 25,000-90,000 yen a night, peaking in spring and November
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
9 Ho Chi Minh City Hotels With a Rooftop Above the Scooters
The sound is constant from six in the morning. Six floors up it drops away and the air moves, which is why this city built upward.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $120-500 a night, peaking December to March
Hoi An and Da Nang, Vietnam
7 Hoi An and Da Nang Hotels Near the Lantern Streets
The port silted up, the money went to Da Nang, and eleven hundred timber buildings were never rebuilt. That is the whole reason it is still there.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $120-900 a night, peaking February to May
Hong Kong
9 Hong Kong Hotels on the Kowloon Side, Because the View Is the Island
Stay on Hong Kong Island and you are inside the skyline looking out. Every window that faces the picture is on the other shore.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly HK$1,800-6,000 a night for a harbour room
Honolulu and Waikiki, Hawaii, USA
8 Waikiki Hotels Actually on the Sand, Not Across Kalakaua Avenue
One set has a lawn, a pool deck and then sand. The other has a crossing signal. Both call themselves Waikiki beachfront.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,100 a night, plus resort fees
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Ibiza, Spain
10 Ibiza Hotels on the Quiet Northern Half
Two reputations on one island 45 kilometres long. The mistake is booking one half while expecting the other.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 350-1,500 euros a night, closed November to April
Iguazu Falls
2 Iguazu Hotels Inside the Park Gates
Eighty percent of the falls are Argentine and the best view of them is Brazilian. That single fact decides how a visit works.
2 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-900 a night, highest inside the parks
Innsbruck and Tyrol, Austria
9 Tyrol Hotels Within Sight of the Nordkette
Ski in the morning and be at a café on the Maria-Theresien-Strasse by lunch. No other Alpine capital sits that close to a high ridge.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-900 euros a night, peaking in February and August
Istanbul, Turkey
13 Istanbul Hotels Within Five Minutes of a Ferry Landing
The thing that makes a city on two continents work is not the bridges. It is boats that cost the same as a bus and run until late.
13 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 150-900 euros a night, peaking April to June
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Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA
6 Jackson Hole Hotels at the Mountain Rather Than the Square
In winter the tram decides it. In summer the calculation reverses and the restaurants and the park access are twenty minutes the other way.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $500-1,800 a night, peaking at Christmas and in July
Jaipur, India
8 Jaipur Palace Hotels Still Run by the Families Who Built Them
Courtyards, chhatris and frescoes that were commissioned rather than commissioned to look old. It is easy to confuse the real thing with the styled one.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 12,000-90,000 rupees a night, peaking November to February
Jamaica
13 Jamaica Hotels That Are Not All-Inclusive
Fleming wrote the Bond novels near Oracabessa and Coward lived up the hill. The hotels from that period are still running.
13 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,500 a night, peaking December to April
Jeddah and the Saudi Red Sea
7 Jeddah and Red Sea Hotels on the Coral Coast
Fossilised reef laid in courses with timber beams to absorb movement, and tall wooden screens designed to catch the sea breeze.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-1,500 a night, peaking October to April
Jeju Island, South Korea
8 Jeju Hotels Below the Volcano
Two minutes underwater and a whistling exhalation that carries across the bay. There were 26,000 of them in the 1960s and under 4,000 now.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-600 a night, peaking in summer
Jerusalem, Israel
9 Jerusalem Hotels Within Walking Distance of Jaffa Gate
You will enter and leave the walls several times in three days, on foot, often in the heat. Which gate you use decides the whole trip.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-900 a night, peaking at religious holidays
Jose Ignacio and Punta del Este, Uruguay
9 Jose Ignacio Hotels, and the Six Weeks They Are Open For
A fishing village of a few hundred people that fills for January and empties by March. Every photograph you have seen was taken in one month.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,500 a night in January, closed much of the year
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Kanazawa, Japan
7 Kanazawa Hotels Beside the Three Surviving Edo Districts
The wealthiest domain after the Tokugawa put its money into gold leaf, lacquer and Noh rather than armies. Then the war left the city alone.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly 20,000-60,000 yen a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Kathmandu and Pokhara, Nepal
7 Nepal Hotels With the Annapurna Range in View
Nowhere else lets you see that much vertical relief from somewhere reachable by road. The word clear is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $120-600 a night, peaking October and November
Kauai, Hawaii, USA
5 Kauai Resorts on the Dry Side of the Wettest Island
Eleven thousand millimetres of rain fall on the mountain and a tenth of that on the south shore. The trade winds do it and they do not vary.
5 hotels · $$$ — roughly $450-1,100 a night, peaking December to March
Kerala, India
9 Kerala Hotels on the Backwaters
Rice grown below sea level behind bunds, villages on the banks and water that was the only transport until the roads came.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-600 a night, peaking October to March
Kiawah, Hilton Head and the Lowcountry, USA
9 Lowcountry Hotels on the Championship Links
His wife pointed out that the dunes hid the ocean. He raised the whole course two and a half metres and moved an extraordinary amount of sand.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,200 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Koh Samui, Thailand
12 Koh Samui Resorts for When Phuket Is Wet
One island is in the Andaman Sea and the other is in the Gulf, and their monsoons run opposite. That decides which month suits which.
12 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,500 a night, peaking January to April
Krabi, Thailand
8 Krabi Hotels on the Beaches You Reach by Boat
Cliffs cut the peninsula off from the road network entirely, so it works as an island while being attached to the continent.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-900 a night, peaking November to April
Krakow, Poland
12 Krakow Hotels Between the Rynek and Kazimierz
Two hundred metres square, laid out in 1257, and one of the few Polish cities that came through the war with its buildings intact.
12 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 150-600 euros a night, peaking May to September
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
10 Kuala Lumpur Hotels Where the Petronas Towers Fill the Window
Too close and the towers foreshorten into a wall of steel. The framing depends on distance, floor and which way the room faces.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly RM500-1,800 a night, among the best luxury value in Asia
Kyoto, Japan
11 Kyoto Hotels and Ryokan East of the Kamo, Where the Temples Are Empty at Seven
Kiyomizu-dera opens at six and fills by ten. Those four hours are the difference between Kyoto as described and Kyoto as most people see it.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 40,000-180,000 yen a night, tripling in blossom and maple season
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La Rioja, Spain
6 Rioja Hotels Among the Station-Quarter Bodegas
An aphid destroyed French vineyards, Bordeaux came south to buy, and the railway arrived in 1880. The cellars were built beside the platform.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 150-600 euros a night, peaking at harvest
Lake Bled and Slovenia
6 Slovenia Hotels Between Lake Bled and Ljubljana
No engine and no ferry. A flat-bottomed boat rowed standing, by families who have held the right to do it since 1740.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly 150-450 euros a night, peaking July and August
Lake Como, Italy
10 Lake Como Hotels at a Village the Ferry Actually Serves
In the central basin three villages are fifteen minutes apart by boat. At the ends of the lake the same day is a drive behind a coach.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 500-1,800 euros a night, closed much of the winter
Lake Garda, Italy
11 Lake Garda Hotels Sorted by Which Shore
Lemons were grown at the northern end in glazed stone frames, at a latitude the trees should not survive. That tells you what the lake does to climate.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-1,500 euros a night, closed much of the winter
Lake Geneva, Switzerland
11 Lake Geneva Hotels Below the Lavaux Vineyard Terraces
Growers here talk about three suns: the one in the sky, the one off the lake, and the one stored in the stone walls and released at night.
