The Best Places to Drink and Stay in the United States

Heated sidewalks run through the whole property, which tells you everything about the philosophy at this Forbes Five Star, Michelin Key lodge sitting mid-mountain at Deer Valley. Rooms come with jetted tubs; suites add stone fireplaces and gourmet kitchens. The ski valet handles your gear so you never have to think about it, and the Troll Hallen Lounge is exactly the kind of firelit room you want after a day on the slopes.

A back-alley cocktail bar from Erik Bruner-Yang and Paola Velez, where the food refuses to stay in its lane. The menu riffs on Taiwan and El Salvador in the same breath, papusas share space with gochujang mayo, and the baked Alaska, a Washingtonian dish of the year, arrives under torched Dominican meringue hiding guava shaved ice and whatever surprises the kitchen buried underneath. Bon Appétit named it one of America's best new bars, and the room earns the fuss.

Every room has a lanai big enough to actually live on, and guests frequently do. Halekulani is a classic Waikiki beachfront hotel that runs on the kind of unhurried, attentive service that feels almost anachronistic now. The spa draws from Hawaiian, Asian, and South Pacific traditions, and surfing lessons are steps from the lobby. Forbes Four Star and a Michelin two-key property, it wears its reputation quietly, which is part of the point.

The Rocky Mountain views from this downtown luxury hotel are so insistent, staring back at the Rockies from nearly every room, that forgetting you're in Denver takes real effort. Earth tones and a modern-residential feel keep the aesthetic grounded rather than fussy. The Four Seasons holds a Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star, and the staff's habit of anticipating what you need before you ask is the thing guests tend to mention first.

A lobby nicknamed "Houston's Living Room" anchors this Forbes Four Star downtown hotel, with a grand staircase rising through 30 floors of recently renovated rooms. Richard Sandoval runs the restaurant, a 1920s-style speakeasy keeps the bar tab going, the spa does a bourbon-and-brown-sugar scrub, and there's a Krigler perfume shop for anyone who wants to smell like old Hollywood between Astros games.

The Palazzo tower is all suites, starting at 720 square feet, decorated in contemporary Italian style rather than the gondola-and-canal pageantry next door at The Venetian. Seven pools, Egyptian linens, remote-controlled shades against that relentless desert sun. Thomas Keller and Wolfgang Puck both have restaurants here, which gives the whole thing a certain critical mass. A Forbes Four Star resort that earns its quieter register amid the Strip's general enthusiasm for spectacle.

Wood smoke hangs in the air the moment you walk into this Fort Greene seafood restaurant, which should tell you something about how the kitchen operates. Chef Tomer Blechman anchors the menu around dry-aged fish and open-fire cooking, pulling from a Mediterranean pantry that keeps things interesting without announcing itself. The bar draws a crowd that clearly has opinions about natural wine, and the pita alone justifies showing up early.

Multicolored lights, mismatched vintage stools, and enough rum cocktails to stock a small ship set the mood at this funky cocktail bar and dining den inside Krog Street Market. The food leans creative but unfussy, with global touches and most plates meant for sharing. It holds a spot on North America's 50 Best Bars and was a James Beard Outstanding Hospitality nominee, which tracks: the room has that rare quality of feeling genuinely cared for without trying to make you notice.

Monogrammed pillows and a rooftop pool with cabanas that double as massage suites or impromptu offices set the tone at this Forbes Four Star, Michelin two-key hotel in Beverly Hills. The Living Room just off the lobby draws the kind of crowd that technically doesn't need to be seen yet always is. The spa, The Belvedere brasserie, and a level of service that feels almost antiquated in the best sense round out the package.

The Old Post Office building has been around forever, and the bones show it: 16-foot ceilings, original windows, hardwood floors, and a grand lobby skylight that turns the whole atrium gold on a clear afternoon. Now a Waldorf Astoria hotel, it sits squarely between the Capitol and the White House, which suits the guest list. Velvet, marble, and gilded finishes set the tone; a Forbes Four Star and a full spa seal it.

Leather window seats overlooking Lake Michigan come standard in many rooms here, which sets the tone for this luxury hotel perched above the Magnificent Mile. Rottet Studio gave the lobby and upper suites a refresh that reads crisp without trying too hard. The spa and indoor pool are genuinely calm, the staff is the kind that anticipates rather than reacts, and Bloomingdale's is literally one floor below, if that helps you decide.

