The Best Places in the United States

Schulman's is a neighborhood dive bar dressed as the finished basement of your friend's cool parents, with stained glass lampshades, a lacquered bar, and leather booths that have seen things. The martinis run twelve dollars, there's a double cheeseburger and a pickle beer, and the backyard is built for smokers holding frozen margaritas. Nashville Scene named it Best New Bar in 2024.

The walls of this pirate-themed tiki bar are hung with portraits of distinguished canine buccaneers, which alone tells you something about the commitment level here. The lore involves a cursed ship, a sea witch, and a crew turned into dogs, and it's fully committed to the bit without letting the theatrics crowd out the drinks. Traditional tiki pours sit alongside inventive originals, and the cocktail menu earns its keep on its own terms.

Muddy Waters and B.B. King both played this no-frills blues bar near Chinatown, which tells you something about the room. Live music runs every night of the week, and between sets the crowd shoots pool and orders pizza to soak up the local craft beer. The seasonal Halloween and Christmas pop-ups have become their own draw, which is a funny fate for a place with that kind of history, but the bar handles both versions of itself with ease.

The handwritten sign taped to the door reads "Ring Buzzer, Pull Door," which sets expectations accordingly. What's inside this Mid City cocktail dive runs against every signal the prefab exterior sends: serious drinks, a warm room, and a neighborhood crowd that has clearly been coming here since the block was still drying out. It's relaxed in the way only a bar that doesn't need to prove itself can manage.

This is a velvet-draped, 1920s-style cocktail parlor, reached by slipping behind the doughnut stand inside Aria's food hall, which is about as speakeasy as a doughnut counter can make you feel. Live jazz fills the room most nights, and the drinks arrive with props: mushroom-shaped glasses on a mossy board, a Manhattan in a cigar box. Dress for a date, and bring someone who won't mind sharing the dry ice.

The wine list runs from skin-contact naturals to premier cru Burgundy, which tells you this Midtown wine bar is not trying to be one thing. It's been around forever, long enough to have shaped Houston's wine culture before anyone here was talking about orange wine. The cheese and charcuterie plate is an honest reason to stay for a second glass. The room is low-key and comfortable, the kind of place regulars treat as a standing appointment.

Eight Row Flint is a whiskey bar in a former mid-century dry cleaner in the Heights, and the back bar is stocked like it's expecting a long siege. The drink menu runs to a small-novella 25 pages, there are big casks of the good stuff, and you can rent a locker for your own bottles if you want to be That Whiskey Person. The patio is huge, the cheeseburger and wings keep the evening honest, and the margaritas get a lot of press.

Grand Prize is a two-story dive where the interior is blacked out so thoroughly that the neon is mostly there to help you read the drink menu. Happy hour offers a "Happy Meal," which is a beer and a shot, and the pool tables are good for losing to a stranger. The kitchen rotates through bar food, birria tacos one week and chili-cheese dogs the next, and the terrace is where you go to confirm the sun still exists.

Lei Low is a tiny tiki bar in the Heights where the grass cloth, palm trees, and tropical tchotchkes do most of the travel planning. The rum selection is deep enough to require a plan, and the Navy Grog and Singapore Sling are on hand for people who like their classics served with a tiny umbrella's worth of conviction. Large-format drinks are built for splitting, which makes this a good place to find out who in your group can share.

Frozen cocktails and build-your-own pizzas under the same roof sounds like a fever dream, but Monkey's Tail makes it work. This neighborhood bar in Fulton keeps things loose and colorful while running a cocktail program weighted heavily toward tequila and mezcal. The frozen drinks are a genuine draw, and the food menu swings wide enough, tacos, burgers, aguachiles, that no one in the group goes home grumpy.

The bathrooms are papered in decoupaged vintage Playboys, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Midtown dive bar. Named after a Roky Erickson song, Two Headed Dog leans hard into its free-spirited brief, with a colorful patio and a rotating cocktail menu that punches well above the surroundings. The frozen drinks are a particular draw for anyone who finds serious cocktail bars a little exhausting.

