The Best Places in the United States

The menu at this Bucktown coffee and cocktail bar is split in two: morning drinks for one crowd, evening drinks for another, with cold brew threading through both halves. The food runs from pizza bagels to caviar, which tells you something about the room's sense of humor. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar in 2025, Truce has figured out that the best argument for staying all day is not having to change venues.

The bar and tables at this Capitol Hill cocktail bar were stained with Angostura bitters, which tells you where the priorities lie. Behind the bar, shelves climb to the pressed tin ceiling holding one of the deepest spirit collections in the country, including pre-Prohibition bottles most bars only dream about. Edison bulbs, speakeasy nostalgia, and a room that takes itself seriously without quite winking about it.

The mahogany bar dates to 1906, which means it survived the earthquake and a few other things San Francisco would rather not discuss. Comstock is an old-school cocktail bar in North Beach, all wicker ceiling fans shaped like steamboat paddles, vintage drink signs, and a piano someone actually winched up to the balcony so the music drifts down. Pickled eggs and rye toast handle the eating. The martinis have a following.

A boutique hotel in SoHo where the design story matters as much as the thread count. The team behind it worked with Danish studio Space Copenhagen to land somewhere between spare and warm, a look closer to Copenhagen than to the gilded-lobby tradition of New York luxury. They call their approach "conscious hospitality," which translates to charitable revenue-sharing rather than just a recycling card on your pillow. Quiet, considered, and not trying to impress anyone who needs impressing.

The self-check-in kiosk where a reception desk would normally be sets the tone: citizenM runs lean so the rooms can punch above their price point in Times Square, which is a minor miracle of real estate math. Compact king rooms come with wall-to-wall windows, Italian linens, and a touchpad that controls lighting, movies, and the mood. The lobby lounge and rooftop bar are genuinely meant to be used, not just photographed.

A post-renovation boutique hotel sitting almost exactly halfway between Times Square and Columbus Circle, which is either perfectly convenient or a studied act of evasion, depending on your night. Rooms are compact but finished in Carrara marble with a sunny palette, allergen-free beds, and accents in chartreuse and aubergine. PHD Terrace puts Midtown views under an open sky with DJs and serious cocktails above it all.

A rooftop bar on the 54th floor is the easy sell, but the rooms are the real argument for staying here. This Times Square hotel leans into color and personality where its neighbors lean into beige, and the layout is unusually generous for midtown. Transit connections run in every direction, and the Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels. First-timers to New York will find the location hard to argue with.

A hotel in Midtown that leans hard into the Irish pub aesthetic, Merrion Row sits one block from Times Square, which is either a selling point or a warning depending on your relationship with costumed characters. The rooms take their cues from Dublin's warmer traditions, which makes the whole thing feel less like a theme and more like an antidote. The elevator does the heavy lifting between the city outside and the calm within.

Rooms that look like a glamorous private residence someone actually lives in, not a set dressed to suggest one. The Manner is a boutique hotel on Thompson Street that trades the minimalist downtown look, and its beige "quiet luxury" cousin, for richly colored, heavily textured interiors. The ground-floor restaurant and cocktail bar pull in their own crowd, but the hotel itself stays on the discreet side of the equation.

A Turkish hammam and a mosaic-lined pool tucked beneath a Beaux Arts tower on 32nd Street is about as New York a contradiction as you'll find. The Marmara Park Avenue is a 128-room luxury hotel where designer Joe Ginsberg's taste runs the show: brass-inlaid concrete floors, Mylar wall coverings, velvet everywhere, and custom wallpaper drawn from his own photographs of a Bronx bridge. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Pastels and soft watercolors replace the old primary-color scheme after a Rockwell Group renovation, which is genuinely good news when you're sleeping a few floors above Midtown's noise machine. The Time New York is a boutique-ish hotel a short walk from Times Square, with rooms that are compact but quietly pulled together, Frette linens, Margiela bathrobes, and suites for when compact just won't do.

A colonial-style waterfront resort on the Miles River where the Eastern Shore slows everything down considerably. The Inn at Perry Cabin has been around forever, holds a Forbes Four Star, and still carries a certain old-money ease through its rooms and grounds. Sailors, wedding parties, and weekend escapees from DC tend to share the dock views without anyone minding much. Chesapeake Bay is right there, and the pace makes that feel like the whole point.