A cocktail bar with its own craft distiller's license, which means the team controls everything in the glass from the spirit up. Set in a wildly decorated corner spot in Nob Hill, Happy Accidents runs a sustainability-forward program with a menu spanning tightened-up highballs and martinis to stranger, more playful builds. Food leans New Mexican and Southern. A Spirited Awards Top 4 Finalist and a James Beard semifinalist for cocktail service in 2025.

Fifty clapboard cottages built in the Low Country style sit among rivers, marshes, and Spanish-moss-draped maritime forest midway between Hilton Head and Savannah. This sprawling resort holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys, and the Southern hospitality is less a policy than a local condition. Screened porches, abundant waterways, and a 13,000-square-foot spa keep guests occupied long after they've run out of excuses to stay.

The butterfly motif is everywhere at this Forbes Four Star resort on the Strip, said to bring good luck, though the casino probably has its own opinions on that. Suites run to floor-to-ceiling Strip views, limestone and marble baths, and TVs that swivel to follow you around the room. The spa fills 37 treatment rooms, and XS, the nightclub on the property, has a wading pool and a chandelier over the dance floor, because of course it does.

A neoclassical pile atop Nob Hill, the kind of building that makes you straighten your posture just walking through the door. This hotel holds a Forbes Four Star and fits the Ritz-Carlton template well: renovated rooms with a modern-classic feel, that famously gracious service, and a cable car stop right outside for anyone who wants to arrive without a town car and a fleece vest.

Rooms here run from around 450 to 1,700 square feet, which tells you what kind of hotel this is before you've seen the mahogany or the views over Rittenhouse Square. It holds a Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star, and it earns both through sheer scale and quiet confidence rather than flash. The square outside stays green and walkable, and the neighborhood around it is about as good a base as Philadelphia offers.

The 130 rooms here are bungalows scattered among heritage oaks, stained the same quiet brown so they nearly disappear into the hillside. This Forbes Five Star resort sits deep in Sonoma wine country, with vineyard views from two pools, an archery range, a yoga lawn, and an 11-treatment-room spa that will absolutely derail your itinerary. The terrace at the bar, with Mount St. Helena on the horizon and a local pour in hand, makes a compelling case for doing nothing at all.

A Guy Dill bronze anchors a circular marble lobby that feels less like a hotel check-in and more like a museum atrium you can sleep in. This Four Seasons occupies the top floors of a 48-story FiDi tower, which means guest rooms start at the 37th floor and the Golden Gate sits framed in the distance on clear days. The Ferry Building is a short walk; hoodies, perhaps not the move here. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

The rooftop pool is reserved strictly for guests, which is not a given in Los Angeles. L'Ermitage Beverly Hills is an independent boutique hotel with just over a hundred suites, and the whole operation is built around that number staying small. Staff learn names and preferences fast, the balconies overlook a quiet, tree-lined street, and the people checking in tend to prefer that nobody knows they're there. It holds a Michelin 2 Keys and a Forbes Four Star.

The grand lobby is all white marble, cherry blossom wall panels, and a sculptural fixture hanging in a 26-foot vaulted ceiling, a deliberate exhale from the massive LED tower blazing outside. Crockfords is a Forbes Four Star luxury hotel tucked inside Resorts World, and the contrast is the whole point. Rooms extend to villas and palaces, a dedicated ambassador is on call around the clock, and the casino, restaurants, and theater are right there when the calm wears off.

A cocktail bar tucked above a Local Foods in Rice Village, Lee's has a retro speakeasy feel and a menu serious enough to back up the vibe. The drinks lean bitter, briny, and bracingly complex, and a separate mini-cocktail list exists for when you just want a taste. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar and on Bon Appétit's best new bars list, it draws the kind of crowd that actually reads the menu before ordering.

Ski-in/ski-out from Empire Pass, with staff who will warm your boots and help you buckle them if you ask, which sets the tone for the whole operation. Montage Deer Valley is a full-scale mountain resort with craftsman-style rooms, a spa with indoor and outdoor pools, and year-round access to hiking, biking, and fly-fishing when the snow melts. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key.