11 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 400-1,500 francs a night, peaking in summer
Lake Tahoe, California and Nevada, USA
8 Lake Tahoe Hotels Sorted by Whether You Get the Lake or the Lifts
For a lake this famous there are three hotels with a private beach, on a shore that takes four hours to drive around. Protection did that.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,200 a night, peaking in July and at Christmas
Lanai, Hawaii, USA
The Only Two Hotels on Lanai, and Why There Won't Be a Third
One town, no traffic lights, thirty miles of paved road and two hotels. There is no crowd here because there is nowhere for one to stay.
2 hotels · $$$$ — roughly $1,200-2,500 a night, steady year round
Langkawi, Malaysia
9 Langkawi Resorts With Rainforest Behind the Beach
On most tropical islands the vegetation was cleared back from the beach. On one corner of this one it was not, and the wildlife stayed.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-900 a night, peaking November to April
Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
11 Las Vegas Hotels Where the Walk to the Next Casino Is Actually Short
Pedestrian bridges, set-back frontages and casino floors designed to keep you inside. The map lies about Las Vegas distances.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $180-800 a night plus resort fees, swinging hard with the convention calendar
Lech and the Arlberg, Austria
6 Arlberg Hotels Where the Snow Is Most Reliable
Lech limits how many people can be on its mountain. That policy, the altitude and the Atlantic weather are why serious skiers come here.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 500-2,000 euros a night, peaking at Christmas and February
Lima, Peru
9 Lima Hotels on the Miraflores Clifftop
The Malecon runs ten kilometres along the cliff with paragliders off the edge. It is the most pleasant public space in South America.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-600 a night, peaking December to March
Lisbon, Portugal
9 Lisbon Hotels at the Top of the Hill, So You Walk Down Instead of Up
The gradients beat San Francisco and the pavement is polished stone. Stay on the ridge and the city stops being a workout.
9 hotels · $$$ — roughly 200-450 euros a night, higher in September
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.
13 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 450-1,200 pounds a night, peaking in June and December
Los Angeles, California, USA
11 Los Angeles Hotels in the Few Pockets Where You Don't Need the Car
The standard LA trip is 90 minutes a day behind a windscreen. There is another version and it depends entirely on where you sleep.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,200 a night, plus parking, peaking in summer
Los Cabos, Mexico
7 Los Cabos Resorts on a Beach You Can Actually Swim From
Most of this coast flies a red flag. Only four beaches in Los Cabos let you walk into the sea, and these are the resorts on them.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $450-1,200 a night, peaking December to March
Louisville and Kentucky Bourbon Country, USA
8 Kentucky Hotels Along the Bourbon Trail
Nine storeys of barrels in an unheated warehouse, with the top floor twenty degrees hotter. Same batch, different floor, different whiskey.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $250-600 a night, multiplying in Derby week
Luang Prabang, Laos
7 Luang Prabang Hotels on the Dawn Alms Route
A daily religious obligation that visitor numbers turned into a spectacle. The guidance for watching it is simple and worth following.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $120-900 a night, peaking November to February
Lucerne, Switzerland
7 Lucerne Hotels at the Foot of the Cog Railways
Boat, then cogwheel, then summit. That sequence is why this corner of Switzerland became a destination in the first place.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 400-1,500 francs a night, peaking May to October
Luxor and Aswan, Egypt
9 Luxor and Aswan Hotels on the Nile's Living Bank
East where the sun rises, for cities and temples. West where it sets, for tombs. The division still describes exactly where to sleep.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $120-600 a night, peaking October to April
Lyon, France
9 Lyon Hotels Near the Traboules
Enter one building and leave from a street a hundred metres away. The weavers built them for silk; the Resistance used them for the same reason.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-700 euros a night, peaking in December
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Macau
11 Macau Hotels on the Old Peninsula Rather Than Cotai
Portuguese for 442 years, longer than any other European presence in Asia. The old city is why you come here instead of Las Vegas.
11 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-900 a night, peaking at Chinese New Year
Mackinac Island, Michigan, USA
5 Mackinac Island Hotels on an Island Without Cars
The board banned automobiles in 1898 because they frightened the horses. More than 125 years later freight still moves by dray.
5 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-900 a night, closed roughly November to April
Madeira, Portugal
6 Madeira Hotels With Their Own Sea Platform
The top of a volcano rising 6,000 metres from the ocean floor. Anyone booking it as a beach holiday has misread the island.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-700 euros a night, steady year round
Madrid, Spain
11 Madrid Hotels Inside the Golden Triangle, Between the Prado and the Reina Sofia
Nobody sees the Prado properly in one visit. Staying ten minutes away is what turns a four-hour march into three short sessions.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-700 euros a night, peaking in May and October
Maldives
5 Maldives Resorts With a House Reef You Can Swim to From the Sand
Half these islands sit on knee-deep sand flats with nothing under them. The house reef is the one thing to check and the thing nobody checks.
5 hotels · $$$$ — roughly $800-2,500 a night, lowest May to November
Malta and Gozo
7 Malta Hotels Facing the Grand Harbour Fortifications
A fortress city founded in 1566 on a grid, a kilometre long, with bastions cut from the limestone the island is made of.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-700 euros a night, peaking July and August
Marbella and the Costa del Sol, Spain
12 Marbella Hotels on the Golden Mile Beachfront
A fishing village until a Spanish aristocrat brought a European set to it in the 1950s. The hotel he opened in 1954 is still there.
12 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 300-1,500 euros a night, peaking in August
Margaret River, Australia
7 Margaret River Hotels Between the Vines and the Surf
A 1965 report said the climate resembled Bordeaux. The first vines went in two years later and within thirty years the cabernet was ranked with the best.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-900 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Marlborough and Nelson, New Zealand
6 Marlborough Hotels Among the Sauvignon Blanc
High sunshine, cool nights and stony ground preserve compounds that burn off elsewhere. The result was distinct enough to create its own category.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-800 a night, peaking December to April
Marrakech, Morocco
8 Marrakech Riads Behind the Medina Walls, Where the Cars Can't Follow
The derbs are under two metres wide and nothing motorised gets in. Eight riads where the arrival is on foot and the courtyard is silent.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly 180-600 euros a night, far higher at Royal Mansour
Matera and Basilicata, Italy
6 Matera Hotels Inside the Sassi
Fifteen thousand people were rehoused by state order within living memory, and the caves stood empty for thirty years before anyone came back.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-700 euros a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Matera and Basilicata, Italy
6 Matera Hotels Inside the Sassi
Nine thousand years of continuous habitation, then a 1952 law that emptied the district and called it the shame of Italy. The caves stood empty for thirty years.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-600 euros a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Maui, Hawaii, USA
11 Maui Resorts on the Dry Leeward Coast
Two volcanoes joined by a valley, and the weather on either side is not comparable. Every resort on the island is on the same side for a reason.
12 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $500-1,800 a night, peaking December to April
Mauritius
13 Mauritius Resorts Under Le Morne
Reliable wind arriving over flat, shallow, reef-protected water. That combination made one corner of this island a kitesurfing capital.