Two private beaches, one facing Nantucket Bay and one the Atlantic, which means you can always find a quiet side. The Wauwinet is a boutique resort tucked nine miles from Nantucket Town, with 32 rooms and four cottages, no children under twelve, and the kind of hush that feels almost conspiratorial. A Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key. Guests come to go genuinely quiet, which is rarer than it sounds.

Check-in happens on the fourth floor of a glass tower, no credit card demanded at the door, just a welcome drink and a cool towel while your bags disappear ahead of you. It's a luxury hotel one block from the Jersey Shore, and it reads more like a borrowed beach house than a property, with plush settees, fireplaces, and coffee table books stacked just so. Manhattan is 75 minutes away, which the crowd seems to regard as a selling point rather than a commute. Michelin awarded it a Key.

A working farm that also happens to be a resort, Southall sits on several hundred acres outside Franklin, about half an hour south of Nashville. Produce from the land feeds the restaurant, a seven-acre lake handles irrigation and kayaking equally, and the spa ensures nobody suffers unduly for the pastoral ideal. Rooms and cottages mix modern lines with a little retro warmth. It holds a Michelin Key.

A vineyard retreat spread across 450 rolling acres in the Virginia Highlands, Nicewonder is a Forbes Four Star boutique inn with 28 rooms, a handful of yurts, and a 13-acre working winery at its center. An infinity pool overlooks the vines, an Appalachian fine-dining restaurant is a few steps away, and the wine programming gives the whole stay a loose organizing principle. Communal fire pits and board games keep things grounded; the setting does the rest.

Perched in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the tiny, slightly-too-charming town of Highlands, Old Edwards Inn is a Forbes Four Star hotel where every room arrives with antiques, fine Italian linens, and complimentary champagne, which sets a tone the rest of the stay works hard to maintain. A 25,000-square-foot spa draws on its own herb garden, and a heated outdoor mineral pool handles the altitude nicely. Cottages are available for guests who prefer their elegance with a front porch.

Set on 2,200 acres of Allegheny Mountain terrain, The Grand Lodge at Nemacolin is a Forbes Four Star resort lodge that leans hard into the rustic-luxury thing, recently refreshed with updated rooms, an American steakhouse, and two bars. The whimsical interiors thread a needle between hunting-cabin warmth and genuine comfort, so it never feels like a theme park version of the outdoors. The grounds do most of the work once you're here.

The hotel was built over the surf, not beside it, which is something you notice immediately when the sound of waves comes through the floor. It sits on historic Cannery Row as a full-service hotel with a spa, and the bay is less a view than a constant presence: otters and seals drift past while the concierge books kayaking or whale watching for guests who'd rather be out there than watching.

A glass high-rise across from the stadium, Hotel Phoenix Atlanta is a downtown hotel that puts Centennial Olympic Park, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and the aquarium within easy walking distance. The public spaces run art by Georgia natives throughout, and the rooms are compact but dressed in bold color and pattern with floor-to-ceiling city views. Pack light: the standard king offers a two-seat bench and not much else for sitting. It holds a AAA Four Diamond rating.

Velvet, gilt, and a color palette that suggests a Victorian fever dream describe the interiors of this boutique hotel on Savannah's riverfront. The Bohemian leans hard into the city's gothic romanticism, with rooms dramatic enough that checking in feels like a plot point. Downstairs, Rocks on the River does comfort food and Neapolitan pizza; the rooftop bar trades on river views and craft cocktails. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Check-in is handled at a kiosk, which either sounds like your nightmare or exactly right. CitizenM is a design-forward hotel that keeps rooms small, smart, and genuinely comfortable, with tablet controls for everything including the mood lighting you'll spend ten minutes adjusting. The lobby doubles as a bar, café, and co-working space open around the clock. It sits on a quiet block just above Market, with Union Square, SoMa, and the Financial District all close.

Cashmere on the walls, not the bed, is the tell. This small, apartment-style hotel sits across from Central Park with no lobby to linger in and no public spaces to be seen in, which is rather the point. The Fasano brand's New York foothold runs to duplex suites with vintage furniture and park views, and a quiet caffè that doesn't announce itself. The crowd, such as it is, came specifically to avoid one.

The Beefeater doormen on Powell Street have been a Union Square landmark forever, and they set the tone: theatrical, a little grand, entirely committed to the bit. The Sir Francis Drake is a classic full-service hotel with Art Deco bones, comfortable rooms on the smaller side, and enough happening inside, from Scala's Bistro to the penthouse Starlight Room, that leaving feels optional. The Powell Street cable car stops at the front door, which is either convenient or a trap.

