The Best Places to Drink and Stay in the United States

A plain wooden door down a sketchy Belltown alley opens into a speakeasy-style cocktail bar that fits maybe thirty people across two floors. Upstairs, the intimate bar puts you shoulder-to-shoulder with shelves stacked with cocktail books. The menu runs to eight drinks, but the move is Dealer's Choice: name your spirit, name your mood, and let the bartender figure out the rest.

Birch-paneled walls and deep green accents make it feel like the forest wandered indoors, which was clearly the point. Bluebird Cady Hill is a 55-room boutique hotel on Mountain Road, a redesigned riff on Stowe's old roadside lodges with considerably better taste in décor. Mt. Mansfield is minutes away, the Cady Hill trails are practically at the door, and the après-ski mood sticks around even when there's no ski to après.

A seventies ski lodge reborn as a boutique hotel at the base of Hunter Mountain, Bluebird leans into the fantasy of upstate New York without overselling it. The look splits the difference between retro summer camp and crisp contemporary design, with comforts that feel genuinely luxurious without tipping into fussy. Hunter Tavern keeps the hearty modern-rustic food you'd want after a day outside. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and the city crowd has clearly noticed.

The bullet holes in the walls are original, and so is the escape route through the ladies' lavatory. This Tenderloin cocktail bar started life as a Prohibition speakeasy, complete with a trapdoor and password, and neither gimmick has been retired. The 1920s painted wallpaper and marble staircase survived intact, and you still need the password to get in, which is either charming or exhausting depending on your mood.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with bottles replace the books here, and the ladders are real. This TriBeCa spirits bar has made brandy its organizing principle, stocking vintage Armagnacs, Cognacs, and plum brandies from corners of the world most bars have never considered. Whisky and rum fill the gaps, the cocktail list runs a hundred drinks deep, and the staff who climb those ladders to fetch your bottle know exactly what they're doing.

The zinc-topped bar inside the Ace Hotel is where Jeffrey Morgenthaler built his reputation, and Portland's cocktail crowd hasn't forgotten it. Clyde Common is technically a big, open dining hall, but the bar runs the show here, with vintage stools filling up fast under a double-height ceiling loud with conversation. The food is genuinely good, but nobody's coming just for dinner.

Ten luxury tents on a thousand acres of ranchland a few miles west of Vail, open summer through early fall only. Each tent comes with rain showers, wood-burning stoves, and enough plush linens to make you forget you're camping, which is sort of the point. The lodge handles breakfast and dinner, from a self-grilled BBQ setup to a full tasting menu. Horseback rides, fly-fishing, and mountain biking fill the days; actual Vail is thirty minutes if you need it.

Forty-five Craftsman bungalows spread across 1,700 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountain foothills, each with a fireplace and a soaking tub, most looking out over fairways or valley. This is a full-on golf resort with Robert Trent Jones Jr.'s championship course as the centerpiece, though the One Iron Bar and its martini list have a way of making the back nine feel optional. Il Vigneto handles Californian cooking with produce from the surrounding region.

Lark Hotels planted a modernist, color-forward boutique hotel in one of New England's most resolutely traditional ski towns, and somehow it fits. Field Guide reads less like a rebellion against Stowe's cozy-inn heritage than a cheerful argument with it: bright, contemporary design where you'd usually expect exposed beams and plaid. The kind of place that draws guests who came for the mountain but wouldn't be caught dead in a lodge aesthetic.

Tucked into Mandarin Plaza on Broadway, this contemporary Chinese American restaurant and bar is the project of a first-generation chef cooking his own story onto the plate. The cocktail program is serious enough to earn national bartender recognition, so start there before the food arrives. Dishes are built for sharing, the kitchen is open to the room, and the whole setup feels more like a dinner party than a transaction.

The cocktail bar on the second floor of the landmark Metropolitan Life building, where the ceilings are tall enough to make you feel like you should order something serious. The drinks program travels with the restaurant group globally, which keeps the bar from feeling like an afterthought to the dining room below. A polished crowd in no hurry fills the seats most evenings, and the room does most of the work before the first drink arrives.