13 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,500 a night, peaking December and January
Medellin, Colombia
10 Medellin Hotels in the Poblado Hills
The city of eternal spring is an unusually accurate nickname. The valley is narrow, the city climbs its walls, and cable cars are public transport.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $120-400 a night, steady year round
Melbourne, Australia
8 Melbourne Hotels With a Laneway at the Door
The 1837 grid looks like a business district. The second network that filled in between the blocks is where the city actually happens.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly A$250-600 a night, peaking during the summer events season
Mendoza, Argentina
8 Mendoza Wine Lodges Under the Andes
Thin air thickens the skins and the day-to-night swing slows the ripening. It is also a desert, and the Andes explain both facts.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-900 a night, peaking at harvest
Menorca, Spain
7 Menorca Hotels on the Quiet Balearic
Mallorca and Ibiza went one way in the 1970s. Menorca went the other, and in 1993 it locked the decision in.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-800 euros a night, closed much of the winter
Merida and the Yucatan, Mexico
8 Yucatan Hotels in the Henequen Haciendas
The cord that tied the wheat sheaves of the American Midwest, and the mansions it built. Synthetics killed the market inside a decade.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $180-900 a night, peaking November to March
Mexico City, Mexico
12 Mexico City Hotels in Roma and Condesa, Within a Walk of the Tasting Menus
Stay somewhere that needs a car for every meal and you will eat two good meals a day instead of four. Eating is the reason to come.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-600 a night, fairly steady year round
Miami Beach, Florida, USA
14 Miami Beach Hotels on the Ocean Side of Collins Avenue
Across the road you cross four lanes with towels and go once a day. On the sand side you go four times, and the lounger is already set up.
12 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,400 a night, plus resort fees, peaking December to April
Milan, Italy
10 Milan Hotels in the Quadrilatero That Are Better on a Sunday
Tables that need three weeks' notice on a Thursday are free on a Sunday. Most visitors come midweek and conclude Milan is not worth it.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 300-900 euros a night, tripling during fashion and design weeks
Monaco and Monte Carlo
9 Monaco Hotels, and Which Ones the Circuit Runs Past
The second-smallest country on earth, a fifth of it reclaimed from the sea. Land at that scarcity does not get spent on three-star rooms.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 500-2,500 euros a night, far higher in Grand Prix week
Montreal, Canada
7 Montreal Hotels With Underground City Access for the Winter Months
From December to March a door into the RESO means reaching the metro, the shops and the concert hall without putting on a coat.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly C$250-700 a night, peaking in festival season
Moorea, French Polynesia
5 Moorea Hotels on the Bays Rather Than the Ring Road
Two bays cut into the northern coast with a mountain rising between them. That is why people cross from Tahiti rather than staying put.
5 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,400 a night, peaking May to October
Mumbai, India
9 Mumbai Hotels Facing the Sea Along the Marine Drive Arc
A room facing inland gives you twenty million people at full volume. A room facing the water gives you distance and the best light in India.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 15,000-60,000 rupees a night, peaking November to February
Munich, Germany
9 Munich Hotels Inside the Altstadt Ring, All of It on Foot
Dinner is at seven and the halls close early. Being able to walk home at eleven without planning a tram is worth more than it sounds.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-700 euros a night, tripling during Oktoberfest
Muscat and Oman
9 Oman Hotels Split Between the Hajar Mountains and the Coast
No skyscrapers by regulation, buildings held to a traditional style, and a coastline that is mostly undeveloped. It is not the Gulf you know.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-1,200 a night, peaking October to April
Mykonos, Greece
10 Mykonos Hotels on the Sheltered South Coast, Out of the Meltemi
On a windy day the northern beaches are whipped and empty and the southern ones are flat and full. Everyone on the island knows this.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 400-1,400 euros a night, closed November to April
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Napa and Sonoma, California, USA
10 Napa and Sonoma Hotels on the Valley Floor Rather Than the Ridge
The floor has the tasting rooms and the traffic. The hillsides have the views, the cooler air and a drive down for every meal.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $600-1,800 a night, peaking during harvest
Naples and Capri, Italy
10 Capri and Naples Hotels Above the Funicular, Not Below It
Every ferry lands at sea level and the island you came for is 140 metres above it. Arrival here is a boat, a funicular and a porter.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 500-1,800 euros a night on Capri, far less in Naples
Naples, Sanibel and the Florida Gulf Coast, USA
10 Gulf Coast Hotels Facing the Sunset
Almost every barrier island runs parallel to the shore. This one sits crossways and works as a scoop, which is why the beach looks like that.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,200 a night, peaking December to April
Nashville, Tennessee, USA
9 Nashville Hotels Far Enough Off Broadway to Sleep
The bands start at ten in the morning, run in shifts until two, and it carries several blocks. Broadway is worth a night, not a week of them.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-800 a night, far higher on event weekends
New Caledonia
6 New Caledonia Hotels Inside the World's Largest Lagoon
A fragment of Gondwana adrift for eighty million years, where three quarters of the plants grow nowhere else and one conifer is a parasite.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-800 a night, peaking September to November
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
7 French Quarter Hotels Built Around a Courtyard, Where Bourbon Street Can't Reach You
The Spanish rebuilt New Orleans facing inward after the fires of 1788. Two centuries later that architecture solves the noise problem.
3 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $200-450 a night, far higher at Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest
New York, New York, USA
11 Manhattan Hotels Within One Block of a Central Park Entrance
The gate at 59th and Fifth means carriages and queues. The gate at 90th means the reservoir and no one. Both are Central Park.
11 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $600-1,500 a night, with a large park-view supplement
Newport and Coastal Rhode Island, USA
7 Newport Hotels Behind the Gilded Age Cottages
Seventy rooms across 125,000 square feet, occupied for perhaps ten weeks a year, and a public footpath a few metres from the back lawn.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,200 a night, peaking in July and August
Nice and the French Riviera
12 Riviera Hotels Facing the Baie des Anges
South-facing means light on the water all day rather than a slice of morning. On this coast the direction of the window is the product.
12 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 350-1,500 euros a night, peaking in July and August
Niseko and Hokkaido, Japan
11 Niseko Hotels at the Foot of the Powder
Moisture picked up over a short sea crossing and dropped cold. The water content is so low that skiers used to Alpine snow find it disorienting.
11 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 60,000-250,000 yen a night, peaking in January and February
Normandy and Mont-Saint-Michel, France
9 Normandy Hotels and the Tide at Mont-Saint-Michel
The sea retreats kilometres and returns across flat sand. A solid causeway silted the bay for 135 years until it was demolished.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-800 euros a night, peaking in summer
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Oaxaca, Mexico
10 Oaxaca Hotels Within a Walk of the Markets
A corridor of charcoal grills where you buy meat by weight and hand it over to be cooked. The best cheap meal in Mexico is in a market hall.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-500 a night, peaking at Day of the Dead
Okinawa, Japan
8 Okinawa Resorts on the Outer Islands, Not the Main One
A hundred and sixty islands running a thousand kilometres toward Taiwan. The water people picture is at the far end of that.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 40,000-150,000 yen a night, peaking in summer
Orlando, Florida, USA
13 Orlando Hotels Sorted by Which Gate You Want
An off-site hotel two minutes down the road cannot purchase the first hour of the morning at any price. That is the whole booking question here.
