The Best Places in the United States

On the 60th floor of Circa, this rooftop lounge opens onto a sweeping outdoor terrace with fire pits and a view that makes the Strip look like a diorama. Inside, red velvet banquettes and illuminated sculptures of Vegas legends set the mood, and 500 custom gold bars frame the entryway like the lobby of an excellent bad decision. Housemade cocktails and large-format drinks handle the rest.

Reserve 101 is a downtown whiskey bar with over a thousand bottles, a number that makes the menu feel less like a list and more like a library with a liquor license. It sits in an early 1900s building near Toyota Center, so the pre-Rockets crowd mingles with people comparing 50-year-old pours. The cocktails are serious too, and it made the Spirited Awards' regional top 10 for U.S. cocktail bars.

The walls at this dim Roosevelt Row cocktail lounge are lined with polaroids of patrons who've shed a little more than their inhibitions, all tasteful enough that you'd call it art if pressed. The drinks from the veteran team change often and lean experimental, which pairs nicely with the dark, slightly conspiratorial atmosphere. Named a Regional Top 10 Honoree at the Spirited Awards, it earns the recognition without trying too hard to.

A coffee shop where you can also get clay under your fingernails, PIP Coffee + Clay pairs a small cafe with a ceramics studio on North 24th Street. Wheel-throwing classes run about two hours, keep group sizes small, and require you to put your phone away, which turns out to be the whole point. Your mug may come out lopsided. That's fine. Grab a coffee or a beer while the creative juices do their thing.

The name "Theta" does hint at a quieter frequency than the surrounding blocks would suggest. This Kimpton hotel on 8th Avenue puts you a short walk from the Theater District, Hell's Kitchen, and the Rockefeller Center chaos, which makes it a practical midtown base without requiring you to sleep directly under a billboard. The 364 rooms lean calm and polished in the way the Kimpton brand tends to, a reliable counterpoint to the neighborhood's volume.

A neighborhood dive bar that fully commits to the bit: vintage furniture with backstories, a cigarette machine, free arcade games, and a jukebox that always has Marty Robbins on deck. The drinks are cold, the Old Style is colder, and the backyard patio with lawn games fills up with the kind of crowd that looks like they've been regulars for years, even if they just discovered it last week.

A chrome Dayton wire wheel serves as the flower pot, and the espresso machine has been custom-painted, and that sets the tone. Xolo is a coffee shop that doubles as a rotating gallery of Chicano and lowrider art, with tuck-and-roll chairs and vintage photography that looks lifted from an East L.A. album. The family next door runs a tattoo shop with the same soul. Pop-ups bring lowriders into the lot and zoot suits through the door.

Portraits of historical drunkards and ne'er-do-wells line the walls of this downtown cocktail bar, which sets the tone pretty efficiently. Long shared tables give the room a public-hall looseness, and the menu swings wide, pairing gin martinis and oysters with po'boys and tropical painkillers. The occasional burlesque night confirms that nobody here is pretending this is a quiet spot for serious reflection.

Tiki bar named after a Dio song, perched above a dive bar on St. Mary's Strip, with rattan furniture and proper mugs but none of the animatronic pageantry the genre has lately embraced. The drinks run from tropical classics to stranger originals, and the whole setup feels more like a cool relative's cluttered attic than a theme park. Which, given the name, is probably the point.

The cocktail menu here tracks Mexico's geography and history the way a graduate thesis might, except the drinks are good enough that you don't feel lectured. This compact Southtown cocktail bar rotates its program in chapters, currently deep in the years before Mexican independence from Spain. Mezcal meets manzanilla and poblano in one glass; spruce tip and tomatillo air appear in another. The minimal room handles both serious contemplation and a fun night out.

The SkyBar rooftop wraps 360 degrees around the Orlando skyline, which is a reasonable argument for staying here instead of somewhere closer to the mouse. This is a hotel in downtown Orlando, lean and stylish in the European AC mold, with 180 rooms and more shared space than the footprint suggests: Foxtail Coffee, a restaurant leaning into the brand's Spanish roots, and that rooftop. A long way from theme park carpeting in every sense.

A fleet of complimentary bikes parked out front sets the tone at this mid-century modernist-inspired hotel in Midtown, a neighborhood that packs in more museums, music venues, and performing arts than it has any right to. Rooms lean boutique rather than business-casual Hilton, and a modern Southern restaurant and bar keeps things from feeling like a conference layover. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels.

The white-columned facade on Prospect Street has been watching La Jolla grow from a quiet beach town into something considerably more self-important, and the Grande Colonial has aged into its surroundings with more grace than most. This old-school hotel leans into European elegance without apology: high ceilings, unhurried service, and rooms that feel genuinely considered rather than recently refreshed. Torrey Pines is minutes away, and the ocean isn't far behind.