Mediterranean villa architecture on the sand in Sunny Isles, roughly halfway between Miami and Fort Lauderdale, which puts it closer to the water and further from the chaos than most South Beach options. This Forbes Five Star resort leans into the European feel with terraces, ocean views, and rooms large enough to include a full sitting room and an oversized soaking tub. Red lounge chairs dot the beach, and a separate family pool means the adults-only stretch stays that way.

Elliott Bay views stop conversations mid-sentence here, and the Bay Rooms are built around that fact, with floor-to-ceiling windows and marble soaking tubs positioned accordingly. This downtown Four Seasons sits steps from the Seattle Art Museum, with a 40-foot rooftop infinity pool and a coffee concierge who shows up at your door between six and ten. A Forbes Four Star hotel that takes the Pacific Northwest aesthetic seriously, pale woods and all.

The 101-story tower was designed by Jeanne Gang, making it the tallest building by a female architect, which is the kind of fact that gets dropped at every rooftop cocktail hour. This St. Regis hotel sits along the Chicago River in quiet Lakeshore East, with Lake Michigan views and a wellness floor running spa, pool, and gym. Millennium Park is a short walk; a small private park sits right behind the building for when you'd rather not walk anywhere at all.

The signature scent is Southern magnolia, pumped through the lobby before you even spot the flowers. This Forbes Four Star hotel occupies a Beaux Arts building that spent its previous life as a department store, and the bones show in the best way: grand marble, a lush courtyard with a fountain, and guest rooms that feel lifted from a proper New Orleans mansion. Canal Street is right outside when you need it, and the jazz lounge is right inside when you don't.

Bay windows framing the Mississippi River are a good place to start with The Windsor Court, a Forbes Four Star hotel that plants a bit of English countryside inside New Orleans' business district. The 316 rooms run sky-blue and cream, with traditional furnishings that somehow don't feel stiff. A full-service spa, pool, and The Grill Room round it out, the last one drawing the kind of crowd that actually made a reservation.

The view from the upper floors puts the White House close enough to make you feel briefly important. This Italian Renaissance hotel on Lafayette Square has been the discreet address of choice for presidents, diplomats, and people who prefer their name not in the papers, and it carries that old-world air without letting the plumbing get old-world too. Holds a Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star.

Perched on Lady Bird Lake with the Congress Avenue Bridge just visible from the grounds, this Forbes Four Star hotel manages the rare trick of sitting in downtown Austin without feeling like it. A recent renovation refreshed the rooms and brought in a new restaurant and bar, both leaning into Texas-meets-Latin cooking. Visiting musicians and celebrities have long made it a preferred bolthole, which tells you something about the noise level in the lobby.

The floor-to-ceiling windows in the guest rooms frame Inner Harbor views that do most of the decorating for you. This Forbes Four Star hotel is a waterfront glass tower with a lobby art collection serious enough to slow you down before check-in. The fourth floor holds a 10,000-square-foot spa and the city's only waterfront infinity pool, which is the kind of amenity that makes it hard to remember there's a city outside.

The wine list has a dedicated section for aged Madeira, which tells you something about the seriousness of the operation. This moody Poncey-Highland wine bar holds a Michelin selection and landed on Bon Appétit's best new bars list, but the kitchen pulls its own weight with snacks, shareable plates, and evening mains that feel seasonal without being precious. A James Beard semifinalist for Best New Bar, it draws the kind of crowd that actually reads the back label.

A butler, a bottle of champagne, and a ceremonial saber await at this grand hotel two blocks from the White House, where the nightly sabering ritual sets the tone. The coffered ceilings and Palladian windows date to an opening presided over by Coolidge, and the corner of 16th and K has been D.C.'s definitive power address ever since. A Forbes Four Star property, and the kind of place foreign dignitaries treat as a given.

The marble lobby and English motor court set the tone for this full-service Gold Coast luxury hotel before you've even checked in. Art Deco bones, fireplaces in the guest rooms, white marble baths, and only ten rooms per floor mean it never feels like a convention block. Staff famously decline tips, which either says something about the service culture or about Chicago. A Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key.

Frank Gehry designed the building, and the tenth-floor lobby faces his Walt Disney Concert Hall across the street, so the views start before you check in. This luxury hotel in Downtown L.A. holds a Forbes Four Star and runs like an urban resort: rooftop infinity pool, a spa, a public art collection, and two José Andrés restaurants on site. Rooms lean mid-century modern with marble bathrooms and enough tech to feel like a spaceship.