13 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,200 a night, peaking at Christmas and spring break
Osaka, Japan
8 Osaka Hotels Within Walking Distance of the Late Counters
Kuidaore means ruining yourself through food and the city uses it with pride. The trains stop long before the kitchens do.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 25,000-90,000 yen a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Oxford and Cambridge, England
7 Oxford and Cambridge Hotels Beside the Colleges
Thirty-nine self-governing colleges in one city and thirty-one in the other, owning the ground a developer would want. Hence the short list.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-800 pounds a night, peaking in graduation weeks
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Palawan, Philippines
7 Palawan Resorts on the Lagoons Rather Than the Town
Karst cliffs rising straight out of shallow water, with hidden lagoons reachable only through openings a metre or two high at low tide.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-2,000 a night, peaking November to May
Palermo and Western Sicily, Italy
8 Western Sicily Hotels Around Arab-Norman Palermo
A Christian chapel with Greek mosaics under an Islamic honeycomb ceiling, built in the 1130s for a king whose coronation mantle was embroidered in Arabic.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-900 euros a night, peaking in summer
Palm Beach, Florida, USA
7 Palm Beach Hotels on the Island Itself
Nine thousand residents, building rules unchanged since the 1920s, and a mainland five minutes away with the restaurants and half the rates.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,600 a night in season, halving in summer
Palm Springs, California, USA
12 Palm Springs Hotels in Mid-Century Buildings
Flat roofs, deep overhangs, breeze-block screens and glass onto private courtyards. It suited the desert exactly and most of it survived.
12 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-1,000 a night, falling two thirds in summer
Palma de Mallorca, Spain
9 Palma Hotels in the Casco Antiguo, Away From the Resort Coast
A plain stone facade on a lane, a heavy door, and a patio with a well and orange trees behind it. Most visitors to the island never see this.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-600 euros a night, peaking July and August
Panama City and Bocas del Toro, Panama
8 Panama Hotels in Casco Viejo and the Islands
Every lock chamber fills by gravity and every transit sends two hundred million litres to sea. Rainfall is the only thing that puts it back.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-900 a night, peaking December to April
Paraty and the Costa Verde, Brazil
6 Costa Verde Hotels on the Colonial Coast
Openings in the seafront wall let the tide run up the streets and drain back out. The system is 250 years old and it still works.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-500 a night, peaking December to March
Paris, France
11 Paris Hotels With a Garden You Can Actually Sit In
Central Paris rooms are small and that is structural. The hotels worth paying for are the ones whose shared space makes up for it.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 400-1,600 euros a night, peaking in June and September
Park City and Deer Valley, Utah, USA
11 Park City Hotels and the Ten Days That Change the Price
For ten days in January this stops being a ski town. Almost nobody checks the festival dates before they book, and the difference is enormous.
11 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $500-2,000 a night, quadrupling during Sundance
Paros and Naxos, Greece
8 Paros and Naxos Hotels Without the Mykonos Prices
Light passes three and a half centimetres into the stone and diffuses, which is why the Venus de Milo appears to glow rather than reflect.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-800 euros a night, closed much of the winter
Patagonia and Torres del Paine, Chile
5 Patagonia Lodges Inside the Torres del Paine Boundary
Gusts above 100 kilometres an hour come off the third-largest ice field on earth. The same system is why the light changes in fifteen minutes.
5 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $600-2,500 a night, mostly inclusive of guiding
Penang, Malaysia
9 Penang Hotels in Restored George Town Shophouses
A trading post that grew on the movement of people, and the buildings they put up are why it is a World Heritage site.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $100-400 a night, peaking December to March
Perth, Australia
8 Perth Hotels on the Swan River Side, With Cottesloe Twenty Minutes Out
The coast would be famous almost anywhere else and it has almost no hotels. Base yourself on the river and take the train.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly A$300-800 a night, peaking September to November
Petra and the Dead Sea, Jordan
9 Jordan Hotels Between Petra and the Lowest Point on Earth
Water ten times saltier than the ocean, in which you cannot sink. Two hours south and a kilometre up, a city carved into sandstone.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-500 a night, peaking March to May
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
9 Philadelphia Hotels Around Penn's Five Squares
A surveyor laid out straight streets and generous lots in 1682, and the largest free-standing masonry building in the world sits on the centre square.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-900 a night, well below New York for the same quality
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
6 Phnom Penh Hotels Where the Two Rivers Meet
The monsoon pushes one river backwards into the other for several months, swelling a lake to five times its size and feeding a country.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $120-400 a night, peaking November to February
Phu Quoc, Vietnam
8 Phu Quoc Resorts on the Sunset Coast
Fifteen kilometres off Cambodia and four hundred from Ho Chi Minh City. The island faces west and everything follows from that.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-900 a night, peaking November to April
Phuket, Thailand
10 Phuket Resorts on the West Coast Beaches That Stay Swimmable in Season
Same sand, same hotels, completely different sea. In Phuket the season decides whether the water in front of you is usable at all.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-1,200 a night, halving in the monsoon months
Portland, Oregon, USA
10 Portland Hotels Within a Walk of the Cart Pods and the Pearl
Two-hundred-foot blocks mean twice as many corners and twice as many shopfronts. It is why a city this size feels dense.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $200-450 a night, peaking July to September
Porto, Portugal
9 Porto Hotels on the Ribeira Bank, Not the Lodge Bank
Porto is built on a steep slope with the river at the bottom and everything else at the top. Getting the bank wrong costs several hundred steps a day.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-600 euros a night, peaking May to September
Prague, Czech Republic
11 Prague Hotels on the Quiet Bank of the Vltava
Four hundred metres and one bridge separate the loudest square in central Europe from a quarter where the loudest thing is a tram.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-600 euros a night, peaking May and September
Provence and the Luberon, France
12 Provence Hotels Built With Their Backs to the Mistral
Few openings on the north side, cypress planted as windbreaks and blank walls to the north. The old farmhouses were solving a problem.
12 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 350-1,500 euros a night, closed much of the winter
Puerto Rico
9 Puerto Rico Hotels From the Walled City to the Coast
Founded in 1521 and fortified for two and a half centuries. American travellers reach it without an international departure.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-1,500 a night, peaking December to April
Puglia, Italy
12 Puglia Masserie With Their Own Olive Groves
Thick walls, a defensive tower and an enclosed courtyard, because the coast was raided and the farms had to hold. Now they are hotels.
12 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 300-1,500 euros a night, closed much of the winter
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
12 Punta Cana Resorts on the Stretches Sargassum Tends to Miss
Season, orientation and luck. No resort here is immune, and any that says otherwise is overselling, but the odds are not evenly spread.
