The Best Places to Stay and Do in the United States

Four-poster beds, 18th-century art on the walls, and grounds so carefully tended you half-expect a gardener in a flat cap to materialize from the hedgerows. This Auberge Resorts inn in the Litchfield Hills plays the English country house straight, without irony, and pulls it off. It holds a Michelin Key. Two hours from New York, it draws the kind of guests who pack actual luggage and linger over breakfast without checking a phone.

Gondolas glide through the atrium waterways past flamingos, which is either the most Palm Desert thing imaginable or proof that nobody here is thinking small. This sprawling Coachella Valley resort comes with two Ted Robinson golf courses, a 38,000-square-foot spa, multiple restaurants, and tennis on clay, grass, and hard courts. The Santa Rosa Mountains frame the whole scene whenever you step outside.

Snowbird averages 500 inches of snow a year, and The Cliff Lodge sits right in the middle of it, ski-in, ski-out against the jagged Wasatch peaks. It's a four-season mountain resort, so summer brings aerial tram rides and snowshoeing gives way to hiking, but winter is the main event. Expert runs and heli-skiing attract the serious crowd, though nearly a third of the trails are beginner-friendly for those who prefer their adrenaline at a lower dose.

Three pools, a harbor view, and the kind of tropical-modern design that manages not to embarrass itself in a town where novelty is usually suspect. The Marker is a waterfront resort on the quieter edge of Key West, and its neighbors, famously hostile to anything new, seem to have made peace with it. Rooms lean into the Caribbean palette without overdoing it, and the water is right there, which in Key West is really the whole point.

A one-acre working farm on the grounds sets the tone for this 22-room boutique hotel on the Hamptons' quieter, less scene-y end. Jean-Georges runs the restaurant, and the kitchen leans heavily on what's growing out back. The rooms are chic and modern without the look-at-me energy that follows money east from Manhattan on summer Fridays. Bridgehampton is a pleasant stroll from here; the Montauk Highway strip is low-key by local standards.

A 1903 Georgian Revival building with long wraparound porches and rocking chairs, sitting inside the Presidio with a sliver of Golden Gate Bridge peeking over the trees. This intimate B&B offers full breakfast, evening wine and cheese, and beds that apparently inspire loyalty. It's quiet enough to forget the city exists, which is the whole point, and 24 miles of trails begin more or less at the door.

A 1960s motor lodge on the road between North Adams and Williamstown, now reborn as a boutique hotel with a decidedly hip second act. The Berkshires revival, fueled largely by MASS MoCA around the corner, gave someone the good idea to rescue this roadside relic rather than raze it. The result lands somewhere between nostalgia and design magazine, the kind of small country hotel that earns two Michelin Keys without making a fuss about it.

Full kitchens, in-unit laundry, and Bulgari bath products make this extended-stay property in Beverly Hills feel less like roughing it and more like subletting someone's very tasteful second apartment. The 88 suites and townhouses run sleek and modern throughout, with room service arriving from the adjacent Spago when cooking feels like too much. A landscaped terrace with fire pits and views toward the Hollywood Hills keeps things social. A seven-night minimum applies.

Stained glass windows and terrazzo floors survive from the original train depot, and the hotel built around them leans into that legacy without apology. Rooms run mid-century rather than Edwardian, but the real draw is the Grand Hall, where a gilded arched ceiling towers over The Bar at Asher Adams. Classic cocktails under that ceiling feel less like a hotel amenity and more like the whole point of the stop. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

A downtown Houston hotel where the saddle-colored leather headboards and earth-toned rugs make it feel like a ranch house that somehow ended up on the 20th floor. The whole place is a tribute to trailblazing Texan women, and every room and the chic lobby bar was designed by female talent. Rooms are spacious, rocking chairs sit by floor-to-ceiling windows, and the top-floor suite comes with a formal dining room and soaking tub.

