Hotels

High in Portugal's Serra da Estrela, an orange-hued fortress sprawls across the mountainside like something out of a Wes Anderson film. This is no ordinary hotel. For decades, tuberculosis patients took the air on its curative balconies. Then it sat abandoned for 40 years, briefly housing refugees from Portugal's colonial …

Libušín sits on a mountain pass in the Czech Republic's Moravian-Silesian Beskids, looking like something out of a Brothers Grimm tale. This isn't some modern Alpine resort masquerading as traditional – it's the real deal, a wooden lodge dripping with hand-carved details and Art Nouveau flourishes that somehow manages to …

Sleeping 250 meters above street level in a building shaped like a sailing ship requires a certain suspension of disbelief. Ascott Raffles City Chongqing sits within one of China's most ambitious architectural projects – a complex of eight towers connected by a 300-meter horizontal skybridge that locals call The Crystal. …

Sitting on the edge of the Indian Ocean in Umhlanga, The Oyster Box is the kind of place where you can start your morning with unlimited oysters and sparkling wine at breakfast, spend your afternoon learning to make proper Durban curry, and end your evening with a cigar in a …

Somewhere in western Belize, a waterfall is tumbling into a turquoise pool that almost nobody sees. It isn't on a popular trail or a backpacker's bucket list. It's just sitting there, doing its thing, above the jungle canopy of the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, which stretches across 107,000 acres …

Sea Containers London isn't trying to be your typical boutique hotel. Housed in what looks like an unremarkable 1970s office block on the South Bank, this 359-room property goes all-in on its transatlantic cruise liner theme, complete with copper-plated walls that curve like a vintage ship's hull and four new …

There are places that make you question why you ever settled for ordinary vacations, and Capella Lodge on Lord Howe Island is one of them. This nine-suite retreat sits at the foot of two volcanic peaks that tower over the world's southernmost coral reef, on an island so pristine that …

Wake to manta rays gliding through turquoise water 150 meters below your bamboo bed. This is glamping at its most audacious – a sustainable bungalow perched on Nusa Penida's dramatic eastern cliffs, where you can shower with ocean views, lounge in a net suspended over the void, and watch nature's …

In the 1890s, this building on Robertson Quay was ground zero for Singapore's red-light district, a hub for opium dens, gambling houses, and Chinese secret societies who demanded 36 sacred oaths from new recruits. The street was known in Hokkien as "Chiu Long Lo" – Spirits Shed Street – after …

Spain's 98th parador took nearly two decades to build, rising from the ruins of an environmental catastrophe to become something genuinely special. Perched above a white sand beach on the Costa da Morte – the "Coast of Death," named for its countless shipwrecks – this glass and zinc structure disappears …

Sitting on a hillside above one of the world's smallest capitals, Hotel Føroyar doesn't just offer views of Tórshavn – it practically is the view. This is where international football teams crash after matches, where visiting musicians decompress, and where you can walk barefoot through rain and drizzle to reach …

In the shadow of the Valley of the Kings, on Luxor's west bank, sits a hotel that feels like stumbling into someone's private fantasy. Al Moudira sprawls across ten hectares of palm groves and gardens, a maze of 54 suites scattered around ten courtyards, each one different from the next. …

Forget the beaches – Thailand's landlocked Khao Yai National Park offers something the coast can't: a transparent rooftop pool where you swim seemingly suspended above forested peaks. Hotel MYS Khao Yai, a five-star property on Thanaratch Road, brings Scandinavian minimalism to the heart of the country's oldest national park, a …

Imagine sipping a gin and tonic by the pool when a herd of elephants ambles up to drink from it. This is the reality at Somalisa Camp, tucked into a private corner of Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, where the line between luxury and wilderness blurs in the most spectacular way. …

Imagine an island where 50,000 pieces of bamboo were woven into villas perched among granite boulders, where dolphins occasionally drift past at breakfast, and where the biggest decision you'll face is whether to watch the sunrise or sunset from your private plunge pool. This is Cempedak, a 17-hectare Indonesian hideaway …

In the heart of Palm Springs, a bright pink motel rises from the desert landscape like a fever dream made real. This is the Trixie Motel, the only drag queen-owned hotel in the United States, and quite possibly the world. It's a seven-room passion project in which every surface, fixture, …

In Marrakech's fashionable Golden Triangle, a towering Japanese bonsai tree rises from the center of a circular lobby, setting the tone for one of the more intriguing hotel experiments in North Africa. Nobu Hotel Marrakech took over an existing building in 2022 and transformed it into something that sits comfortably …

A place that opens with "We're not a wellness fortress with animated breakfast buffets" is making a specific promise. At Zu Kirchwies, a small chalet village in Laion, South Tyrol, you won't find golden taps or petting-zoo charm. What you will find: Scottish Highland cattle wandering the property, a family …

Walking into what looks like a castle on a leafy Mexico City street and finding yourself surrounded by monochromatic rooms splashed with stained glass and contemporary art isn't your everyday hotel experience. Maison Lézard, which opened in September 2025, is the sort of place where herringbone floors meet electric violet …

Standing on a pink granite cliff above the Nile since 1899, the Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Aswan is the kind of place where history doesn't just whisper – it practically shouts from the ruby chandeliers and horseshoe arches. Agatha Christie sat on the terrace penning Death on the Nile here. …