A 13-story Sol LeWitt mural dominates the atrium lobby, bouncing blue and purple across a cable-and-aluminum sculpture, which is quite the check-in distraction. This all-suite hotel in Battery Park City sits closer to Wall Street than to anything edgy, but the rooftop lounge on the 16th floor, with Hudson River and Statue of Liberty views, softens the corporate geometry considerably. Forbes Four Star.

A cannon hangs above the bar, which should tell you everything about how Smuggler's Cove calibrates its energy. This tiki bar on Gough is a three-floor rum fever dream of dangling puffer fish, skull-lined crates, rigging, and a salvaged Trader Vic's Boathouse sign hiding in the basement. The menu runs deep into obscure Caribbean and Pacific spirits, and the bartenders know the material cold. A James Beard Outstanding Bar nominee.

Cleaver is a steakhouse just off the Strip where the portraits are Napoleonic-era military figures, except the generals are Queen Latifah and Jack Black. The bar's cocktail menu is sorted by era, starting in the mid-1800s, and the bar team took a Spirited Award in 2024 for Best U.S. Restaurant Bar. Expect big groups, big appetites, and a mac and cheese with pork belly in it.

Floor-to-ceiling windows in the library look out over Chicago Avenue, which sets the tone for a hotel that frames the city as part of the decor. It sits on the Magnificent Mile in the Gold Coast, and the rooms and public spaces carry the cool, contemporary feel of a recent top-to-bottom renovation. The art collection leans Chicago, the staff leans warm, and the whole thing earns its Forbes Four Star without ever seeming to try.

Wooden apples sit in every guest room, a nod to Blue Duck Tavern's famous pie downstairs, which tells you this hotel has its own personality. The Park Hyatt Washington sits quietly in the West End, with Tony Chi's neutral, minimalist interiors making 220 rooms feel closer to a private residence than a convention block. Forbes Four Star. A Tea Cellar stocked with global varietals keeps things interesting between monuments.

The salmon-pink Champagne lounge and the sky-blue rooftop bar tell you everything about this hotel's register before you even check in. Sitting right on Marion Square in the heart of Charleston, Hotel Bennett is a new build that wears its Southern elegance without apology, from the mural-lined rotunda to rooms so soft they feel like sleeping inside a cloud. A Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key round out the credentials.

Pine trees and a three-acre lake frame this Forbes Five Star hotel in Cary, close enough to RDU that a delayed flight barely stings. The Umstead is the kind of full-service resort that earns a weekend on its own terms, with a spa, an upscale restaurant, and hiking trails threading through an adjacent nature park. The crowd tends toward quiet money rather than loud occasion.

A ten-acre Italianate estate in the middle of Austin, which is either an absurd premise or a great one depending on how you feel about Ken Fulk's maximalist touch. The mansion, satellite buildings, and formal gardens have been folded into an Auberge Collection hotel without scrubbing any of the old glamour out. The oval pool sits among manicured hedges, and the whole place operates like a country house that simply refuses to acknowledge the city outside. A Forbes Four Star and two Michelin Keys.

Four private floors tucked inside the Fairmont Austin, the Gold Experience is essentially a hotel-within-a-hotel, with its own reception desk, its own lounge, and a quieter remove from the rest of the building's thousand-plus rooms. Guests still get access to the wood-fired Garrison and the other restaurants below. A Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star suggest the upgrade is not purely theoretical. Downtown Austin sits just outside.

Princess Diana in Eagles gear hangs on the wall, a neon sign says "Never Grow Up," and somehow the kitchen is turning out steak au poivre and egg sandwiches that New York Times critics put on their Philadelphia shortlist. This all-day café runs from thick malted pancakes in the morning through hoagies built with fine-dining precision at lunch, into a full dinner menu at night. Whimsy is the decor; the cooking means it.

A library with working fireplaces sits at the heart of this alpine resort, which puts it squarely between the gondola and lift at the base of Aspen Mountain. The 179 rooms lean into dark woods and leather club chairs, and the St. Regis butler service means someone is quietly attending to details you hadn't thought to request. The kind of crowd that plans a ski trip the way others plan a wedding fills the place all season.