Montauk sits at the farthest tip of Long Island, far enough out that locals just call it The End, and Gurney's has been holding down this stretch of Atlantic coastline longer than most of its guests have been alive. It's a full resort, with ocean views, a seawater pool, and the kind of unhurried pace that the rest of the Hamptons keeps promising but rarely delivers. The crowd leans casual and sand-tolerant, which is exactly right.

A Dutch Colonial mansion on a private lake in Stone Ridge, about two hours from the city, converted into a boutique hotel with the kind of restraint that makes you feel like you discovered it yourself. The carriage house and stables are now guest rooms, the old swimming pool got a quiet refresh, and the ground floor runs a farm-to-table restaurant called Butterfield. Hudson Valley weekenders who want nature without roughing it have found their place.

Plant-based Peruvian tasting menus in Shaw sounds like a premise that requires a disclaimer, yet Mita holds a Michelin star and a James Beard nomination for Best New Restaurant. The chef's team pulls from across Latin America, so the flavors run from Andean to coastal without apology. Two tasting menu lengths mean you can commit at whatever level feels reasonable on a Tuesday. The bar program is serious enough that Punch named the team among its best new bartenders.

The bookshelves and well-worn wood make My Loup feel less like a supper club and more like someone's very good dinner party. The French-leaning menu reads casual but cooks with real intent, seasonal and confidently seasoned, the kind of food where the chef is clearly enjoying themselves. The bar is no afterthought either, named among Punch's best new bartenders. The New York Times and Bon Appétit both took notice, and it's easy to see why.

A former bank vault now holds the wine list, which feels about right for a bar that takes its pours seriously. Nopa's cocktail menu runs classics, seasonal, and "spiritual" categories, alongside fifteen wines by the glass. The room earns its own attention: double-height ceilings, cartoonish SF murals, and tall windows that make the long bar feel less like a neighborhood spot and more like somewhere you accidentally stayed for three hours.

A wooded property off Mountain Road with direct access to Stowe's Recreation Path and one of the larger outdoor pools in the area, Outbound is a boutique hotel that splits the difference between glamping and summer camp for adults who own good fleece. Communal fire pits, Adirondack chairs, and a stylish all-day eatery fill the gaps that Stowe's older, stuffier lodging scene left open. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

A long sloping entry leads you up into a warm, modern room where communal high tables split the space between a serious bar and proper wood-fired pizza. Ryan Magarian's cocktail program is the draw here, pairing classics and house originals with Italian street food from the kitchen. The design reads clean rather than cozy, which suits the crowd that comes as much for the drinks as anything coming out of that oven.

You get in by picking up the phone inside a wooden booth at a hot dog joint on St. Marks. If whoever's watching the camera approves, the door buzzes open. PDT is a cocktail bar that takes the speakeasy conceit completely seriously, which is either charming or exhausting depending on your mood, and the line outside suggests most people land on charming. The drinks are the kind of careful, considered pours that made the whole city start doing this.

Gene Autry and Roy Rogers built Pioneertown as a permanent Old West film set so they wouldn't have to drive to the desert every time Hollywood needed tumbleweeds. The town never quite became the resort they imagined, but it got there eventually. This boutique motel is the lodging that finally fits the moment, sitting in the high desert near Joshua Tree where the line between stage set and actual town has always been pleasantly blurry.

A hundred-foot marble bar runs the length of the room, and the apothecary shelving, brass fixtures, and velvet accents make the whole place feel like a Victorian soda fountain that took a wrong turn into a Parisian atrium. This cocktail bar in Normal Heights has been an anchor of the San Diego drinks scene for ages, built around housemade bitters, syrups, and sodas long before that was a cliché.

Prospect Lake does most of the work here, catching the light across a quiet corner of North Egremont at whatever hour you wander out. This small resort pairs hand-built Scandinavian-style cabins with a restored wetland property and a suspended porch on the Cliff House that frames the Taconic Range. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels. Come without much of an agenda; the place seems designed for exactly that.

Reservations required, a three-night-a-week window, and a bouncer who greets you like a long-lost relative: Saxony sets the terms before you've touched a drink. This late-night cocktail bar lives beneath the Faena Hotel, down a staircase into a basement of black terrazzo, gold-leaf ceilings, and Art Deco bones, with a DJ running things until 4am. The crowd arrived on purpose and dressed accordingly.