12 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-1,200 a night all-inclusive, peaking December to April
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Quebec City, Canada
9 Quebec City Hotels in the Upper Town, Above the Funicular
A hundred metres of cliff, a funicular and a staircase called Breakneck. In January that split stops being picturesque.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly C$250-700 a night, peaking in summer and at Carnaval
Queenstown, New Zealand
10 Queenstown Hotels on the Lake Side of the Road
The hill side gives you a car park and a view over a roof, at a rate only slightly lower. The lakefront here is short and the rooms on it are few.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly NZ$400-1,800 a night, peaking in summer and ski season
Quito and the Andes, Ecuador
7 Quito Hotels in the First World Heritage City
Twelve sites were listed in 1978 and this was one of them. It survived because nobody had the money to knock it down and rebuild.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-500 a night, steady year round
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Reunion
6 Reunion Hotels Between the Cirques and the Lagoon
No vehicle access of any kind. Building materials, refrigerators and the contents of the shops arrive slung under a helicopter.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-600 euros a night, peaking May to November
Reykjavik, Iceland
8 Reykjavik Hotels Positioned for the Airport-to-Lagoon Run
Doing the lagoon from the city means driving past the airport and back. Doing it on arrival day costs nothing and fixes a red-eye.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 40,000-200,000 kronur a night, peaking June to August
Rhodes and the Dodecanese, Greece
9 Dodecanese Hotels Beyond the Medieval Walls
Four kilometres of wall built by a crusading order that had lost the Holy Land, held for two centuries and surrendered in 1522.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-900 euros a night, closed much of the winter
Riga, Latvia
7 Riga Hotels Among the Art Nouveau
A port boom tripled the population just as Jugendstil became fashionable. Nothing had time to go out of style before it was finished.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly 120-350 euros a night, peaking in summer
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
12 Rio Hotels on the Beachfront Avenue, Where Only the Road Is Between You and the Sand
One block back is a hundred and fifty metres and psychologically another city. In Rio the beach is the living room, so the front row matters.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $180-900 a night, multiplying at Carnival and New Year
Riviera Nayarit and Punta Mita, Mexico
9 Riviera Nayarit Resorts on the Punta Mita Peninsula
A hundred kilometres of horseshoe shoreline with mountains at both ends. Humpbacks calve inside it from December and are visible from the sand.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,800 a night, peaking December to April
Rome, Italy
12 Rome Hotels in the Centro Storico Where Everything Is a Walk
The Pantheon to the Trevi is six minutes. Book near a metro station and you will spend the week underground for no reason.
12 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 400-1,000 euros a night, peaking in May and October
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Sabi Sand and Kruger, South Africa
8 Sabi Sand Lodges With the Traversing Rights That Matter
A leopard on a kill stays put for a day. Wild dogs cover thirty kilometres before breakfast. Traversing decides whether you can follow.
9 hotels · $$$$ — roughly $1,200-4,000 a night, fully inclusive of drives and meals
Saint-Tropez, France
8 Saint-Tropez Hotels Split Between the Port and Pampelonne
A village of four thousand people takes several million visitors a year, and the beach everyone wants is on the other side of the peninsula.
8 hotels · $$$$ — roughly 600-2,500 euros a night in season, closed much of the winter
Salvador and Bahia, Brazil
7 Bahia Hotels Above the Pelourinho
The quarter is named for the pillory. The whipping post stood in the square where the pastel houses are photographed, and the name was never changed.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $180-800 a night, peaking at carnival
Salzburg, Austria
7 Salzburg Hotels Inside the Old Town for Festival Weeks
Black tie in the streets at seven, every restaurant booked and rooms at triple. Outside those five weeks it is a baroque town you cross in twenty minutes.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-900 euros a night, doubling for the festival
Samarkand and Bukhara, Uzbekistan
6 Silk Road Hotels at Samarkand and Bukhara
Three tiled madrasas facing one square, and a fifteenth-century ruler whose star catalogue Europe was still using two centuries later.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $120-350 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
San Antonio and the Hill Country, Texas, USA
9 San Antonio Hotels Above the River Walk
The plan was to pave the bend over entirely as a storm sewer. An architect argued for keeping the water and was ignored for a decade.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-800 a night, peaking in spring
San Diego, California, USA
9 San Diego Hotels Split Between the Bay, Balboa and the Coast
Book downtown for the price and you will drive to La Jolla daily. Book La Jolla and dinner downtown is a forty-minute round trip.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-800 a night, peaking July and August
San Francisco, California, USA
11 San Francisco Hotels on the Right Side of a Block That Changes Fast
An unusually low rate for a central San Francisco address is information, not luck. Check the cross-streets before you book.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-900 a night, peaking September and October
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
8 San Miguel Hotels With the Parroquia From the Roof
A self-taught stonemason is said to have redesigned the facade from postcards of European cathedrals, scratching the plans in the sand.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-800 a night, peaking in autumn
San Sebastian and Bilbao, Spain
10 Basque Hotels Inside the Pintxos Crawl
One or two things per bar, eaten standing, then out. The format is the reason the food is what it is, and it only works on foot.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-800 euros a night, peaking in summer and at the film festival
Santa Barbara, California, USA
8 Santa Barbara Hotels on California's Only South-Facing Coast
Mountains behind you to the north, sea in front to the south, and the sun crossing the water all day. It changes the weather and the swimming.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $500-1,600 a night, fairly steady year round
Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
8 Santa Fe Hotels Within a Walk of the Plaza and Canyon Road
The oldest state capital in America, at 2,130 metres, where a building code has kept the whole historic district in adobe since 1957.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-1,000 a night, peaking in August and September
Santorini, Greece
13 Santorini Hotels Where the Sunset Happens on Your Own Terrace
Photographs of the crowd watching the Oia sunset now outnumber photographs of the sunset. A private terrace is the whole product here.
13 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 400-1,500 euros a night, closed much of the winter
Savannah, Georgia, USA
11 Savannah Hotels Facing One of the Twenty-Two Squares
You cannot walk two blocks in the historic district without arriving at a park. That is the 1733 plan and it is why the city works.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-700 a night, peaking in spring
Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
10 Scottsdale Resorts Built for the Shade Rather Than the View
Deep overhangs, courtyards that trap cool air and pools that are chilled rather than heated. In July that last detail decides the trip.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,200 a night, falling to a third in midsummer
Sea Island, Amelia and the Georgia Coast, USA
8 Golden Isles Hotels on the Georgia Barrier Islands
No bridge, a fixed ferry and twenty-eight kilometres of island. Once the day boat leaves there are more wild horses on it than people.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,200 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Seattle, Washington, USA
9 Seattle Hotels Above Pike Place, Where the Water Is the View
The market is the best thing downtown and the delivery bays run at four a.m. Stay above it and you get one without the other.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-800 a night, peaking July to September
Sedona, Arizona, USA
6 Sedona Hotels With the Red Rocks From the Room
Ask by formation name. Cathedral Rock or Bell Rock means something; red rock view covers everything and guarantees nothing.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,200 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Seoul, South Korea
10 Seoul Hotels on the Palace Side, Where the Old City Is on Foot
The palaces close at five and Gangnam is forty minutes away with a change. Most visitors make that decision without noticing.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200,000-700,000 won a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Seville, Spain
10 Seville Hotels Built Around a Shaded Patio
Air cools over the fountain, sinks into the courtyard and draws through the rooms. Passive cooling that predates air conditioning by a thousand years.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 150-600 euros a night, peaking in April and at the Feria
Seychelles
9 Seychelles Resorts on the Granite Islands
A fragment of Gondwana left behind when India separated from Africa. Everywhere else in mid-ocean is volcanic or coral; here it is granite.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $600-2,500 a night, steady year round
Shanghai, China
10 Shanghai Hotels on the Bund, Because the View Is Pudong
Fifty-two stone buildings on one bank and four of the world's tallest towers on the other, five hundred metres apart across the water.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-1,200 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Sharm el-Sheikh and Sinai, Egypt
8 Sinai Hotels Near Ras Muhammad
The peninsula ends where two gulfs meet over a trench, and the coral has grown along the edge of it.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $150-500 a night, peaking October to May
Siem Reap, Cambodia
11 Siem Reap Hotels Positioned for the Angkor Gates
Angkor Wat faces west, so the sun rises behind it. Four hundred square kilometres of temples and everyone is at the same reflecting pool.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-1,500 a night, peaking November to February
Singapore
11 Singapore Hotels Where the Rooftop Pool Faces Marina Bay
At street level the heat is trapped between towers. Twenty floors up there is a breeze, and the city becomes something you look at.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly S$350-1,100 a night, fairly flat year round
Snowdonia and North Wales
7 North Wales Hotels Below Snowdon and the Slate
Galleries cut into mountainsides that will not weather out in any human timescale, now an industrial World Heritage site inside a national park.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-600 pounds a night, peaking in summer
Sofia and Bansko, Bulgaria
7 Bulgarian Hotels Between the City and the Pirin
Commuters walk past fourth-century paving on the way to the metro, and a rotunda from the same era still stands among the ministries.