A boutique hotel a short walk from Lake Champlain, Hotel Vermont trades the quilts-and-doilies New England B&B aesthetic for clean lines, stone-tiled showers, and city views. The outdoor wood-fired kitchen and bar keeps things local, turning out pizzas and lobster rolls for guests who want a reason to stay in. Burlington's bar and restaurant scene is right outside the door for everyone else.

Midtown Atlanta's creative district gets a hotel that leans into the neighborhood's energy rather than ignoring it, with art and modernist design running through the whole property. Kimpton The Shane keeps the brand's signature warmth, the kind where staff remember your name, while staying genuinely plugged into the local art, music, and restaurant scenes. A solid base if you'd rather stay somewhere with a point of view.

Zombie Taco, the 24-hour taqueria downstairs, tells you most of what you need to know about the neighborhood this hotel occupies. Moxy Austin-University sits just north of the UT campus in the strip of bars, shops, and perpetual foot traffic that lines Guadalupe. Rooms run clean and modernist with leather furniture and Western wool blankets, and Bar Moxy's indoor-outdoor lounge doubles as a genuine local hangout, not just a hotel bar for guests with nowhere better to be.

Check-in happens at Bar Moxy, which sets the tone: this is a hotel where the lobby is also your first drink. The 111-room property folds a new tower into three renovated Italianate storefronts, and the interiors lean into Cincinnati's German immigrant past with a modern Bavarian twist that stops short of lederhosen. The Chase Rooftop Bar sits above it all with skyline views, and Great American Ball Park is practically next door.

A boutique hotel on Melrose where the lobby is meant to be lived in, not passed through. The anchor is The Hart and the Hunter, a Southern-leaning restaurant whose biscuits have reportedly stopped people mid-sidewalk. Rooms are compact and the point, as far as Paligroup is concerned, is the communal life downstairs. For a stretch of Melrose better known for vintage shops than overnight stays, it reads as a reasonable argument for the neighborhood.

Checkered marble floors and Venetian plaster walls set the tone at this 66-room hotel on Fairfax, where California light pours through skylights and the pool courtyard is lined with a living wall landscaped by local nursery Rolling Greens. Suites come stocked with Taschen books and original paintings. The Grove and the Original Farmer's Market are directly across the street, which either delights or horrifies, depending on your relationship with weekend crowds.

Mansard roofs across from a Los Angeles shopping mall is a combination that shouldn't work, yet here we are. This full-service hotel on Beverly Boulevard layers Art Deco-inspired interiors and French balconies over unmistakable SoCal surroundings, hitting a note somewhere between Parisian fashion and Beverly Hills glamour. The public spaces are moody enough that you'll arrive in your nicest outfit and still feel like you've underdressed.

The name is a pun, but the pool is the proof: The Dive Motel on Dickerson Pike is a retro-kitsch motor lodge with a Swim Club that earns the second half of its name. Rooms lean into the aesthetic hard but stop just short of irony, and the on-site Dive Bar keeps a kitchen running late every night of the week. A pointed counterargument to Nashville's increasingly glossy hotel scene, selected by the Michelin Guide.

A renovated mid-century motel in Mid-City, the Drifter trades gallery-lined French Quarter charm for a courtyard pool that becomes the whole point by afternoon. Rooms are spare, minimalist, and comfortable without pretending to be grand. Food trucks rotate through, craft beer and third-wave coffee are on hand, and live music runs most nights, so light sleepers should plan accordingly. The Michelin Guide has it in their selected hotels.

Cork floors and custom birch furniture set the tone at this 18-room boutique hotel, redesigned by Studio Tre with a mid-century American thread and textiles by Oaxacan artist Ismael Gutierrez Montano woven through. A saltwater pool and a tiled fountain anchor the garden courtyard. It sits on Tulane Avenue rather than in the French Quarter, which is either a drawback or the whole point, depending on how you feel about historic charm versus a room that doesn't look like every other room in New Orleans.

Wynwood's answer to Japan's listening bars, Dante's HiFi is built around an analog sound system fed by a music director's vinyl library that runs north of 8,000 records. The cocktail program leans into Japanese whisky highballs made with the kind of precision that would satisfy a Tokyo bartender, alongside house drinks that pull from local flavors. Come for the music as much as the drinks; no one's rushing you out.

Gramps Getaway is a waterfront cocktail bar under the big palapa that used to house Whiskey Joe's, with creaky floorboards that still hold decades of beach sand. Seventies rock plays, the frozen drinks are stronger than they let on, and the Brickell skyline sits across the water. The menu runs from wings to a fried chicken sandwich, and prices stay modest. Eater lists it among Miami's essential cocktail bars.