The hotel occupies the upper floors of Mandalay Bay without sharing its casino floor, which is the whole point. Rooms run to desert-toned calm and Strip views; the private pool stays mercifully quiet by Vegas standards. Veranda handles California-brasserie duties, PRESS pours the cocktails, and the spa holds a Forbes Five Star. A Michelin Key and Forbes Four Star for the hotel itself.

Rooms here start at 500 square feet, which in downtown Denver is its own kind of statement. The Ritz-Carlton is a full-service luxury hotel dressed in navy, cream, and dark wood, with Frette robes, deep soaking tubs, and rainforest showers doing the heavy lifting. Elway's steakhouse runs from breakfast through dinner on the ground floor. The Forbes Four Star property draws suits on weekdays and the charity-gala crowd on weekends, with staff sharp enough to handle both without missing a beat.

Kelly Wearstler designed every inch of this 32-story hotel in the Second Street District, and it shows, in the best way and the slightly self-conscious one. Where most Austin hotels lean into their scuffed boots, the Proper is unapologetically urban, with locally inflected decor that never lets you forget someone very stylish made every decision. A Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key back up the polish. Dining and cocktails keep it lively well past checkout hour.

The Patterson House is a cocktail bar that moved up to the top of a Gulch building and traded its old library-and-cigars gloom for a sweeping room hung with deep purple curtains. After dark they pull the drapes back to show the city lights, which suits a Manhattan fine. The food menu is big enough now that the pork chop might be your whole date night, not a warm-up for dinner.

Five hundred acres of manicured Florida grounds sit at the headwaters of the Everglades, which is a strange and quietly wonderful fact about a resort this polished. The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, with championship golf, a Five Star spa, lakefront trails, and a celebrity chef restaurant on site. Disney is close enough to be convenient and far enough to feel optional.

Housed in a renovated rail depot, Kimball House is a seafood restaurant and serious cocktail bar with tufted leather booths, a carved mahogany bar, and a raw bar menu running past twenty oyster varieties, complete with tasting notes so you don't have to guess. Esquire named the Kimball House martini among America's finest, which should tell you something. The kitchen runs seasonal, and dessert regularly steals the table's attention. A Michelin Selected restaurant.

The building's previous life as a massage parlor is part of the lore here, and Midnight Cowboy leans into it: press the Harry Craddock buzzer at the unmarked Sixth Street door, then slip into a dark booth for cocktails built around a mystery and spirituality theme. It's a reservation-first speakeasy, intimate by design, with a menu deep enough to require genuine deliberation. Food & Wine named it one of the top bars in the US.

The Art Deco murals were under plaster for years while the restoration crew worked, which is its own kind of story. Now back on Park Avenue after a long absence, the Waldorf Astoria is a grand full-service hotel with residential-style suites, the Guerlain Spa, and a brasserie from chef Michael Anthony. The public spaces are the main event: silver corridors, soaring ceilings, and a Grand Ballroom that still knows exactly what it is.

The sweeping double staircase in the lobby sets the tone: this is an old-school grande dame hotel, the kind Charleston practically wrote the manual on. Rooms have been refreshed without losing their ornate classical details, and a pool with a retractable roof sits alongside a fitness center and designer shops. Forbes Four Star. It sits squarely in the historic district, within an easy walk of gardens and antebellum mansions.

A 130-foot smokestack rising from your hotel is either a red flag or a very good story, and here it's the latter. The Ritz-Carlton Georgetown occupies a converted incinerator building, red brick and black ironwork intact, tucked quietly between the C&O Canal and the Potomac. Inside it reads more loft than grand hotel, with a wood-burning fireplace in the lobby and Frette linens upstairs. A Forbes Four Star property.

Copper, oak, marble, and brown leather set the tone in the 297 rooms of this 21-story luxury hotel in SoBro, where the Pizzuti family's art-collecting instincts show up everywhere from the lobby to the porte cochère. Tennessee artists get prominent wall space, the rooftop pool draws a well-dressed crowd, and there's a full-service spa when Nashville catches up with you. A Forbes Four Star property.

The beach here is the widest strip of sand on the island, and the resort knows it, orienting everything around that fact. This is a Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key property done in pistachio and rose, with a spa, multiple pools, and a beach club that quietly absorbs most of your plans. Mauro Colagreco runs the flagship restaurant, Florie's, where South Florida produce meets his Italian and Argentine instincts. Palm Beach is already the opposite of hustle.