The Dutch chain's compact formula lands in Pioneer Square: XL king beds, rainfall showers, and tablet controls that handle everything from blackout blinds to room temperature. A 24/7 canteen runs from breakfast through evening cocktails, and the lobby's primary-colored furniture signals that laptops are very welcome. King Street Station is a short walk away. A Michelin Selected Hotel, it's built for people who want a smart, functional night's sleep rather than a personality.

Murals by local artists, including a member of the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, set the tone in the lobby of this design-forward hotel on the edge of South Lake Union, a short walk from the Amazon campus. Rooms are deliberately compact, trading square footage for oversized beds, blackout blinds, and full app control over lighting and temperature. The implicit deal: the city is your living room, and the bed is very good.

A skylighting system engineered to flood the lobby with natural light is a bold promise for a Minneapolis hotel, and the greenery and tall columns do sell the bit. Rooms lean contemporary with generous windows, and some look out over the skyline. Giulia handles Northern Italian and wood-fired pizza downstairs, while Spyhouse draws the neighborhood in for coffee and pastry. The fitness center runs Peloton bikes for guests who travel with ambitions.

A boutique hotel that rents you skis and snowboards from its own shop before sending you toward the Wasatch Mountains, which are minutes away. It sits inside a campus built by a Seattle outdoor retailer, so a bouldering gym, an indoor skate park, and a yoga studio are all on site. The hotel itself has a café and a rooftop bar, which keeps the après-mountain portion of the day well covered too.

Roosevelt Island's only hotel sits on the Cornell Tech campus, which most New Yorkers will learn about only when they book a room here. Graduate by Hilton leans into that campus identity hard, with Snøhetta-designed rooms in bright, cheerful colors and skyline views on most sides. The 18th-floor Panorama Room bar delivers a 360-degree look at New York from an angle the city rarely offers its own residents.

A Greek Revival mansion in the Garden District, built by the Irish architect whose columns and Roman arches still define half the neighborhood. The 18-room boutique hotel layers antiques and hand-painted furniture against boldly patterned wallpaper and geometric canopy beds, so the rooms feel less like preservation projects and more like someone with very good taste actually lives there. Polished wood floors, gilded oil paintings, and Beekman 1802 bathrooms.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Common from nearly every room, which is a solid reason to book a higher floor at this sleek downtown hotel on Tremont Street. The building is a quiet contemporary amid Boston's colonial streetscape, but the interiors go louder: bold patterns, rich materials, and lighting someone clearly thought hard about. Beds come with ten pillow varieties, which is either thoughtful or a decision you'll regret making at midnight.

The terra cotta atrium under a massive skylight is the first thing that stops you in this downtown Detroit hotel, which has been around forever and knows it. Rooms run to tall windows and high ceilings, the bones of a grand old skyscraper kept largely intact through a careful restoration. It sits right where downtown meets Midtown, so the theaters, stadiums, and galleries are all on foot.

Complimentary shoe shines, which most hotels quietly retired sometime around the flip phone, are still on offer here. This full-service downtown hotel leans into classic materials, marble bathrooms, leather sofas, and dark varnished hardwood, without feeling like a time capsule. Nightly turndown service rounds out the picture of a place that simply hasn't bothered cutting corners. Minneapolis gets underestimated by the coasts, and so, probably, does this hotel.

Lokal Fishtown lands somewhere between boutique hotel and vacation rental, which is exactly the pitch. The loft-style apartments run modernist but unpretentious, with hotel bathrooms, apartment kitchens, a cocktail kit stocked and ready, and a curated list of delivery apps for when you can't decide. One unit has garden access, another a deep soaking tub. Fishtown being Fishtown, the bars and restaurants just outside make staying in feel almost wasteful.

Check-in happens at Bar Moxy, which doubles as the lobby, so you're handed a drink before you see your room. The hotel is Marriott's budget-forward brand done with personality: compact rooms in moody charcoal, walk-in showers, motion-activated lighting, and names like Vibe and Groove that are corny enough to circle back around to charming. South Lake Union puts Pike Place and the Space Needle within easy walking distance.