The dark oak bar counter twists through the room like it couldn't decide where to stop, with booths opposite and vintage paneling that makes the whole place feel like it's been here forever. It's a steakhouse bar in Ballard's old commercial strip, and while drinks are the stated purpose, the kitchen has a way of making that position hard to defend. Difford's Guide gives it five stars.

Modular wall-mounted gear storage tells you exactly where Tälta Lodge's priorities lie, and it isn't the pillow menu. The rooms go full minimalist-chic, the furniture leans modernist, and the vibe is a deliberate nod to the ski-boom lodges of the sixties, reconceived for people who actually have taste now. Mountain biking, fly fishing, and serious skiing are all within reach, some rooms are dog-friendly, and the Michelin Guide has it listed among its selected hotels.

Stone pulled from local quarries and timber cut from nearby forests give this ski resort lodge a solidity that most new-builds skip in favor of slope access and a gift shop. Stowe is the kind of mountain that takes itself seriously, and the Lodge at Spruce Peak fits that tone, with construction that reads as considered rather than assembled. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and one that earns the designation on materials alone.

A converted mill complex sitting where Fishkill Creek meets Beacon's main drag, the Roundhouse is a hotel that landed at exactly the right moment in this town's unlikely revival. Dia:Beacon drew the art crowd upstate, and the rest followed. Rooms lean into the industrial bones without overdoing the exposed-brick thing, and the Hudson Valley is right outside whenever the galleries feel like enough.

The conceit is that a London Underground station was abandoned in 1890, rediscovered, and quietly converted into a gin clubhouse, and the room commits to the bit completely. A cocktail bar from the team behind Smuggler's Cove, Whitechapel stocks a staggering wall of gins and divides into three areas, including an oxidized-patina bar counter called The Platform. Come for a gin and tonic; stay because you forgot you were on Polk Street.

Airstream trailers with walk-in rain showers and kitchenettes in the middle of the Mojave: that's the pitch, and AutoCamp Joshua Tree commits to it without irony. Guests choose between the trailers and permanent suites, and the gap between the two is smaller than expected, both landing somewhere between minimalist boutique hotel and very stylish mobile home. For people who want the desert without actually roughing it.

Glamping resort an hour outside Austin where the tents sit on elevated platforms and come with king beds in 1,500-thread-count linens, wood-burning stoves, and en-suite bathrooms, which is not what most people mean by "roughing it." Activities run from horseback tours and e-bike rides to an Axe & Arrow Club, whatever that entails. The lodge handles everything from made-to-order breakfast to a five-course dinner, courtesy of a chef with serious fine-dining roots.

Winters has been quietly assembling the pieces of a wine-country destination, and this 78-room boutique hotel sits at the center of that project. The style is classic and unshowy, which is the right call for a small town trying not to oversell itself. A full-service spa and an Italian restaurant with wood-fired pizzas give you reasons to stay on property, while Yolo County tasting rooms are a short walk from the front door.

Monochrome rooms with a Bauhaus lean sit inside this boutique hotel on Chattanooga's Southside, selected by the Michelin Guide. Artwork covers every wall, bunk beds handle the overflow, and the café quietly pivots to cocktail bar after dark. Downstairs, the speakeasy-style restaurant serves modern Southern food with more ambition than the format usually promises. The city has grown into exactly this kind of place, which is either encouraging or a little on the nose.

Check-in happens at the bar on King Street, and the hotel hands you a cocktail when you arrive, which sets the tone for the whole stay. Moxy Chattanooga is a compact, design-forward hotel in the Southside neighborhood, with 108 small rooms built around modular furniture and glass-walled showers. The outdoor Railyard bar runs spring through fall. Southside's galleries and live music are walkable; the Tennessee Aquarium is a short drive.

Every room has a record player, fed by a vinyl library in the lobby, which tells you most of what you need to know about the ethos here. This 29-room hotel sits on the Wallkill River with private balconies over the water and radiant-heated bathroom floors. The self-guided spa moves at your pace through sauna, steam, frost room, and mineral pool. Kayaks and bikes are on hand, and Water Street Market, with its bookshop and wine bar, is right next door.