Perched on a bluff above Watch Hill with the Atlantic laid out below, Ocean House is a Victorian resort that feels like someone's very grand great-aunt never quite let go of the Gilded Age, and you're glad she didn't. Croquet lawns, a private beach, and rooms done in a quietly luxurious register that earns its Forbes Five Star without announcing it at every turn. Open year-round, which the old summer-colony crowd never managed.

A cocktail bar on Portland's tourist-heavy Wharf Street that opened with a stated mission to make the block worth visiting. The drinks lean on reworked classics, with hot dogs and bar snacks to keep things honest. The $28 Flaming Scorpion Bowl arrives in a blaze of mild chaos, which tells you the room doesn't take itself too seriously. Punch named it one of the best new bars in the country, and Esquire flagged its espresso martini among the best in America.

Stone pathways wind through lush gardens on a clifftop bluff above Laguna Beach, which sets the tone for this full-service luxury resort. The Arts and Crafts movement is the organizing inspiration, and original works from that era share walls with contemporary pieces throughout. Rooms and bungalows have private balconies with ocean views, fire pits burn at dusk, and the pool sits improbably blue below the Pacific sky. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.

NightBloom is a late-night cocktail bar on St. Claude, run by the Bacchanal team, and the lighting is a coral glow flattering enough that you may forget you came to drink. The menu runs from an olive salad martini to a smoky pineapple margarita, and the bartenders will talk playlists with you. Some nights there are dance parties or custom nail art, and a dog may adopt your table. Eater named it Best New Bar.

Chandelier Bar is the glamorous hotel lobby bar at the foot of Canal Street, all marble, crystal, and gold fittings, with a chandelier big enough to have lent its name and its crystal to the martini glass. Cognac shows up in the cocktails, including a fortified sazerac, and the bartenders are nicer than the surroundings strictly require. The potato chips arrive free, so dinner can technically be skipped.

Hotel rooms here come with a catch: booking one makes you a temporary member of the private club downstairs, which is otherwise invite-only. The Battery is a boutique hotel tucked inside that members' club, with 14 suites done in a dark, bohemian register that owes more to a Victorian drawing room than a startup off-site. Michelin awarded it 2 Keys.

A bright blue facade on a block of red brick Tribeca warehouses is one way to introduce yourself. This Firmdale hotel, part of designer Kit Kemp's signature London-meets-New York family of properties, leans into the collision of country-house comfort and city energy, lots of bold color, and a cozy-glamorous atmosphere that somehow holds together without tipping into theme park. The Michelin Guide awarded it two Keys.

Absinthe fountains line the curved bar at this jewel-box cocktail bar steps from St. Louis Cathedral in the Lower Pontalba Building. Oysters and caviar share menu space with a martini that landed on Esquire's national list, and a vintage chandelier keeps the whole room at a glow. It opens at eleven in the morning and closes at ten, the upstairs neighbors having apparently drawn a firm line.

A modern tower right on the edge of Boston Common, which means the park views from the upper floors are the kind that make you forget you're in a business hotel. The Rockwell Group interiors lean into contemporary luxury rather than Old Boston stuffiness, and the rooms are plush without being fussy. The theater district is essentially at the front door, though the Avery Bar gives you a convincing reason to stay put. A Forbes Four Star property.

Pink and purple neon sets the mood at this intimate cocktail bar, which leans hard into '80s New York nostalgia. Your drink arrives in whatever ceramic vessel the bartender feels like, a bunny, a donut with a handle, something stranger. The menu spans highballs, zero-proof options, and signatures like a blue cheese martini, but the real move is handing the bartender your preferences and letting them pull from a catalog of a thousand recipes.

Rust-colored casitas tucked into Boynton Canyon, with red rock formations close enough to feel like they're listening. Mii amo is a destination spa resort, the kind where you check in for several nights and leave having done a reflexology path and reconsidered your entire morning routine. A Forbes Five Star property, it pairs serious wellness programming with 23 rooms and suites, a movement studio, and a sensory garden that makes the word "garden" feel inadequate.

One of the Gilded Age mansions lining Newport's Cliff Walk, this small luxury hotel holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin two-key distinction. No two rooms share a period: Tudor, Georgian, and Renaissance suites each come with a fireplace, most with a Jacuzzi, and some with ocean views dramatic enough to justify the whole trip. Two restaurants, one fine-dining and one slightly looser, pull in locals alongside guests.