River North's density of bars and galleries practically demanded a hotel like this one. Moxy Chicago Downtown leans into the neighborhood's energy: Bar Moxy runs as a co-working space during daylight hours, then pivots to local beers, cocktails, and weekend DJ sets by night. There's also a games room with shuffleboard and arcade cabinets, a gym, and a podcast booth, which suggests the kind of guest who checks in with a carry-on and a content strategy.

Charlie Palmer owns this place, but you'd never know it from the branding. The Mystic is a hotel in a 1906 building two blocks from Union Square, renovated carefully enough that the rooms feel more like a prewar San Francisco apartment than a boutique property. They run small, so book a suite if you need to spread out. Downstairs, Burritt Room + Tavern does craft cocktails and seasonal American food against live jazz six nights a week.

A boutique hotel that leans into San Francisco's bohemian bones rather than fighting them, the Palihotel sits in Union Square and runs on the small chain's signature approach: design-forward rooms without the fussiness that usually comes with them. It's the kind of place that attracts the laptop-and-oat-milk crowd without feeling like a co-working space with beds. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels.

Rustic wood-panel art in the cathedral-ceilinged lobby came from an old picket fence, which tells you something about how this 154-room lakefront resort wears its money. Edgewood Tahoe sits on Lake Tahoe's south shore, surrounded by pines, with a George Fazio golf course rolling down to the water. A Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key. The vibe is warm and unhurried, the kind of place where you stop noticing what things cost.

Soaring windows, brick fireplaces, and balconies stacked on balconies give this boutique resort the feel of a grand estate that wandered into the Florida Panhandle pines. Camp Creek Inn holds a Forbes Four Star and earns it with a lazy river, two zero-entry pools, an 18-hole course, and pickleball courts, all wrapped in a palette of warm wood and cream that makes checkout feel optional.

White walls and terracotta rooftops rise above Italian cypresses in the California foothills, and the illusion of a European castle holds up the moment you step through the heavy wooden door. This small, Forbes Four Star inn sits on nine acres with manicured gardens, a pool, fountains, and a life-sized chessboard where a butler will materialize with elderberry iced tea before you've made your first move.

A former workers' dormitory turned Forbes Four Star country resort, The American Club sits on the Kohler campus an hour north of Milwaukee, which means every bathroom comes loaded with Kohler fixtures as a matter of corporate pride. The Tudor building has been done up comfortably, and beyond the rooms there are five restaurants ranging from pub fare to haute cuisine, plus an ice cream parlor tucked inside a historic greenhouse.

Eleven modern wood cabins sit in the pine forest of Montana's Blackfoot River Valley, adults only, all-inclusive, and about as far from a Hampton Inn as geography allows. The Social Haus turns out multicourse dinners despite being deep in Big Sky Country woods, and the all-in rate covers meals, drinks, and transfers from Missoula. A Forbes Four Star resort where champagne and crisp mountain air arrive together.

A vintage sky-blue VW van parked out front is the hotel's first word on what you're getting into. Paséa is a beachfront hotel right on PCH next to the Huntington Beach Pier, and it leans hard into the surf-and-sand premise, from complimentary flip-flops to a wave photograph spanning your headboard. The rooftop bar and two pools face the water, and the Balinese-inspired spa is a genuine non-sequitur that somehow fits.

Perched on a 650-foot bluff above the Coachella Valley, this Ritz-Carlton resort trades the usual desert-floor setup for sweeping views that make the surrounding mountains feel like wallpaper you can't believe is real. The 24-acre property has had its ups and downs over the years, but a massive renovation brought it back sharper than before. Pools, spa, and the full Ritz polish are all present, with palm-tree sunsets doing most of the heavy lifting.

A Forbes Four Star resort on a barrier island where the pace drops the moment you cross the bridge. Rooms lean into sand and sea tones, with coastal or ocean views that make it hard to justify getting dressed. The beach, golf, tennis, horseback riding, and sailing fill the days, and the restaurants lean heavily on local seafood. Families land here knowing the kids' programming will keep everyone happily occupied and apart.

Donna's is a cocktail bar on White Oak where the evening's main activity is relaying other people's drinks over your head while inching toward the rail. Seats are guarded by strangers who hover with the patience of vultures, and a Fridge Cig, an Old Fashioned built on dark rum and cherry cola, is what you'll be holding when you finally win one. It was a Spirited Awards Top 10 nominee for Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar.