Safari-style canvas tents made in South Africa, parked under red Zion cliffs on 80 private acres, give this glamping resort its whole argument. You reach it down a long dirt road near the park's far west border, which is either romantic or inconvenient depending on your mood. Five miles of trails run right from camp, the Guacamole mountain-biking route is close, and an upscale restaurant means you never have to pretend roughing it was the point.

Kate Pierson of the B-52s once gave this creekside motel its kitschy makeover, and the current owners have since turned it into a boutique inn with rustic-chic rooms, locally roasted coffee, and Apotheke bath products. It sits in Mount Tremper, quietly selected by the Michelin Guide, and draws the kind of guests who pack a Patagonia vest and call it roughing it. The creek is real, at least.

The check-in desk is a cocktail bar, which sets the tone for what The Nevada is doing. This 21-room motel on Long Sands Beach has been gut-renovated by a husband-and-wife team, and the L-shaped building now runs art deco through a nautical filter: clean lines, ocean views, private terraces on every room. The beach is right there. Checking in early, staying late, and ordering another drink all feel equally reasonable.

Stock Island sits close enough to Key West that the distinction feels bureaucratic, which is roughly how the Perry Hotel gets away with being the freshest place to stay in a neighborhood that almost never builds anything new. The marina-side hotel has the bones of a well-designed resort without the theme-park finish, and Architectural Digest flagged it on arrival. A good base for people who'd rather dock a boat than fight for parking.

Perched on a bluff above the Pacific on the Sonoma Coast, Timber Cove Resort earns its reputation as a digital detox not through any posted policy but through pure geography: the cell service just doesn't reach. The wi-fi is famously spotty too, which turns out to be the amenity. Long walks, actual books, conversations that go somewhere. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Nubble Lighthouse from every room, which means the view does most of the decorating at this 18-room boutique hotel on the York coast. A former motor lodge, now redesigned into something that feels genuinely considered, with private patios, coastal-modern interiors, a pool, sauna, and beach access. Bikes and yoga classes are on offer when staring at the Atlantic stops being enough.

Fluted columns, plush banquettes, and a hand-painted dance-hall mural above a mahogany bar: Bix has been doing Great Gatsby glamour in a Gold Street alley since forever, and it has no interest in updating the brief. The cocktail menu plays it classic, which suits the room, since no one comes here for novelty. The crowd tends to dress for the occasion without being asked, which tells you most of what you need to know.

Hand-cut blocks of ice imported from Japan are the first clue that this isn't a typical whiskey bar. Tucked into the Las Vegas Arts District, Bar Ginza models itself on the quiet whiskey bars of Tokyo, with more than 90 Japanese bottles lining brick walls and flights structured as an omakase. If you don't know where to start, the co-owner behind the bar is happy to pour his way through an education.

The DJ booth alone is larger than some British bars, which tells you something about the scale Blackbird Ordinary is operating at. This is a sprawling American bar, pool table competing with the DJ for the room's soul, and the unspoken rule is that you do not dance. Out back, a terrace with its own bar and an open-air cinema keeps things properly Miami. Office workers and locals find common ground here without trying too hard.

The bar itself is barely the size of a large closet, which only explains why everyone crowds around it anyway instead of taking one of the many outdoor seats in the palm-shaded courtyard beyond. Broken Shaker is a cocktail bar tucked inside the Indian Creek Hotel, its walls and shelves so thoroughly cluttered with objects it feels less designed than accumulated. The drinks are the point, and regulars seem to treat the tight quarters as a feature.

Commune is a listening room and wine bar in Avondale Estates where the DJ booth and the sommelier carry equal weight. Steven Grubbs, formerly of Empire State South, steers an evolving list that includes Georgia wine from Crane Creek Vineyards, a rarity in Atlanta. Food runs from oysters and caviar to roasted chicken, enough to anchor a full evening. Deep-house and indie keep things moving long after the dessert wine arrives.