Bar Roza is a cocktail bar tucked into the alley beside the Arcade, built around aperitifs and bitters rather than the usual whiskey-and-regrets lineup. The menu sorts drinks into categories, including hot-and-cold pairings and ones that make aperitifs and digestifs share custody. Small plates like mortadella focaccia are on hand for pacing yourself, which the creamsicle-tinged pisco drinks will make you appreciate.

Nook is a cocktail bar upstairs at Bow Market, done up like a midcentury sunken living room, the kind your parents would have thrown a very tasteful party in around 1970. There's a fireplace, and the drink list is all original concoctions, some involving coffee-infused rye and tiki bitters in the same glass. It's small and snug, so a couple of friends and a pre-dinner round is the right-sized plan.

A fleet of cruiser bikes parked out front hints at the Atticus's personality: a contemporary boutique hotel that takes itself seriously without losing its sense of fun. It holds a Michelin Key and sits in the heart of walkable McMinnville wine country, about halfway between Portland and the coast. Rooms run from snug Micro Studios to a full penthouse, and the in-house restaurant leans Mediterranean and Pacific Northwest.

Every room at this eleven-room countryside inn in the Hudson Valley comes with a fictional backstory baked into the design, which sounds precious until you see how well it actually works. The team behind it built a whole invented world to hang the interiors on, and the result is quietly luxurious without feeling like a stage set. A Michelin Key property, and a genuinely considered alternative to generic upstate getaways.

A coffee shop where the décor has opinions about where you sit. PHX Cat Cafe is a nonprofit cat lounge in downtown Phoenix where a rotating crew of adoptable cats nap in elevated perches, bat at toys, and occasionally judge you from across the room. The small admission fee buys you time among the felines, decent coffee, and access to events like cat yoga and drag bingo. Over a thousand cats have found homes through the place, which gives the whole thing a satisfying excuse.

A 1982 Piaggio Apé truck imported from Italy parks in the garden and pulls espresso, which tells you most of what you need to know about Pueblo's priorities. This plant shop and coffee stop on Grand Avenue occupies a lush warehouse where indoor tropicals crowd every corner and a vintage gardening library invites you to stay longer than planned. The pottery, succulents, and houseplants are the main event, but the outdoor patio has a way of making an errand feel like an afternoon.

A water taxi from Pier 25 drops you on Governors Island, a city park that happens to sit between Brooklyn and the Statue of Liberty, where Collective operates a glamping resort that makes the Catskills seem like a lot of driving. Tents come with air conditioning, Frette robes, and en suite bathrooms, and the top cabin adds a soaking tub aimed at the Statue of Liberty. Cocktails on the Sunset Terrace, morning buffet, yoga, oyster shucking classes: summer camp, if camp had gone upmarket.

The lobby is stacked floor to ceiling with old National Geographic issues, which tells you most of what you need to know about this hotel's whole deal. A block from UC Berkeley's campus, the Graduate leans into an Indiana Jones fantasy, decor that looks collected on various digs rather than sourced from a catalog. Rooms are comfortable without trying too hard, and the public spaces draw a crowd well past checkout.

Art Deco bones from the thirties, a wash of UW purple, and a plaid nod to the city's nineties moment: Graduate Seattle is a boutique hotel that wears its neighborhood on its sleeve. Rooms are comfortable without pushing into splurge territory, which fits the University District just fine. There's no bar or restaurant, just a lobby lounge, but the Neptune Theatre is right across the street and the neighborhood fills in the rest.

The exposed concrete ceilings are original, a souvenir from the Brutalist office block this 90-room boutique hotel used to be. Vivid colors and modernist furnishings do the arguing against all that raw gray, and it mostly works. Local art runs throughout, the rooftop lounge has the skyline and Indy-riffing cocktails, and the Wholesale District outside is in the middle of figuring out what it wants to be next.

A restored Art Deco building in the Faena District keeps things deliberately unhurried while the rest of Miami Beach performs for the velvet rope. Rooms and studios lean residential, many with kitchenettes, and the Greenbrier Swim & Social handles all-day food, cocktails, and pool lounging in one place. Beach Butlers arrange chairs, umbrellas, and packed lunches for the stretch a block and a half away. The Michelin Guide has it among its Selected Hotels.

Named for a French pop song from the sixties, this adults-only boutique hotel in the Warm Sands neighborhood runs small, quiet, and easier on a travel budget than most of what Palm Springs has to offer. Twenty-seven rooms, a pool, a fire pit, and drinks in the courtyard cover the essentials. There's no restaurant on site, so dinner means a short drive into town, which most guests seem to consider a fine trade.