A 110-foot water slide and a Flowrider wave machine in the same resort that houses the Agave spa, where the treatments draw on traditional Native American healing practices. This Scottsdale resort runs to ten restaurants, a championship golf course, and day camps that will absorb the kids entirely if you need them absorbed. It's the kind of place where "staycation" stops being a lazy word and starts making geographic sense.

A converted power plant on the Savannah waterfront that now houses 419 hotel rooms, several bars and restaurants, and enough natural history exhibits to make the lobby feel like a museum that got distracted. Rooms are contemporary and comfortable, the river is right outside, and the property has organized enough activities, tours, and a scavenger hunt to keep a family busy without anyone agreeing on a plan. AAA Four Diamonds.

Hydration stations on each floor dispense still, sparkling, or ambient water, which tells you something about the tone of this AAA Four Diamond hotel in Savannah's historic district. The 173 rooms run bright and airy, with big windows that catch the light, and upper floors can pull in river views. The rooftop bar with live music on weekends draws a crowd that has no intention of going to bed early.

A glass of wine at check-in sets the tone at this 25-room boutique hotel in Forestville, a quietly bohemian pocket of the Russian River Valley. The siblings who run it grew up on the property, which explains why six acres of gardens and farmhouse-chic rooms feel genuinely lived-in rather than styled within an inch of their lives. Good wine country base if your idea of roughing it is a very comfortable bed.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a short walk east, and the cobblestone streets outside look much as they did two centuries ago. This boutique hotel occupies a landmarked red-brick building that fits the Seaport District's Federal streetscape so naturally it's easy to assume it's always been there. Sixty-six rooms are spacious and calm, with marble bathrooms; upper-floor terraces face Peck Slip. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

The Meyer Davis interiors lean on wood, leather, marble, and tile in a way that feels more like a design hotel than a Garment District crash pad. Arlo Midtown sits squarely between Times Square and Hudson Yards, with Penn Station close enough to be useful, and the rooms read as a genuine buffer from the surrounding noise. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

A boutique hotel in River North that takes its Silver LEED certification, Chicago's first, as seriously as its décor. The classic brick shell was preserved during renovation partly for sustainability reasons, which makes the contemporary interior feel like a quiet statement. Rooms lean understated with a nod to Chicago's modernist tradition. A French bistro, a coffee shop, and borrowed access to the Godfrey's spa next door round things out.

The old Pacific Building facade dates back forever, but the rooms inside have been quietly modernized with pops of color and calm, residential warmth. This hotel sits at 4th and Market, which is as close to the center of San Francisco as a pin on a map gets, with Union Square, SoMa, and Chinatown all walkable. Dirty Habit, the in-house cocktail bar and restaurant, handles dinner well enough that you might not wander far on your first night.

A pointillist Ruth Bader Ginsburg covers an entire lobby wall, which tells you most of what you need to know before you've even checked in. Hotel Zena is a Viceroy property in Logan Circle that committed fully to a feminist theme after a full renovation, with warrior guardian sculptures flanking the entrance and women's achievements woven into the decor throughout. Subtle it is not, but it commits with conviction.

The deskless check-in is a small thing that signals a larger intention: this is a full-service hotel in the Financial District that isn't trying to cosplay a Midtown business tower. Bold lobby colors and dark bathrooms in the rooms lean into a design sensibility the neighborhood itself has gradually adopted, leaving the old Gotham gravitas uptown where it belongs. A fitness center, spa, and two in-house restaurants round out the stay.

Wabi-sabi as a design philosophy turns out to suit a hotel rather well: Kimpton Hotel Enso channels the Japanese aesthetic into calm, minimalist rooms that feel less like a refresh and more like an intention. The boutique hotel sits squarely in Japantown, which means good ramen, Kabuki Springs, and a genuinely walkable neighborhood are all within easy reach of checkout.

The Kimpton Hotel Fontenot sits at the edge of the Central Business District, which in New Orleans means you're a short walk from everything and nothing ever fully closes. It's a boutique hotel that took a forgettable chain property and dressed it in something the city would actually recognize as its own, from the moody interiors down to the bar. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, and the location alone does a lot of work.

A 1929 Art Deco building that once housed the American Institute of Architects is a pretty good starting point for a hotel with art on its mind. The Kimpton Palomar leans into that history without turning the place into a lecture, hanging work by Philadelphia artists throughout rooms that feel warm rather than curated. The lobby fireplace alone makes arriving in winter feel like a reasonable life choice. A block from Rittenhouse Square.