Voodoo Queen Daiquiri Dive in the East End is a dive bar that also contains an arcade, a po'boy counter, and eight frozen drink machines churning like a laundromat for neon. Pool and air hockey keep the hands busy, and the menu runs to fried shrimp, hush puppies, and tater tots under roast beef. Come in jeans, split a flaming tiki boat with whoever you trust most, and expect to leave with a very green tongue.

A shack-shaped neighborhood bar that has been selling cold drinks since it sold actual ice, back when that was a business. Lone Stars flow at red picnic tables under open sky, dogs wander in, and a taco truck across the street handles food duties. Houston has a whole category named after places like this, and Houstonians will tell you, with some feeling, that the others are impostors.

A small bridge over a little moat takes you from a residential stretch of Northeast Broadway into what is, with commitment, a full tiki immersion. Woven palm walls, bamboo rafters, illuminated pufferfish, and three hand-carved tiki gods loom over the sunken bar while intermittent thunder rumbles and wisps of volcano smoke drift through. The rum-based cocktails are the actual point of the exercise, and nobody here seems to mind.

The name lies a little: Teardrop is a square room with painted concrete walls, and the curve comes from the island bar itself, which bends the whole space into something warmer than the bones suggest. It's a serious cocktail lounge, the kind where the menu moves between classics, originals, and borrowed recipes from people who've thought hard about this stuff. Classic films flicker overhead, the lighting is kind, and a quiet Monday still feels like somewhere worth being.

The owner is often spotted bussing tables or running food on a busy night, which sets the tone for this Lower Greenville bar and American kitchen that manages to feel like it's been around forever. Cozy enough for a quiet date, loose enough for drinks with friends, it occupies that useful middle ground between neighborhood bar and proper dinner spot. An English chef handles the kitchen, keeping things grounded rather than showy.

Hungarian comfort food in a Deep Ellum cocktail bar is a combination nobody asked for and nobody wants to question. Armoury D.E. runs a casual, lived-in room where the drinks are serious, the kitchen leans into paprika-forward territory, and there's usually a free live show happening out back. The burger of the week has a following. Dallas Observer named it home to the city's best Bloody Mary and best bar food, which checks out.

The Clint Eastwood velvet artwork made the move from Deep Ellum, and so did the regulars. Black Swan Saloon is a cocktail bar in East Dallas with a moody, kitschy interior that somehow lands as genuinely cozy, the kind of room where dressing up and wearing a vintage rock tee both look right. House cocktails and boilermakers anchor the menu, and the frozen martini has become the thing everyone's carrying through the crowd.

A cocktail bar tucked into a genuine old Uptown house, Bowen House leans into the atmosphere without making it a whole thing. The drink menu runs from draft beer and a tidy wine list up to signature cocktails with names like "For Whom the Bell Pepper Tolls," which is exactly the kind of pun that works better than it should. The crowd tends toward the kind of people who like a porch vibe without leaving the city.

Walls of VHS tapes set the tone at this Vietnamese restaurant and bar that's been an East Dallas fixture forever. The '60s lounge vibe makes it feel like a party someone threw and never quite ended. The menu runs eclectic but Vietnamese dishes anchor it, and the espresso martini is made with house-brewed Vietnamese coffee, in limited supply each night. Order the garlic noodles if they have them, and hope quietly that they do.

Shelves of wine bottles line every wall of this small, happily unpretentious wine bar tucked into a strip mall on Indian School. The vibe is couch-and-conversation, the kind of place where you sit down next to strangers and somehow end up closing it down with them. The food menu runs to pimento cheese and Moroccan spiced meatballs, which is a perfectly reasonable way to soak up a second pour. Phoenix New Times named it one of the top 100 bars in the city.

Vinyl spins in a moody room at this Sylvan Thirty cocktail bar that went dark, then came back with a new team and the same instincts. Matcha and Parmesan were already on the menu here before either showed up everywhere else. The current list keeps crowd favorites like the Red Headed Oaxacan alongside new experiments. No reservations now, which suits a place this comfortable with walk-ins pulling up to a well-stocked bar.