7 hotels · $ to $$ — roughly 100-280 euros a night, among the best value in Europe
Split and Hvar, Croatia
6 Split and Hvar Hotels Inside a Roman Palace
Refugees moved inside Diocletian's walls in the seventh century and never left. It is the most complete Roman palace anywhere and it is a neighbourhood.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-800 euros a night, peaking in July and August
Sri Lanka
10 Sri Lanka Hotels and the Two Monsoons
There is no wrong month to visit. There is only a wrong coast for the month you have chosen, and the mountains divide the two systems.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-1,200 a night, varying by coast and season
St Barths
5 St Barths Hotels on the Coves Rather Than the Port
Twenty-five square kilometres, ten thousand residents and a 650-metre runway pilots need separate certification for. The scale is deliberate.
5 hotels · $$$$ — roughly $900-3,000 a night, far higher at New Year
St Kitts and Nevis
6 Nevis and St Kitts Hotels Under the Peak
Two islands three kilometres apart with almost nothing in common. One has a cruise port and an airport; the other has a volcano and no traffic.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,500 a night, peaking December to April
St Lucia
8 St Lucia Resorts Sorted by Whether the Pitons Are in View
Soufriere has the scenery and small dark beaches. The north has the sand and no Pitons. They are ninety minutes of hairpins apart.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,600 a night, peaking December to April
St Moritz and the Engadine, Switzerland
9 Engadine Hotels Above the Winter Fog Line
Cold air pools in the low valleys and holds fog for weeks. At 1,800 metres the Engadine sits above where it forms, which is the whole bet.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 500-2,500 francs a night, peaking at Christmas and February
Stockholm, Sweden
11 Stockholm Hotels Where the Commuter Boat Stops Outside
A third water, a third parks and a third built. The water is clean enough to swim in and to fish salmon from, in the middle of the capital.
11 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 3,000-7,000 kronor a night, peaking June to August
Stowe and Vermont, USA
8 Vermont Hotels for the Two Weeks of Foliage
The red is manufactured rather than revealed, and it needs warm days and cold nights. A wet autumn produces a dull year.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,500 a night, doubling in foliage season
Sun Valley, Idaho, USA
5 Sun Valley Hotels at the First Chairlift
A railway chairman wanted to fill his passenger trains, so he sent an Austrian count to find a valley and told his engineers to replace the rope tow.
5 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-900 a night, peaking at Christmas and in February
Sydney, Australia
11 Sydney Hotels Where the Harbour Room Is a Real Room, Not a Room Category
A great many Sydney hotels have a few rooms that see the harbour properly and a lot that do not. Ask about floor, aspect and what blocks the rest.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly A$350-1,200 a night, peaking December to February
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Tahiti, French Polynesia
4 Tahiti Hotels Worth the Night You Would Otherwise Spend in Transit
Black sand, a covered market at six in the morning and food trucks on the waterfront. Tahiti is the only island in the territory with a real town.
4 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-1,000 a night, peaking May to October
Taipei, Taiwan
9 Taipei Hotels With a Beitou Hot Spring
A morning at the National Palace Museum and mineral water by four in the afternoon. No other Asian capital arranges itself that way.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $150-700 a night, peaking October to April
Tallinn, Estonia
7 Tallinn Hotels Inside the Medieval Walls
The trade moved on, nobody could afford to rebuild, and the 1944 bombing largely missed the core. Decline preserved it.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly 120-400 euros a night, peaking in summer and December
Tangier and Essaouira, Morocco
7 Atlantic Morocco Hotels Where the Trade Winds Land
A medina laid out on a grid in the 1760s by a French military engineer, which makes it the only one in the country you cannot get lost in.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 150-600 euros a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Taormina and Eastern Sicily, Italy
8 Taormina Hotels With Etna at the End of the Terrace
A third-century BC theatre cut into the hillside so that the stage opens onto a live volcano. The town has faced the same way ever since.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 300-1,500 euros a night, peaking July and August
Tasmania, Australia
9 Tasmania Hotels Between MONA and the Wilderness
Before 2011 this was a wilderness destination reached through Hobart. A museum built into a sandstone cliff changed the order of it.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly A$350-2,000 a night, peaking December to February
Tbilisi and Kakheti, Georgia
8 Georgian Hotels Above the Sulphur Baths
Grapes go in whole, skins and stems, into a beeswax-lined vessel buried to the neck. The rest of the world calls the result orange wine.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $120-350 a night, peaking in September
Tel Aviv, Israel
10 Tel Aviv Hotels Directly on the Promenade, Not a Street Behind It
Swimmers at six in the morning, matkot until dark, the whole city out at sunset. Proximity decides whether you join that or watch it.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-900 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Telluride, Colorado, USA
6 Telluride Hotels at Either End of the Free Gondola
A box canyon with one road in that dead-ends in the town, and a gondola instead of a second road. It runs to midnight and costs nothing.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,400 a night, peaking at Christmas and in festival weeks
The Albanian Riviera
5 Albanian Riviera Hotels on the Ionian
A country that banned private cars and outlawed religion, and poured 170,000 concrete bunkers against an invasion that never came.