Sitting on the cobblestone end of Fore Street in Portland's Old Port, this boutique hotel leans into a nautical theme without going full lighthouse gift shop. Rooms run contemporary-classic, with large soaking tubs in many bathrooms and fireplaces in some suites. BlueFin handles fresh North Atlantic seafood on-site, though the Old Port's bar and restaurant scene starts essentially at the front door.

The bar inside looks like a private library someone forgot to lock, and that's before happy hour. This boutique hotel sits in the Central Business District, between the Warehouse District and the French Quarter, in a former railroad headquarters whose exposed brick walls the designers wisely left alone. The rooms split between a 12-story tower and a smaller neighboring building, and historical photographs of New Orleans keep things grounded in the city rather than the algorithm.

A rooftop pool high enough to make you feel like you're swimming through the skyline sets the tone at this full-service hotel in River North. It runs on a go-big logic, with a 24-hour fitness center and complete business facilities, yet somehow still feels approachable, the kind of place that fusses over your dog and your kids in equal measure. Midwestern warmth, it turns out, scales up just fine.

Perched at the top of Nob Hill, the Huntington is one of those old-school San Francisco hotels that feels like it was built to outlast everything around it, and has. Ken Fulk's renovation kept the bones and sharpened the rest, so rooms still feel like proper apartments rather than hotel boxes, the Big Four Restaurant channels gilded-age railroad money, and Arabella's Cocktail Salon manages to feel both cozy and theatrical at once.

A converted Romanesque church in Adams Morgan, The LINE DC is a boutique hotel where the vaulted ceilings and stained glass have been kept largely intact while everything around them skews deliberately bohemian. The restaurants and bars draw a neighborhood crowd that isn't staying the night, which means the lobby rarely feels like a hotel lobby. Adams Morgan's dining and nightlife scene runs partly through this building, which is either convenient or a little loud, depending on your room.

The lobby looks like Belle Époque Paris reassembled by someone with very strong opinions about color, which sets the tone for the whole hotel. Two blocks from Union Square, the Marker puts most of downtown San Francisco in easy walking distance. Rooms are comfortable rather than lavish, with good linens and modern bathrooms. The in-house Italian trattoria, Tratto, is worth a stop before you head out.

A converted warehouse in the Warehouse Arts District, back when that name still had something to prove. The Old No. 77 Hotel & Chandlery sits on Tchoupitoulas Street a comfortable distance from the French Quarter chaos, which is either the point or the bonus depending on your tolerance for Bourbon Street. The building's bones are industrial; the sensibility is not. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Three pools, one of them adults-only, and a complimentary nightly happy hour that arrives before anyone asks: Andaz Scottsdale is a resort that makes a convincing case for never leaving the property. The bungalow-style rooms keep things low-key and airy, the spa and a well-regarded restaurant called Weft + Warp are on-site, and the whole setup is designed so that the city outside quietly stops mattering.

Spanish Colonial buildings spread across 265 acres of gardens, hidden paths, and towering trees in San Diego's inland hills. This full-service resort runs to 286 rooms done in earthy neutrals, a spa tucked well away from the main action, a championship golf course, and three pools, which collectively make leaving feel like a logistical overcorrection. Craft breweries and hiking trails sit close by when the urge strikes.

Sitting on Gila River Indian Community land about twenty miles outside Phoenix, this resort takes its setting as a design brief rather than a backdrop. The Pima and Maricopa tribes shape everything from the spa treatments to the restaurant menus, two Troon-managed golf courses look out over the Sierra Estrella Mountains, and an equestrian center will put you on a horse if the pools and wildlife trails haven't already claimed your afternoon.

Deer graze the golf course while guests roast s'mores at the fire pit, which tells you something about the vibe at this resort tucked into two canyons just across PCH from the beach. Eighty-seven acres of hills and ravines give it more of a nature retreat feeling than a seaside hotel. Laguna Beach has an old artist-colony identity beneath the resort gloss, and the Ranch, with its ranch-style rooms and coastal-chic sustainability angle, leans into that quieter story.

The bar actually rotates, one full revolution every fifteen minutes, carried on 2,000 steel rollers by a quarter-horsepower motor. It's a cocktail bar inside the old Monteleone Hotel on Royal Street, and the canopy above the 25-seat circular bar was carved by a carousel craftsman, which explains a lot. New Orleans being New Orleans, nobody finds this strange. It's a strong argument for arriving early enough to feel the room slowly turn.