The stripper pole is decorative, full stop. That's the first thing to know about this Cedars bar, the second being that management wears suits while you eat a roller-grill hot dog next to a cigarette machine. It's dark and a little flirty, with pool and darts keeping things grounded. The dirty martini, made with fresh-pressed olive juice and an anchovy-stuffed olive, does a lot of heavy lifting for a place that also sells boxed candy.

The house big band at this Bishop Arts bar and music venue plays with enough brass to rattle your drink on the table. Revelers Hall leans hard into 1920s New Orleans, where the mood runs festive and the dancing starts before you've finished your flatbread or charcuterie. It's not a quiet-beer kind of place, and it doesn't pretend to be. D Magazine named it Dallas's top jazz bar in 2024, which tracks.

The tequila and mezcal list at this Deep Ellum bar is long enough to constitute a philosophical commitment. Ruins leans hard into Latin culture, with original artwork on the walls and cocktails that come with actual folklore attached. The Limbo Room out back hosts live music in close quarters. It reads like a dive bar that got serious about agave spirits without losing the plot.

Pendant lights salvaged from a European monastery hang over the bar, which tells you everything about how seriously this place takes atmosphere. An old-school beer bar and pub on Henderson Avenue, The Old Monk pours drafts from around the world alongside a rotating cast of locals, with fish and chips that regulars treat as a birthright. Weekday happy hour runs until seven and has a reputation for extending the evening considerably past anyone's original plan.

Around 700 whiskeys line the shelves at this Exposition Park bar, and the team takes the curation seriously enough that it shows. Dark, warm, and a little seductive inside, Whiskeys sits across from Fair Park in a stretch of Dallas most people drive past without stopping. Flights let you move through the collection systematically, including one that honors Uncle Nearest Green, the man behind Jack Daniel's original recipe.

A tunnel of flowers leads you into a maximalist cocktail bar on the ninth floor of a Dallas hotel, where art deco geometry, a bedazzled Russian doll, and fireplaces compete equally for your attention. The drink menu is just as playful, leaning on pressed mineral water and cold foams. A wraparound rooftop opens up beyond it all, which feels less like a bar patio and more like a bonus level nobody told you about.

East Colfax is Denver's longest, most mythologized strip, and this mid-century motor hotel conversion settles into it like it never left. The 54 rooms spread across three color palettes named Rosewood, Sagebrush, and Robin's Egg, with kilim rugs and green-tiled bathrooms keeping things coherent. An all-day café handles breakfast through cocktails, and a Mediterranean restaurant opens onto a wine garden out back. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

A boutique hotel that looks like someone airlifted a Parisian luxury property into Beverly Hills and let the California sun bleach it into something crisper and more cinematic. The bones are from the old Tower Beverly Hills, but the interior is fully reimagined: black-and-white palette, clean lines, and just enough Hollywood glamour to feel intentional rather than themed. The kind of hotel that makes chilly minimalism seem like a missed opportunity.

The Spanish Colonial architecture and a pool that looks like it was designed for someone to be discovered next to set the scene at Colony Palms, a boutique hotel with a past that includes an alleged mobster founder and a devoted Hollywood following. The place has been through a few names and a full redesign, but the glamour reads as deliberate rather than accidental, which is probably the point.

Perched on Condado Beach with an unobstructed view straight out to the Atlantic, this 97-room luxury hotel splits the difference between boutique and full resort, which means a lively pool scene without the stadium-crowd feeling. The white-on-white interiors feel deliberately removed from Old San Juan's colonial palette. Three bars, including a beach bar, keep things moving, and the restaurant, Social, runs from classic Puerto Rican to inventive cocktails. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

The rooftop pool looks straight at the Rocky Mountains, which sets the tone for everything below it. Halcyon is a boutique hotel in Cherry Creek North, the quieter, shop-lined neighborhood a short drive from downtown Denver, and it threads a needle the area usually fumbles: the design is genuinely glamorous without feeling like it's trying to impress you. A couple of ambitious restaurants and activity-focused perks round it out.

