Hotels

When most people picture Santorini hotels, they imagine pristine white buildings cascading down cliffsides like sugar cubes. Kivotos Santorini throws that postcard image out the window with a dramatic flourish. Painted entirely in volcanic black and charcoal gray, this boutique retreat in Imerovigli looks like Batman's vacation home - and …

In the small Norwegian town of Voss, where extreme sports enthusiasts come to chase waterfalls and adrenaline rushes, a new kind of accommodation has emerged that's as much about the architecture as it is the adventure. Elva Hotel, which opened in June 2023, sits along the shore of Lake Lundar …

Step off a Shinkansen bullet train in Kyoto and you can find yourself, two minutes later, in a lobby that feels like a meditation retreat designed by a modernist architect. The Thousand Kyoto, which opened in 2019, sits practically next door to the city's main railway station (Kyoto Station), yet …

In the tiny wine country town of Los Alamos, population barely 2,000, sits a hotel so wonderfully eccentric it makes the Madonna Inn look restrained. From the outside, the Victorian Mansion looks like any other stately 19th-century home. Step inside, and you'll find yourself tumbling down a rabbit hole of …

Fifteen minutes from Rovaniemi's compact center, where the last traffic lights fade into wilderness, sits Apukka Resort - a collection of glass-roofed cabins scattered along the shores of Lake Olkkajärvi like fallen stars. This isn't your typical hotel experience. Here, you'll fall asleep watching the northern lights dance overhead, wake …

In the high Sonoran Desert of Arizona, where saguaro cacti stand like ancient sentinels and the Bradshaw Mountains paint purple shadows across endless sky, there's a place that makes good on the promise of the American West without the usual tourist-trap nonsense. Rancho de los Caballeros, sprawling across 20,000 acres …

Few hotel check-ins require climbing 126 granite steps to reach your bedroom. By the time you've huffed and puffed your way to the top of the Kerbel Lighthouse in Brittany, you've earned the right to collapse onto that bed and stare out at what might be the most spectacular view …

Walking into HOTEL TAVINOS Kyoto feels like stepping through the pages of a manga. The walls explode with illustrations of sumo wrestlers, traditional bathhouses, and moon-viewing scenes - all rendered in the bold, playful style that has made Japanese comics a global phenomenon. This isn't your typical business hotel. Since …

Deep in the rugged beauty of Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, something magical is happening. Where once there was just mountain wilderness, 16 fairy tale cottages now dot the landscape like something plucked from the pages of a Brothers Grimm collection. This is Charmed Resorts, the brainchild of Tyson and Audy Leavitt, …

The conch shell sounds at dusk, echoing across the ancient stone walls of Ozu Castle. Smoke rises from matchlock guns as armored samurai fire a welcoming salute. This isn't a theme park attraction or historical reenactment - it's your check-in experience at the world's only castle hotel where you can …

Deep in the Canadian Arctic, where Hudson Bay meets the boreal forest, lies a place that feels like stepping into another dimension. Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge isn't your typical wilderness getaway - it's a remote outpost where the boundary between civilization and the wild becomes beautifully, sometimes terrifyingly, thin. Located …

The first clue that Lost Lindenberg isn't your typical Balinese retreat comes at the entrance - a playful art installation by German artist Tobias Rehberger that deliberately contrasts with the serene world beyond. Step through the hidden door, and suddenly you're Alice tumbling down a very zen rabbit hole. What …

The rooster starts his shift at dawn, which is either charming or infuriating depending on your relationship with early mornings. At Beach Plum Farm, tucked away on 62 acres of West Cape May farmland, this feathered alarm clock is just part of the deal - along with actual pigs in …

In the middle of Utah's red rock country, where the landscape looks like Mars had a particularly good day, sits Ofland Escalante - a place that makes you wonder why anyone ever thought camping had to involve sleeping on the ground and eating beans from a can. This isn't your …

In a city where every canal-side hotel room comes with a premium price tag, one of Amsterdam's most unusual places to rest your head sits 46 meters (150 feet) above the water on KNSM Island. What was once Figee Crane 2868 - a hulking piece of industrial machinery that spent …

The road from Lisbon airport winds through increasingly peaceful countryside before depositing you at what feels like the edge of the world. Here, perched on the cliffs of Praia Grande, sits the Arribas Sintra Hotel – a modest 4-star establishment that happens to hold the rather grand title of mainland …

On a tiny island in Lake Huron, where the clip-clop of horse hooves replaces the rumble of engines and fudge shops line cobblestone streets like something from a Dickens novel, sits one of America's most gloriously anachronistic hotels. The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island isn't just a place to rest …

The stone walls are thick enough to have withstood demolition attempts in the 1930s, and the barred windows remain resolutely in place. But these days, the only thing being executed at Bodmin Jail is an ambitious vision to transform one of Britain's most forbidding historical sites into a luxury hotel …

The first thing you notice isn't the geodesic domes dotting the hillside like something from a sci-fi film, or even the sweeping views across the Waitaki Valley that stretch endlessly toward jagged mountain peaks. It's the silence. The kind of profound quiet that makes city dwellers suddenly aware of their …

On a scrap of windswept rock in the Swedish archipelago, where the Baltic meets the North Sea, stands what might be the world's most improbable hotel. Pater Noster sits on Hamneskär island, five nautical miles from anywhere you'd recognize as civilization, crowned by a 32-meter lighthouse that has been guiding …