Apartments with a washer/dryer and live plants in every unit, inside the landmarked Book Tower. ROOST is an extended-stay boutique hotel where the studios and one- or two-bedroom suites run closer to a furnished apartment than a standard room, with full kitchens and a bikes-to-borrow program. Dogs are welcome, and when cooking feels like too much, the building's own restaurant options are right downstairs.

The Nash Collection is a boutique hotel that gets Nashville right, trading the honky-tonk clichés for something genuinely stylish without feeling like it's trying too hard. The kind of place where the lobby crowd looks like they flew in for a show and decided to stay an extra two nights. It fits the city's new energy perfectly, warm and a little flashy, but with enough taste to back it up.

A boutique hotel in Charleston's French Quarter, steps from the waterfront, that manages to feel like a stylish country house despite sitting squarely in the city's busiest stretch of East Bay Street. The mansion-style rooms and unhurried atmosphere are a deliberate counterpoint to everything humming just outside the door. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected Charleston hotels, which in this neighborhood is saying something.

The cowhide upholstery and local artwork make clear that this is no generic chain drop-in: the Thompson Dallas is a city-center hotel that wears its Texas credentials alongside its Manhattan modernist bones. Rooms come with minibars stocked with Texas-made products, and a spacious spa sits on the ninth floor. The tower location means the views are part of the deal, and a modern Italian restaurant by a Michelin-starred chef handles dinner.

A hotel with over 1,500 rooms that somehow still has a personality, Virgin Las Vegas leans into its brand's irreverence rather than the usual Vegas gilded-palace routine. The pool situation is a full beach club, there's a Nobu on property, and the entertainment calendar runs more interesting than most strips along the Strip. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, which tracks for a place that treats design as something other than an afterthought.

The four rooms above Wm. Mulherin's Sons sit inside a former whiskey-bottling plant in Fishtown, which tells you something about the neighborhood's trajectory. This is a boutique hotel in the loosest sense, a handful of rooms rather than a property, and the draw is as much the wood-fired Italian restaurant downstairs as anything happening on your floor. Pack light and eat well.

A 1964 concrete hulk at Wilshire and Normandie, the LINE is a hotel that leans into its brutalist bones rather than apologizing for them. The Sydell Group renovation turned 384 art-filled rooms into a Koreatown landmark, and the Hollywood Hills-facing rooms frame the Griffith Observatory and the Hollywood Sign like a painting someone left on your wall. Design-forward guests who find warm neutrals suspicious tend to feel at home here.

The checkered-tile courtyard pool and coral lounge chairs set the tone at this Art Deco boutique hotel on South Beach. A glossy lobby leads to an indoor tiki bar, pastel poolside cabanas, and freestanding roll-top tubs in the rooms, all restored with vintage furniture by the designer behind the Chateau Marmont renovation. The Michelin Guide has selected it among notable hotels. Coastal clubhouse is the vibe, with just enough whimsy to make the Instagram crowd feel validated.

Every one of the 192 rooms comes with a private balcony facing the Gulf, which sets the tone for what kind of resort this is. The 16-story tower sits on the quieter southern end of Clearwater Beach, where the foot traffic thins out and the sand feels like it belongs to the guests. Inside, the mood is hushed and polished, a deliberate step away from the louder stretch of beach to the north. A rooftop restaurant, a spa, and a pool round things out.

Seventy-eight beachfront acres of white stucco and red-tiled roofs designed to echo a Spanish village, sitting between the Pacific and the Santa Ynez wine country. This Ritz-Carlton resort has 358 rooms, five restaurants, and one of the larger spas on the Central Coast, so leaving the property is entirely optional. The Santa Barbara coast tends to attract a crowd that has already decided leisure is a serious pursuit, and the hotel leans into that.