Wrigley Field fills the window from certain rooms, which is either the point or the warning, depending on your feelings about baseball. This boutique hotel pays tribute to the stadium's architect through dark woods, leather wing chairs, and copper detailing that split the difference between classic and mid-century. The building houses a relaxed bar and lounge plus a cluster of restaurants for pre- or post-game eating, making it the rare hotel where you might not leave the block.

The boulevard out front is named for the man who invented the Polaroid camera, which tells you something about the neighborhood's self-image. This Kimpton hotel sits on the Cambridge side of the Charles River, close enough to MIT and Harvard that the lobby's soft sci-fi aesthetic, industrial meets minimalist meets saturated river greens and blues, feels less like a design choice and more like a local dialect.

Mid-century Modern bones meet the kind of boutique hotel philosophy that decided exclusivity was overrated. The Rowan is a Kimpton property, which means the design is sharp without being cold and the vibe tilts toward grown-up fun rather than hushed reverence, which suits Palm Springs and its cheerful, unapologetic hedonism perfectly. A rooftop pool with mountain views helps make the case for staying in rather than going anywhere.

A century-old building in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, remade into a boutique hotel with enough art on the walls to keep you looking. Kinley is part of Marriott's Tribute Portfolio, which means independent personality with a loyalty card on the side. Rooms are chic and comfortable, the crowd runs young, and the in-house café, bar, and ancient-grains restaurant give the place roots in the neighborhood rather than above it.

Infinity pools connected by waterfalls spill toward a private beach in Condado, but La Concha is less a retreat than a scene. The luxury hotel pulls a stylish San Juan crowd to its casino, sushi restaurant, open-air rum bar, and nightclub, so don't expect silence after dark. Guest rooms run bright and sleek, all floor-to-ceiling windows and retro-white decor, with ocean-facing suites and balconies for those inclined to splurge. Complimentary bikes for Old San Juan are a nice touch.

Art Deco bones and clean Modernist lines give this Coral Gables hotel a certain self-possession, like it has nothing to prove to South Beach and knows it. The 242 rooms run toward sleek contemporary comfort, and the on-site Americana Kitchen keeps you from having to venture far on nights when you don't want to. Coral Gables moves at a slower register than Miami proper, and the hotel fits that mood without feeling like a compromise.

You check in at the bar, which sets the tone for everything else at this lively Marriott sub-brand hotel in Midtown, Atlanta's arts-heavy neighborhood. Rooms are affordable and compact, the ground floor handles all three meals, and the real graduation is reaching High Note, the rooftop bar, by evening. The kind of place that makes you feel like you planned your trip well, even if you mostly just got lucky with the neighborhood.

Fifteen rooms dressed in Mediterranean antiques in a corner of San Juan that otherwise looks like it was finished last Tuesday. O:live is a boutique hotel in Condado with a romantic brief it takes seriously, right down to the peekaboo showers. The rooftop bar has drinks and a view, Bardot handles modern French downstairs, and a no-under-18s policy keeps the whole operation pointed in one direction.

A 1970s Rolls-Royce parked poolside, converted into a champagne bar and DJ booth, tells you immediately what kind of hotel this is. O:LV Fifty Five is an all-suite boutique tower in Condado where the 26 rooms lean gold, white, and marble, and most look out over the lagoon. The rooftop holds a bar, restaurant, pool, and, one floor above that, a lounge for the truly committed. Glossy without apology.

Red brick exterior, Shaker furniture, and denim pillows make this hotel feel like Harvard's well-appointed guest quarters, which is more or less what it is, sitting between the university and Radcliffe. Rooms lean Boston-cozy over sleek, with fresh flowers and burgundy armchairs. The walls are famously thick, which matters more than you'd think when the neighbors are practicing anything at all.