Perched over America's oldest working port, this waterfront hotel in Gloucester does classic New England maritime without apology: navy and weathered wood, fireplaces in the better suites, and ocean views that make you feel the design choices were basically inevitable. The onsite 1606 Restaurant & Oyster Bar leans into fresh Atlantic seafood, and the rooftop bar earns its keep at sunset in a way that's almost unfair to inland hotels.

A boutique hotel on the University of Tennessee's main drag, Graduate Knoxville leans hard into Volunteers territory: the rooms are done in orange and white, and a Peyton Manning partnership means the football nostalgia is baked in, not bolted on. The Graduate chain has made college-town hotels its whole thing, and the Michelin Guide has included this one in its Selected Hotels list. Pack accordingly if you're visiting on a game day.

A boutique hotel on a quiet SLO street, selected by the Michelin Guide, that benefits enormously from being exactly where it is. San Luis Obispo sits halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, which means most travelers blow past it, which means the Granada stays manageable, affordable, and genuinely pleasant to arrive at. Consider it a reward for taking the exit everyone else skips.

Six studio rooms in a restored 19th-century house on the New Hampshire seacoast, each with a full kitchen and in-unit laundry, which is the boutique hotel quietly admitting that some guests prefer to live in a place rather than just sleep in it. The decor is traditional in its bones but contemporary in execution, and the team fields calls from guests who want a local's read on where to eat or where to go. New Castle is a short drive from Portsmouth.

A hotel in Colorado Springs that lets you pitch a tent on a semi-enclosed camp deck if a proper bed feels too indoorsy. Kinship Landing is a boutique hotel built for people who came to climb something, with bunk rooms, private rooms, and suites, all in a utilitarian-chic style that stops short of trying too hard. The bar and café runs an all-day menu, and the New South End neighborhood does the rest. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

Geodesic domes and tree-platform villas, each with its own plunge pool or hot tub, tucked into the Hill Country outside Marble Falls. Missing Hotel is a glamping retreat where the name explains the concept: you go missing for a few days, which is the whole point. Eleven units, a quirky mix of modern and bohemian, close enough to Austin for a weekend escape but far enough that "off-grid" isn't just marketing copy.

Every room faces the marina, so you wake up deciding whether to kayak, snorkel, or book a fishing charter before coffee. Technically on Stock Island rather than Key West proper, this contemporary luxury resort has six pools and the largest rooms in the area, starting with a king bed and balcony and scaling up to two-bedroom suites. The Yellowfin Bar and Grill runs breakfast through late evening. For old-Key-West atmosphere, head west one island; for space and water toys, stop here.

Petit Soleil calls itself a "boutique bed and beverage," which tells you something about its priorities. This French-inflected B&B in San Luis Obispo sits at the edge of California's central coast wine country, and the complimentary apéritif hour feels less like a perk than a philosophical position. Rooms run Parisian in feel but not Parisian in size. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, and the patio, when the sun cooperates, is most of the point.

A former county courthouse turned boutique hotel in one of Connecticut's prettiest towns, with twenty rooms and the kind of restraint that signals Salt Hotels' touch across New England. The old courtroom is now a restaurant, all high ceilings and wood paneling, and the seasonal rooftop bar is called Verdict, which is either very clever or exactly what you'd expect, depending on your mood.

A Victorian tavern turned 20-room boutique hotel on the edge of Lenox, where the rooms split the difference between antique atmosphere and working Wi-Fi. Some have reading nooks, some have private porches, all have local art on the walls. There's a living room for a drink, but no proper bar or restaurant, which is fine since the town center is a short walk and Stockbridge is minutes south. The Michelin Guide includes it among its selected hotels.

A Victorian house from the 1880s that Lark Hotels converted into a 32-room boutique hotel, The Hotel Portsmouth sits in a walkable seaside town an easy drive from Boston. The bones are all 19th-century charm, but the rooms lean contemporary, which makes a quiet statement in a region where hotels tend to treat "traditional" as a personality. Portsmouth's shops and restaurants are right outside the door.

A two-hundred-year-old house renovated with contemporary flair rather than colonial reverence, this ten-room bed-and-breakfast runs on a low-touch model: contactless check-in, self-catered breakfast, and a concierge available when you need one. Every room is a fully furnished studio apartment, which makes it feel less like a historic inn and more like a very tasteful borrowed flat. Portsmouth's restaurants, breweries, and pubs start at the front door.