A luxury hotel sitting over Sarasota Bay in the city's cultural district, with the Ringling campus and Marie Selby Botanical Gardens nearby for days you feel ambitious. The hotel itself offers a Tom Fazio-designed golf club, a private Beach Club, a spa, and Jack Dusty, the waterfront bar where the cocktails are creative and the Gulf seafood is the real draw. Sarasota is quieter than its Florida neighbors, which is more or less the point.

Some rooms look directly into Truist Park, close enough to follow the count without a ticket. This AAA Four Diamond hotel sits inside The Battery Atlanta, the mixed-use development wrapped around the Braves' stadium, so the postgame crowd spills past your front door rather than into a parking lot. Rooms run to 55-inch TVs and refined furnishings, and the upper suites add rooftop patios with soaking tubs above the outfield.

The rooftop pool catches the sea breeze off the bay, which goes a long way toward explaining why guests tend to linger up there longer than planned. This Kimpton hotel sits right in the middle of downtown, with the Gaslamp District's low-rise Victorian blocks and their bars and restaurants essentially at the door. The vibe is what San Diego does well: polished without being stiff, comfortable without being forgettable. A Michelin Selected Hotel.

The rooms run crisp and modernist, and the suites get bold color and genuinely strange contemporary art. This Andaz sits not on the water but in the Gaslamp Quarter, which puts the city's nightlife at the door rather than the horizon. It used to operate under a different name with a racier reputation, and something of that energy lingers in how the hotel carries itself. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

Philippe Starck designed this Autograph Collection hotel, and it shows, in a way that's meant to be noticed. It sits in Downtown Miami rather than the beach, which locals will tell you is a feature. Rooms run spacious, the Dua Spa by K'Alma handles recovery, and the pool deck has the kind of energy that makes checkout feel like a personal failure. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels.

A former bank building in Nashville's Arts District, the Fairlane Hotel leans into its Seventies origins rather than apologizing for them. Where most boutique hotels default to cool grays and mid-century safe choices, this one goes warmer, with the color accents that decade actually favored. The Michelin Guide has it among its selected hotels, which tracks for one of the more considered stays on the north edge of downtown.

A wall of vintage speaker cabinets anchors the lobby of this art deco boutique hotel, a Hyatt property a short walk from the Ryman. The bones are old-school, neon marquee and octagonal windows intact, but Stonehill Taylor updated the interiors with leather and velvet that nod to Nashville's musical past without leaning too hard on it. Rooms feel considered rather than themed, and there are two bars, one off the lobby and one on the rooftop pool terrace, for when you need both.

The cellar bar has been a notorious local nightspot for longer than anyone will admit, which tells you something about the Hotel Havana's bones. This boutique hotel on the Riverwalk keeps its century-old structure intact and layers on a pre-Castro Cuban romance that feels lived-in rather than themed. Rooms start compact but climb quickly toward something genuinely plush. A Michelin Selected Hotel, and one with actual character to justify the billing.

Built from scratch on the South Congress lot where Willie Nelson once ran the Austin Opry House, Hotel Magdalena is the newest piece of Bunkhouse Group's quietly growing neighborhood takeover. The design leans into a gentle 1970s warmth without tipping into theme-park nostalgia. It's the kind of hotel that earns its street by knowing exactly where it is, which, on this particular stretch of Austin, counts for a lot.

Biscayne Bay sits right outside the windows, which is a reasonable substitute for the beach you don't get at this Brickell hotel on the Miami mainland. Rooms are clean-lined and minimalist, in the way Hyatt's boutique-leaning Centric brand tends to favor. The onsite Caña lounge leans into Cuban culture with Latin small plates and fresh seafood. Wynwood and the Design District are close enough to make this a workable base for urban exploration.

Eight stone-walled suites with freestanding tubs occupy what was once a 19th-century schoolhouse dedicated to Friedrich Schiller, which is either poetic or a little on the nose. This 347-room boutique hotel blends that preserved historic shell with a tower that layers Bauhaus and Spanish colonial details in together. Ten floors up, the open-air Tenfold rooftop bar has unobstructed views over downtown San Antonio, which does a lot of the selling all by itself.