5 hotels · $ to $$ — roughly 90-250 euros a night, closed much of the winter
The Algarve, Portugal
10 Algarve Hotels With a Lift or a Staircase to the Beach
The coves are below a drop of twenty to forty metres. How you get down is the question the brochures never answer directly.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-900 euros a night, peaking July and August
The Bahamas
8 Bahamas Hotels on the Out Islands Rather Than Nassau
Seven hundred islands, thirty inhabited, and most people never leave the one with the cruise dock in the middle of town.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $500-2,000 a night, peaking December to April
The Bavarian Alps, Germany
8 Bavarian Alp Hotels Below the Zugspitze
A steel-framed nineteenth-century fantasy with central heating and a telephone line, designed by a theatre set designer for a king who wanted nobody to see it.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-1,000 euros a night, peaking in summer and at Christmas
The Berkshires, Massachusetts, USA
8 Berkshire Hotels Near Tanglewood
Ten thousand people on a hillside with blankets, candles and full dinners, listening to Mahler as the light goes. It has run since 1937.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,200 a night, peaking in summer and October
The Black Forest and Baden-Baden, Germany
7 Black Forest Hotels With the Thermal Water and the Stars
Rain that sank two thousand metres, heated at depth and pushed back up through a fault. The Romans built baths on it in the first century.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-800 euros a night, steady year round
The British Virgin Islands
6 BVI Hotels on the Sailing Islands
You can navigate the whole archipelago by eye, anchoring in a different bay each night. It is why the world's largest charter fleet is here.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $500-2,000 a night, peaking December to April
The Canary Islands, Spain
1 Canary Island Resorts for European Winter Sun
A cool current running past a hot latitude, with trade winds across it. That is why an archipelago off the Sahara is temperate in midwinter.
1 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-900 euros a night, peaking December to February
The Cape Winelands, South Africa
10 Cape Winelands Hotels on the Franschhoek Wine Route
A double-decker on a restored line, stopping at eight or nine estates a day. It is not a novelty; it is the practical way to taste here.
10 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly R4,000-15,000 a night, peaking at harvest
The Cook Islands
6 Cook Islands Hotels on Rarotonga and Aitutaki
A planning rule rather than a saying, held for decades. Nothing on the island rises above the trees anywhere.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,200 a night, peaking May to October
The Costa Brava, Spain
8 Costa Brava Hotels on the Coast a Journalist Named
The Pyrenees run out into the sea here, so the shoreline is granite and pine, and the path along the cliffs was built to watch for smugglers.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-900 euros a night, peaking in August
The Cotswolds, England
12 Cotswolds Hotels in the Honey-Coloured Stone
Half of England's wool trade, then the industry moved north. Nothing was rebuilt because nobody could afford to, which is why it looks like that.
12 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-800 pounds a night, peaking in summer
The Dolomites, Italy
12 Dolomite Hotels Beneath the Iron Roads
Cables, rungs and tunnels driven through rock at three thousand metres to move soldiers. A century on, it is why people come here in summer.
12 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 350-1,500 euros a night, closed in May and November
The Douro Valley, Portugal
8 Douro Valley Hotels Among the Terraced Vineyards
A quarter of a million terraces cut into schist over three centuries, some supporting a single row of vines. The listing is for the hillsides.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-900 euros a night, peaking at harvest
The Faroe Islands
4 Faroe Islands Hotels on the Edge of the Atlantic
When Street View had not arrived, someone strapped a camera to a sheep. Google turned up with proper equipment the following year.
4 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly 200-450 euros a night, peaking June to August
The Florida Keys, USA
11 Florida Keys Hotels Sorted by Mile Marker
Green signs count down from 106 to zero across 42 bridges. Locals give addresses by the number and so should you.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,500 a night, peaking December to April
The Hamptons and Montauk, New York, USA
8 Hamptons Hotels on the Ocean Side, Not the Bay Side
Surf and sunrise on one side, flat water and sunset on the other, a mile apart and priced as if they were different countries.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $600-2,000 a night in season, far less after September
The Hudson Valley and Catskills, USA
9 Hudson Valley Hotels You Can Reach by Train
A painter took a steamboat up this river in 1825 and sold three canvases in a shop window. American art starts there.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,000 a night, peaking in October
The Lake District, England
7 Lake District Hotels Actually on the Water
Only one of them is called a lake. The rest are meres, waters and tarns, and a great many hotels are lakeside in name only.
7 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-700 pounds a night, peaking in summer
The Loire Valley, France
8 Loire Valley Hotels Among the Chateaux
A double-helix staircase where two people climbing never meet, in a hunting lodge the size of a town that was kept unfurnished between visits.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-700 euros a night, many closed in winter
The Peloponnese and Costa Navarino, Greece
8 Peloponnese Hotels on the Messinian Coast
Ten years of environmental studies before a foundation was laid, on a bay where a fleet was destroyed in 1827 and Greek independence became inevitable.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 300-1,500 euros a night, peaking July and August
The San Juan Islands, Washington, USA
4 San Juan Islands Hotels on the Ferry-Only Islands
Four hundred American soldiers and five British warships, twelve years of joint occupation, and dinner between the garrisons. The pig was the only casualty.
4 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $250-550 a night, peaking June to September
The Scottish Highlands and Skye
9 Highland Hotels at the End of a Single-Track Road
Pull in on the left, or stop opposite one on the right, and lift a hand as the other driver passes. Sheep have right of way in practice.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-900 pounds a night, peaking July and August
The West of Ireland
7 Irish Castle Estates in the West
The families left or ran out of money, and the buildings were too large to be anything else. A number were bought back and restored at enormous cost.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 350-1,200 euros a night, peaking May to September
The Whitsundays, Australia
8 Whitsundays Resorts Within Reach of Whitehaven Beach
Sand fine enough to squeak and too pure to hold heat, on an uninhabited island nobody can drive to. Its origin is still not settled.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly A$400-2,500 a night, peaking May to October
Tokyo, Japan
15 Tokyo Hotels Within Ten Minutes of a Counter That Seats Eight
Pick the ward that matches how you want to eat, then pick the hotel. Doing it the other way round means commuting to dinner.
15 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 40,000-150,000 yen a night, peaking in cherry blossom season
Toronto, Canada
10 Toronto Hotels Between the Lakefront and the Distillery District
Everything worth walking to sits within two kilometres of the water. Visitors book Yorkville because that is where the familiar names are.
10 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly C$300-800 a night, peaking in summer
Trancoso and Bahia, Brazil
7 Trancoso Hotels Around the Quadrado
A beach destination whose centre of gravity is not the beach. The village sits on a bluff and the evening happens on the grass.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,500 a night, multiplying at New Year
Transylvania and Brasov, Romania
6 Transylvanian Hotels in the Saxon Towns
Curtain walls around the nave and a storeroom in the wall for every family, with the keys held by the households. The village moved inside and waited.
6 hotels · $ to $$ — roughly 90-250 euros a night, among the best value in Europe
Tromso and Arctic Norway
6 Arctic Norway Hotels and the Two Months With No Night
Polar night is not darkness. Several hours of blue twilight a day, snow holding what light there is, and a town lit against it.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 2,000-5,000 kroner a night, peaking in aurora season
Tucson and Southern Arizona, USA
7 Tucson Hotels Where Destination Wellness Started
A saguaro takes seventy years to grow its first arm. Driving up the mountain behind the city crosses Mexico to Canada in under an hour.
7 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-1,200 a night, peaking October to April
Tulum and the Riviera Maya, Mexico
14 Tulum Hotels on the Beach Road Rather Than in Town
Two places joined by one road. Generators, non-municipal water and repeated regulatory disputes do not appear in the photographs.
14 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,800 a night, peaking December to April
Turin and the Langhe, Italy
11 Turin and Langhe Hotels Within Reach of the Barolo Villages
Outside the truffle weeks the same hills are quiet, the restaurants are half the price and the wine is exactly as good.