The Armstrong has been a fixture on College Avenue long enough that it practically has tenure, and a recent head-to-toe update brought it fully into boutique hotel territory without sanding off the character. Rooms are swanky and stylish, and the building hides a pair of drinking and dining spots worth seeking out on their own terms. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key. Fort Collins is an hour north of Denver, right at the Rockies' doorstep.

Every room at this Autograph Collection boutique hotel in Fort Collins comes with a record player, and loaner guitars are available for guests who feel moved to strum. The Elizabeth sits in the Old Town district and leans hard into the city's music culture without being precious about it. Rooms blend contemporary comforts with nods to the town's older bones, and Magic Rat, the live music venue downstairs, draws a crowd that didn't just wander in from the highway. It holds a Michelin Key.

The cocktail menu runs past 100 drinks, and some of them arrive as flavored clouds. Barmini is José Andrés's molecular cocktail bar, the mischievous sibling to Minibar next door, where the same spirit of culinary wizardry gets redirected entirely into what's in your glass. Spherified drinks and leather-aged premixes are the house vernacular. A James Beard nominee for Outstanding Bar Program, it's the kind of place where watching the bartender work is half the point.

The Art Deco bones of this Gold Coast lobby bar date back to the Jazz Age, and the cocktail program leans into that: Cuban classics and Caribbean-inflected originals served under ornate ceilings that most bars would kill for. Sparrow calls itself a neighborhood bar, which is technically true, though the neighbors here wear better shoes than most. A named honoree at the Spirited Awards, it draws people in from well outside the Gold Coast.

A lone clothespin near the door is the only sign you're in the right place. This 22-seat speakeasy inside Commonwealth runs on cryptic reservation clues, a red light for walk-ins, and a ceiling lined with antique doors staring down at you. The cocktail menu here doesn't overlap with what the main bar pours, and the vintage Hollywood portraits on the walls set a mood that takes itself seriously, which the drinks earn the right to match.

A rooftop cocktail bar at the Graduate Hotel where the décor commits hard to the wilderness merit-badge aesthetic, think canteens and compasses, while the outdoor patio delivers one of Seattle's better skyline panoramas. The drinks lean into the camping bit without losing their nerve, and the bacon sandwich is there for anyone who needs anchoring. A crowd that skews collegiate but cleans up well fills the space once the sun starts dropping behind the Olympics.

The menu lists grams of alcohol per cocktail, which is either very responsible or a challenge, depending on your disposition. This intimate Capitol Hill cocktail bar is run by an owner who is, in fact, a licensed physician, and who has spent real time traveling the world to stock one of the more unusual spirits collections in the city. Pours come by the ounce or flight, and cocktails run classic, contemporary, or bespoke.

Vintage camping lanterns stand in for light fixtures, hand-drawn maps cover the walls, and the whole look lands somewhere between outdoorsy and retro. This downtown Boulder hotel sits steps from the Creek trail and a short walk from Pearl Street, so the kitchenette and loaner bikes aren't just cute touches. There's no restaurant, only a lobby coffee bar, but in a town this caffeinated and trail-obsessed, you'll rarely be inside anyway.

The subterranean thermal-pool sequence is the real pitch here: this Alberta Arts District hotel runs far deeper, literally, than your average boutique stay. Rooms come with full kitchens and proper workspaces, and the low-rise neighborhood means views that don't disappoint. A Japanese-Portuguese restaurant, a garden bar café, and a coffee shop round things out for guests who surface long enough to eat.

A grand Beaux-Arts building with a vaulted lobby and an original staircase that makes you feel slightly underdressed on arrival. The Fidelity is a 165-room hotel in downtown Cincinnati with a Parisian-inflected sensibility, 17 apartment-style suites, and restored terraces that suggest the building has always known it was something. Gwynne handles dinner; Cora's All-Day Café covers everything else. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

A Hyatt JdV hotel tucked between Sunset and Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood Volume pitches itself somewhere between luxury and minimalism, which is a polished way of saying the rooms are stylish but you won't feel guilty about the rate. The neighborhood is in the middle of becoming something, and the hotel suits that mood: put-together without taking itself too seriously, and easier on the wallet than the boutique competition around the corner.