Sixteen manicured acres and views of the Santa Cruz Mountains make it easy to forget you're minutes from the Google campus, which is probably the point. This Forbes Five Star resort hotel on Sand Hill Road runs a sprawling pool deck, a full Sense spa, and rooms with vaulted ceilings that lean urbane rather than rustic. The suites and villas are firmly in tech-baron territory, comfort-wise, but the setting is serene enough that nobody's talking about valuations by the pool.

Five rooms in downtown Healdsburg, each stocked with the kind of comforts that make you forget you ever owned a house. This boutique inn is the work of chef Kyle Connaughton and his wife Katina, whose farm supplies the kitchen downstairs. The modern-classic rooms come with an extravagant breakfast, and guests get preferential access to the three-Michelin-starred restaurant below, though advance planning is still required. Michelin awarded it 3 Keys.

The custom-designed everything, down to the furniture, signals that True Laurel takes itself seriously, which would be more insufferable if the drinks weren't so good. This cocktail bar and restaurant from the Lazy Bear team lands at number 14 on North America's 50 Best Bars list. Small plates rotate with the seasons, and the bar program is tight, inventive, and the clear reason most people show up.

Wide-plank walnut floors, hand-painted wildlife murals on the staircases, and limestone fireplaces big enough to stand in announce that this is a different order of Lowcountry resort. The Sanctuary sits on a barrier island inside a private gated community, with ocean-view rooms done in coastal colonial style and a Grand Lawn that rolls straight to the beach. It holds a Forbes Five Star, and the staff make the hospitality feel less like a script and more like a favor.

Dark green walls, framed art, and a room that somehow feels like midnight at noon, ViceVersa is a Neapolitan pizza and cocktail bar tucked just off the lobby of the Elser Hotel. The thin-crust pies are the anchor, but the bar program is the real argument for staying. The affogato martini landed on Esquire's radar, and the place sits on North America's 50 Best Bars list. A James Beard nominee for Best New Bar in 2025, too.

Eighty-five rooms and suites spread across low-slung buildings among actual working vineyards in Calistoga, so the wine country backdrop isn't decorative. The style is modernist with a farmhouse lean, the spa has an outdoor garden, and bikes sit ready for anyone who wants to feel virtuous between meals. The on-site fine dining restaurant, Auro, holds a Michelin star. The resort also holds a Forbes Five Star.

The big neon sign out front survived the gap years when nothing else did, and it still draws you in off Atlantic Avenue. This Art Deco bar in Cobble Hill has been around forever, and Toby Cecchini, the bartender who invented the Cosmopolitan, brought it back to life with the booths and floral wallpaper more or less intact. The kitchen does a Reuben and a double-patty burger, but the cocktails are what fill the room on a Tuesday.

Stone crab claws and bone marrow vinaigrette on a classic steakhouse menu is a pretty good summary of what Little River is doing right now. Sunny's leans into the old-meets-new Florida aesthetic hard, and the room hums with a crowd that dressed for it. The steaks come in shareable or individual cuts, the sides include russet potatoes fried in chicken schmaltz, and the martini program landed on Esquire's national list. The New York Times put it on their Restaurant List for 2025.

The skylight in the lobby dates to the 1920s, hidden until a renovation uncovered it. The Jefferson is a luxury hotel two blocks from the White House, decorated throughout as a quiet monument to its namesake: custom furniture based on Monticello originals, framed maps of places the third president loved, rooms with his words on the walls. The staff can hold a proper conversation about all of it. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

Iron four-poster beds and colonial furnishings fill a building that was, not so long ago, a saddlery. The Mokara is a boutique hotel on the River Walk with a Forbes Four Star rating, a rooftop pool overlooking the water, and a spa serious enough to count as a destination on its own. Ostra, the in-house restaurant, leans into international seafood. A compact, well-appointed stay for people who find the big chain hotels depressing.

A Beaux Arts landmark on Broadway that has been putting San Diego on notice since long before San Diego had a scene. The US Grant is a grand downtown hotel with high ceilings, burnished wood, and the quiet authority of a building that has never felt the need to explain itself. Forbes Four Star. Convention crowds and weekend arrivals fill the lobby, but the place absorbs them without breaking a sweat.