11 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-800 euros a night, peaking in truffle season
Turks and Caicos
8 Turks and Caicos Resorts Sorted by Which End of Grace Bay
Unlike most beaches with this reputation, Grace Bay has no bad stretch. What varies is what sits behind you and how far the restaurants are.
8 hotels · $$$$ — roughly $700-2,000 a night, peaking December to April
Tuscany, Italy
12 Tuscan Estates Within a Drive of Siena and Florence
Sharecropping ended in the 1960s and thousands of farms emptied. The buildings sat derelict for decades before anyone wanted them.
12 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 400-2,000 euros a night, closed much of the winter
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Udaipur, India
9 Udaipur Hotels You Reach by Boat
The lake was dammed in 1362 and the palace built on the island in 1746 covers it so completely that the marble appears to float.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $200-1,500 a night, peaking October to March
Uluru and the Red Centre, Australia
4 Uluru Hotels in the Only Village There Is
The Anangu asked for decades, at least thirty-seven people had died on the route, and the closure was set for the anniversary of the handback.
4 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-900 a night, set by a single operator
Umbria, Italy
9 Umbrian Hotels in the Hill Towns
It looks like Tuscany and receives a fraction of the visitors. Being landlocked kept it poor once and keeps it quiet now.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 180-900 euros a night, peaking in September
Uyuni and La Paz, Bolivia
5 Bolivian Hotels at the Edge of the Salt Flat
A white hexagonal pavement with no reference points in the dry season, and a mirror large enough to see from orbit in the wet.
5 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $120-350 a night, peaking May to October
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Valencia, Spain
8 Valencia Hotels Between the Old Town and the Turia Riverbed
After the 1957 flood the city moved the river and refused to build a motorway in the bed. What it built instead is the reason to stay here.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly 120-350 euros a night, peaking in spring
Vancouver, Canada
9 Vancouver Hotels Where the Seawall Starts at the Front Door
The longest uninterrupted waterfront path in the world runs past some lobbies and six blocks below others. That is the whole decision.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly C$300-900 a night, peaking June to September
Venice, Italy
5 Venice Hotels With a Water Door, Where You Arrive by Boat and Never Carry a Bag Over a Bridge
Four hundred stepped bridges and no wheeled vehicles. The palazzi that still use their water entrances remove the problem entirely.
5 hotels · $$$$ — roughly 600-1,800 euros a night for a canal-facing room
Verbier, Switzerland
6 Verbier Hotels Within Two Minutes of the Medran Lift
A queue forms before the lifts open in peak weeks, and if you are at the far end of the village you are walking uphill in ski boots to join it.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 400-2,000 francs a night, peaking at Christmas and February
Victoria Falls
8 Victoria Falls Hotels, and When the Water Is Right
In April the spray can hide the falls entirely. In October one side can run dry. Both are avoidable if you check before booking.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,200 a night, peaking June to October
Vienna, Austria
9 Vienna Hotels You Can Walk Home to After the Opera
Nobody mentions the twenty minutes after the curtain: the cloakroom queue, the taxi rank, and the wait in a coat in February.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 250-800 euros a night, peaking in the opera season
Vilnius, Lithuania
6 Vilnius Hotels in the Baroque Old Town
Forty-one constitutional articles on mirrored plates, including the right to be idle and the observation that a dog has the right to be a dog.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly 110-320 euros a night, peaking in summer
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Wanaka and Fiordland, New Zealand
6 Southern Alps Hotels Between Wanaka and Milford
Hundreds of temporary waterfalls appear within twenty minutes of heavy rain, some blown back upward before they land. Everyone books the clear day.
6 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-1,200 a night, peaking November to April
Warsaw, Poland
9 Warsaw Hotels Around a Rebuilt Old Town
Demolition squads went through building by building after the fighting stopped. The reconstruction used cityscapes painted by Canaletto's nephew.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 150-500 euros a night, peaking May to September
Washington, DC, USA
9 Washington Hotels Close Enough to Walk the Mall Twice
Two hours in a museum, back to the hotel, out again at five when the memorials are lit. That rhythm needs a ten-minute walk, not a Metro ride.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $350-900 a night, peaking during cherry blossom
Whistler, Canada
9 Whistler Hotels Between the Two Gondolas
A 4.4-kilometre span with three kilometres unsupported joins the two mountains at the top. Below it, a village built without cars.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly C$400-1,500 a night, peaking at Christmas
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Xi'an, China
8 Xi'an Hotels Inside the Ming City Walls
Twelve metres high and up to eighteen wide along the top, built for troops to move at speed. The largest complete city wall in China.
8 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $120-400 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Xiamen and Gulangyu, China
9 Xiamen Hotels Facing the Island With No Cars
A treaty port from 1842 and an international settlement on two square kilometres. Everything on it still moves on foot.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $120-400 a night, peaking October to December
Xishuangbanna, China
5 Xishuangbanna Hotels in China's Only Rainforest
Strangler figs, wild elephants and a fifth of China's plant species, in a Tai kingdom whose people write their own script and follow their own calendar.
5 hotels · $$ to $$$ — roughly $120-400 a night, peaking October to April
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Yellowstone and Grand Teton, USA
The 3 Yellowstone and Teton Hotels That Clear Four Stars
The largest log structure in the world has a seven-storey lobby, a five-hundred-tonne fireplace, and rooms with the bathroom down the hall.
3 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,200 a night, and the window matters more than the rate
Yogyakarta and Java, Indonesia
6 Java Hotels Within Reach of Borobudur
Two million blocks, 2,672 reliefs and 504 Buddhas, abandoned within 150 years of completion and buried for most of a millennium.
6 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $120-1,200 a night, peaking May to September
York and the Yorkshire Dales, England
9 Yorkshire Hotels Between the Walls and the Dales
Roman defences from 71 AD, rebuilt in stone by the Normans on the same line, with a lane narrow enough to touch both sides.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly 200-700 pounds a night, peaking in summer
Yosemite, California, USA
5 Yosemite Hotels Inside the Valley and at the Gates
One hotel inside the valley clears the bar. Everything else at this standard is an hour of switchbacks outside the gate.
5 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly $400-1,400 a night, peaking May to September
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Zanzibar, Tanzania
9 Zanzibar Hotels Where You Can Swim at Low Tide
On the east coast swimming happens in a window around high tide, and the window moves fifty minutes a day. Almost nobody knows before booking.
9 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $250-1,000 a night, closed in the long rains
Zermatt, Switzerland
8 Zermatt Hotels You Can Only Reach by Train
Leave the car five kilometres down the valley. In the village it is electric buggies, sleighs and walking, and the air shows it.
8 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 400-2,000 francs a night, peaking at Christmas and February
Zion, Moab and the Utah Canyons, USA
5 Utah Hotels Between Zion, Moab and the Canyons
Zion to Moab is five hours of driving and people consistently underestimate it. You cannot do southern Utah from one hotel.
5 hotels · $$ to $$$$ — roughly $300-3,000 a night, peaking in spring and autumn
Zurich, Switzerland
9 Zurich Hotels at the Lake End of the Bahnhofstrasse
Written off as a banking city with nothing to do. That was truer twenty years ago, before the industrial quarter and the river swimming.
9 hotels · $$$ to $$$$ — roughly 400-1,200 francs a night, peaking in summer