The Spanish Colonial bones have been around forever, and Hotel Granada leans into them without apology: wrought ironwork, a leafy open-air courtyard called Pom Court at the center of it all, and a low-lit cocktail bar called May Peel tucked below ground for when the evening calls for something quieter. It's a 120-room Midtown hotel that reads more like a neighborhood institution than a chain, and the Michelin Guide has taken notice.

Dark wood and colonial atmosphere in Little Havana, this boutique hotel positions itself as the antidote to South Beach fashion. Rooms lean Hemingway-in-the-tropics rather than pastel minimalism, and a garden courtyard plus rooftop bar give you reasons to linger. Staff push you toward the neighborhood itself, which is the point: you're in the heart of Cuban Miami, and the hotel knows it.

A French hotel group that took its sweet time crossing the Atlantic, Mama Shelter landed in Hollywood with in-room iMacs, free wi-fi, and public spaces designed for lingering rather than lobbying. The bar leans game-room, the coffee shop runs all day, and the restaurant mixes French and American without making a fuss about it. Rates stay low enough for the creative-class crowd this place is clearly courting.

Pharrell Williams and Miami nightlife impresario David Grutman built this South Beach hotel with a rooftop swim club, DJ booth, and private cabanas, which tells you exactly what you're signing up for. Somehow the rooms manage cozy and cocoon-like rather than afterparty wreckage, and the staff skips the velvet-rope attitude entirely. A spa and gym keep mornings functional, which is more than most hotels in this zip code can promise.

Greenery woven through the lobby sets the tone at this 299-room hotel sitting at the corner of the 610 loop and Westheimer, a short walk from both River Oaks District and the Galleria. The design leans into natural textures and custom linens, giving it a lush, almost residential feel. Upstairs, a rooftop bar; downstairs, Richard Sandoval's wood-fire Mexican restaurant. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected Houston hotels.

A hotel in Cherry Creek named for the French inventor who mechanized the loom, which tells you something about the neighborhood's self-image. The neon chandelier and floating staircase set the tone in the lobby, guest rooms run to glass walls, and the rooftop bar stretches a 180-degree mountain panorama from Longs Peak to Pikes Peak. The crowd dresses for it, and at sunset, they're not wrong to.

A former Army barracks that the National Park Service converted into a boutique hotel, the Lodge at the Presidio sits on one of the few stretches of near-wild coastline that San Francisco managed to keep inside city limits. Rooms look out over the wooded hillside, the skyline, or the Golden Gate Bridge, depending on how lucky you get at booking. It's a quieter base than downtown, which is either a selling point or a warning.

The $12 daily daiquiri sets the tone at this Williamsburg rum bar, where the menu runs from a lager-and-rum shot combo to oysters with tepache mignonette. The couple behind it know their way around spirits, one having run the editorial side of Punch, the other having shaped Chicago's beloved tropical bar scene. A basement rum bar called Undercurrent adds another layer for anyone who shows up and doesn't want to leave.

A Tudor mansion anchoring 500 acres in Somerset County, an hour from Manhattan, with the kind of pedigree that involves former Moroccan royal ownership and an organic farm feeding the on-site restaurants. Pendry Natirar is a full-scale resort, with a spa, tennis courts, a cooking school, and a private club. Rooms run to dark wood, marble, and deep-green accents. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A Victorian main house with original fireplaces and staircases redesigned by Champalimaud, paired with a modernized 1950s mews holding 31 garden-facing rooms, this small hotel has quietly put Litchfield back on the overnight map. The village green is around the corner, though the hushed, historically layered atmosphere inside makes the town feel far away. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

A plantation-style estate on 40 acres with Blue Ridge Mountain views, where certified butlers serve mint juleps and the carriage house and a renovated 18th-century schoolhouse have been turned into guest cottages. The manor rooms lean toward Fifth Avenue rather than faded gentility, with a modern art collection keeping things from getting too stiff. A retreat hotel popular with destination weddings and couples who want the kind of quiet that requires leaving your zip code.