Check-in here comes with a craft cocktail, which sets the tone for this 172-room Marriott Moxy in downtown Oakland. The pink neon sign and a multi-story mural mark the building from a block away. The bar that handles arrivals doubles as an all-day lounge and co-working space, so the lobby is reliably animated. Rooms run modern boutique, with subway-tile bathrooms and wall-mounted storage keeping things compact and intentional.

The old Hotel St. James sign still crowns the roofline, and the marble staircase and vintage elevators inside make it clear the building has been around forever. This 122-room boutique hotel in the Gaslamp Quarter keeps the Victorian bones while layering on the Palisociety signature look: rich colors, eclectic furnishings, and enough of a French accent that you half-expect a beret somewhere.

Brutalist concrete and pecan wood beside a pool ringed by pecan trees, the Carpenter Hotel sits behind the old Carpenter's Union Hall on the south side of Lady Bird Lake, close enough to Zilker Park and Barton Springs that outdoor plans make themselves. Bunkhouse Hotels runs it, which explains the local instincts baked into a building that reads as a love letter to Austin without begging it for approval.

The Dagny is a boutique hotel inside a 1928 Art Deco tower whose ornate ceilings and brass fittings survived intact while the sensibility around them got considerably sharper. Faneuil Hall and the waterfront are a short walk, which keeps the lobby purposeful on weekdays. Tradesman Café handles breakfast, Fin Point handles the seafood, and the building's rumored history of hidden revolutionary cannons handles the small talk.

A 1939 residential building a block from the Peninsula, converted into a boutique hotel by Palisociety, who have made a small empire out of this exact move. No monumental lobby, no sprawling pool deck, just the kind of quirkily stylish rooms that make you feel like you live in Beverly Hills rather than visiting it. The Peninsula crowd is paying more and getting a longer check-in line.

Three 19th-century buildings on the National Register of Historic Places anchor this 253-room hotel spread across four and a half garden acres between Downtown and Southtown. The River Walk is a short walk, but the shaded pathways, big pool, and the Anaqua Garden Bar tucked under the trees make leaving feel optional. A daily tea ceremony under an ancient anaqua tree is the kind of quiet ritual guests mention long after checkout.

A row of 18th-century warehouse buildings stitched together into a hotel, The Vendue calls itself Charleston's art hotel and means it, with serious contemporary work hung throughout rather than the usual decorative shrugs. Every room is different, the rooftop bar has been a neighborhood fixture forever, and the restaurant, Revival, runs on seasonal and heirloom ingredients. The kind of boutique hotel that gives the concept a good name.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame either the Houston skyline or Buffalo Bayou Park depending on which way your room faces, which is a nice problem to have. This boutique-style full-service hotel runs midcentury modern throughout its rooms and suites, with spa showers and high-end linens doing the heavy lifting. The rooftop pool is one of the larger ones in the city, and there's a coffee shop and a steakhouse when you surface.

Rugged wood, leather, and stone textures run through the modernist interiors here, giving the Thompson brand's mid-century aesthetic a quietly Texan edge. This sleek hotel towers above the River Walk, which means the city's restaurants, bars, and shops are essentially at the front door. It's a Hyatt property now, but the design identity has held. The Michelin Guide lists it among its selected hotels.

Aspen has always had the mountain town aesthetic handled; what it lacked was a hotel that leaned fully into the scene. The W fills that gap with a boutique-scale property that nods just enough to Alpine without surrendering an inch of sleek. Expect the full spa, ski, and fitness setup that the brand runs on, plus a food truck and an Asian-fusion bar for après. Priced accordingly, and the clientele dress like they know it.