Bunk beds with guitars on the wall set the tone at this Moxy in the heart of Uptown, where vintage shops and late-night pho joints are the neighbors. The hotel leans hard into its social zones, with the Vinyl Lounge serving craft cocktails and lobby spaces that feel more like someone's living room. Rooms are compact but smart, with big windows and good tech. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels.

Fifty floors up in the Ritz-Carlton NoMad, this cocktail bar from the José Andrés group takes its name from the Spanish words for cloud and light, which is either poetic or on the nose depending on how far into the menu you are. The views run 270 degrees over the city, and the drinks lean into reimagined classics, from an adonis to a tom collins. Dress accordingly; the room expects it.

The bar is lit by a marquee sign, the wine list describes something as "the purple nurple of pet-nat," and fresh urchin sometimes arrives in the spiny shell with bread and butter. This wainscoted French bistro on Capitol Hill pairs classic technique with Northwest seafood, keeps the natural wine program largely French, and still serves pimento cheese left over from a pop-up era because the menu has a sense of humor about itself.

A boutique hotel where the art collection is the point, not the lobby filler. The 21c chain built its name in cities you wouldn't expect, and the Durham outpost fits right into a downtown mid-reinvention. Rooms sit alongside rotating contemporary art, and the whole thing feels more like a stay inside a functioning museum than a polished-down corporate property. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Arched windows and original brick from an old Midtown building are still doing the heavy lifting here, even as the interiors have gone full Autograph Collection, with taupe walls, tall headboards, and copper accent pillows. Chesapeake Energy Arena and Bricktown are walkable, and the Rooftop O Bar draws enough locals that you'll forget you're staying at a hotel.

A revamped Art Deco skyscraper anchors this 287-room South Beach resort, sitting just north of the SoBe frenzy, which you'll either count as a drawback or the whole point. The aesthetic leans mid-century rather than the usual all-white minimalism, and the suites read more like furnished apartments with a good eye than hotel rooms. Outside, a tropical pool grove does exactly what you'd hope, and a historic bungalow was dismantled and rebuilt on-site as a candlelit garden bar.

The origin story involves black flowers bought from a French roadside cart, and the whole hotel has leaned into it ever since. Moody botanical wallpaper by Ellie Cashman lines the interiors, while giant murals spill into a poolside courtyard with fire pits and Adirondack chairs. Casitas and suites have terracotta floors and midcentury furnishings. The speakeasy-style rosé bar keeps things from taking themselves too seriously.

Sitting on the University of Minnesota campus rather than just near it, this boutique hotel leans into a lake-house aesthetic, which feels right for a state with ten thousand of them. The Graduate chain tailors each property to its city, and Minneapolis gets outdoorsy Americana with Gophers maroon woven in. The Beacon downstairs runs a gastropub menu with a quietly English accent, which is its own kind of personality.

Every night at 7:33, the hotel rings a bell and invites guests to pour a whiskey, marking the end of Prohibition with the kind of ritual that sounds gimmicky until you're actually doing it. Hotel Distil occupies a restored bourbon warehouse on Whiskey Row, where the old facade gives way to glassy, modern rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows and city or river views. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected Louisville hotels.

A three-story chandelier anchors the lobby of this downtown Indianapolis hotel, which occupies a restored 11-story landmark that's been around long enough to have earned the bones worth restoring. Inside, Italian marble and Indiana-inspired artwork do their civilizing work, while rooms come with proper skyline views, wet bars, and Byredo products for guests who notice such things.

Three blocks south of the Sunset Strip, on a genuinely quiet residential street, sits this all-suite hotel that has quietly figured out it doesn't need to compete with the nightclubs nearby. Suites come with fireplaces and fully stocked minibars, some add kitchenettes and balconies, and the rooftop pool looks out over West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. The lounge drifts from co-working space to something more convivial by evening, on its own unhurried schedule.

Zombie Taco and Bar Moxy handle the ground floor of this Moxy hotel on historic Whiskey Row, which puts Churchill Downs, the distillery trail, and the KFC Yum! Center all within reach. Rooms are compact and wired for guests who treat the bed as a pitstop between bourbon stops and late nights out. The communal living room, game tables, and Whiskey Alley patio make it clear that lingering in the lobby is half the point.

A converted 1961 savings and loan building, with its original terrazzo floors and curved mid-century bones still intact, now operates as a boutique hotel on one of Savannah's busiest corners. Eleven room configurations come fitted with hand-cut tile and custom millwork; suites add soaking tubs and private terraces. The Sun Club rooftop pool, the all-day Municipal Bar, and The Hot Eye, a speakeasy from the Death & Co founders, mean you rarely need to leave.