Steel vaults are still bolted into every floor, left over from when this building was an actual stock exchange for mining claims. Now it's a hotel, four Italian Renaissance buildings with Art Deco touches, tin ceilings, brass railings, and a lobby anchored by a marble fireplace and an antique piano. Rooms have granite desktops, high ceilings, and stone showers with dual heads. The Wyndham flag flies out front, but the bones are very much their own.

The interior designer who runs this ten-room boutique lodge in the Catskills also lives in it, which does focus the mind. The 1960s A-frame bones stay intact while the rooms inside go full Shaker-warm, leather headboards and Brooklinen sheets. Each room reads a little differently from the last. Four acres of lawn, a lounge with an open kitchen, and weekend breakfast are the amenities, so self-sufficient guests will feel most at home.

Four freestanding tiny houses on platforms just outside Zion National Park, each one named after something suitably dramatic from scripture. The smallest runs under 300 square feet, which sounds snug until you remember the hot tub, the fire pit, and the fact that Zion's canyon walls are essentially your backyard. The Michelin Guide has selected it, which feels like the universe rewarding someone for thinking small.

The working winery came first, and everything else followed. An hour north of Atlanta in the North Georgia foothills, Chateau Elan is a full resort built around 3,500 acres of vineyard and pine forest, with rooms running from wood-and-leather Deluxe Kings up to a Presidential Suite with vineyard views. Five restaurants, a bourbon speakeasy, a spa, and championship golf round things out, which is lucky, since most guests never find a reason to leave.

Bookshelves line the walls of this University of Iowa-adjacent hotel, which makes sense once you remember that Iowa City is home to the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the creative-writing program that launched half the authors on your nightstand. The Graduate leans into that literary identity hard, so expect campus-town energy, Hawkeye pride, and a lobby that feels more like a well-curated reading room than a chain hotel check-in.

Sewing machine motifs and geometric textiles cover the rooms of this downtown hotel, a nod to El Paso's old garment industry that doubles as a quiet history lesson. The building is a 1960s motor inn conversion, and the border-city identity runs through everything: Mamacitas handles locally rooted brunch with Mexican influences, while the fifth-floor cocktail bar sits above a rooftop pool with views across two countries.

The stained-glass ceiling in the Dome Bar has been stopping people mid-sentence for over a century, and it's still the best argument for booking a room in the building around it. Hotel Paso del Norte is a full-on luxury hotel, old-school grandeur in the public spaces, but the rooms go contemporary, with custom furniture and wall-sized murals of antique city maps that make ignoring your inbox feel almost cultured.

A Berkshires wellness resort where you can book a treetop ropes course in the morning and still order a cocktail before dinner, which puts it ahead of most places that use the word "wholesome" this often. The facilities are new, the design runs toward calm without tipping into cold, and the programming swings from spa treatments to beekeeping. It's an easy drive from New York, which the parking lot quietly confirms.

A mid-century motor lodge that never forgot what it was, River Lodge sits visible from the 101 in Paso Robles wine country, its retro façade and postcard pool intact. Rooms were quietly overhauled with bespoke furnishings and private porches, some with hammocks or firepits. Complimentary Linus bikes and a poolside cocktail bar make it easy to stay longer than planned, which is the whole point of wine country anyway.

A lovingly restored 1950s motor inn where the retro bones have been given proper adult upgrades, including full kitchens with Smeg fridges that suggest someone has opinions. This is a self-catered, low-touch stay on the New Hampshire coast, so you're cooking, not calling room service. The beach is directly across Ocean Boulevard, the swim shop has your gear, and Portsmouth is ten minutes away when the tranquility starts to feel suspiciously peaceful.

A former furniture store in downtown El Paso, now a boutique hotel where the walls do most of the talking. Every room carries original work from Mexican, European, and local artists, so the effect lands somewhere between gallery and guestroom. The building itself has been around forever, and the renovation leans into that bones-and-history feel rather than papering over it. A good sign for a city center that has been quietly pulling itself together.