Named for the men who drove cattle up the Chisholm Trail, Hotel Drover sits inside Fort Worth's historic Stockyards district, where the Western aesthetic is less costume party, more lived-in. The rooms lean rustic without tipping into bolo-tie excess, the backyard has a pool and hot tub, and the upscale 97 West restaurant is on-site when the mood calls for it. Michelin awarded it one Key.

The original stone walls of a former Calistoga château went from graffiti-covered to centerpiece when the current owners rescued this long-abandoned property and turned it into a boutique hotel. Everything inside had to go, but the bones are something, and the result is a quietly grand place to stay in Napa Valley. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

The Spanish Revival bones have been here forever, and a top-to-bottom renovation brought them back to the kind of formal California glamour that makes you feel underdressed just checking in. This is a Fairmont hotel in downtown Long Beach, so expect crisp service and rooms that skew sophisticated over breezy. The rooftop bar looks out to Catalina on a clear day, and the Sky Room above it pushes all the way to the L.A. skyline.

An actual ghost town turned luxury resort in remote southwestern Colorado, Dunton Hot Springs is a cluster of hand-hewn log cabins (and one teepee) sitting along the Dolores River between Telluride and Mesa Verde. The abandoned gold prospectors' camp was restored shack by shack, so roughing it now involves thermal baths, spa treatments, and fine organic dining. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

Halibut Cove has no road in, so you arrive by floatplane or boat, which does set expectations. Stillpoint is an upscale wilderness lodge built from local Alaskan timber, its cabins rough-hewn on the outside and surprisingly plush within, with big beds, serious baths, and porch views that make the hot tub feel almost redundant. All meals are taken here, which suits a place where "popping out for dinner" is not an option. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

The black-glass tower sits directly above TD Garden, which means Bruins nights are either thrilling or a logistical adventure depending on your schedule. This design-forward hotel keeps rooms compact and consistent: XL beds, rain showers, blackout blinds, and a tablet that runs everything. The second-floor lobby doubles as a lounge, with street art and deep colors doing the heavy lifting. Beacon Hill and the harbor are visible from the terrace if you need convincing you're somewhere.

A classical-revival tower that locals know as part of Birmingham's "Heaviest Corner on Earth," the Elyton is a hotel with actual bones, its 117 rooms running tall and light in a building that was turning heads long before the neighborhood caught up. The arts district hums outside; inside, things stay polished without feeling stiff. The Yard handles brunch and bistro duty downstairs for when you don't feel like venturing far.

A koi pond and a fountain anchor the courtyard of this small boutique hotel on South Congress, which is otherwise surrounded by taco bars and boot shops doing brisk business. No front desk, no elevator, no pool: just calm oak-furnished suites with Sferra linens and private wood-lined verandas behind sliding glass doors. The Japanese-inspired restraint makes it feel like the neighborhood's noise belongs to someone else entirely.

The old bikini bar sign still hangs above the Santa Monica Boulevard entrance, which tells you most of what you need to know about Gold Diggers as a hotel. It occupies a building that once housed a bikini bar downstairs, a residential hotel above it, and a rehearsal space out back where L.A. rock royalty is rumored to have practiced. The vibe is exactly what that history implies: a rock-and-roll hotel that didn't have to try very hard to become one.

The anchor here is the Ivy Tower, a ziggurat-style Art Deco landmark that the rest of the hotel wraps around, matching its clean lines and geometric flourishes throughout. It's a full-service luxury hotel in downtown Minneapolis, selected by the Michelin Guide, with a spa serious enough to draw locals, plus a restaurant and bar that visiting sports teams apparently don't complain about.

The Walters Art Museum is around the corner and the Peabody Institute just beyond, so the boutique hotel that landed in Mount Vernon clearly knew its audience. Joie de Vivre filled Hotel Revival with enough art and design that the rooms themselves feel curated rather than decorated. Mount Vernon is one of Baltimore's oldest and most quietly creative neighborhoods, and the hotel leans into that identity without making you feel like you wandered into a gallery opening.