The Best Hotels in the United States

Two historic buildings merged into one downtown hotel, steps from Powell's and Portland's better tables. Woodlark holds a Michelin Key and leans into the city's quieter, more polished register, the one that gets overlooked in all the weirdness coverage. The location, sitting between downtown and Burnside, means you can walk almost anywhere worth going.

Six acres of winding garden paths and Victorian farmhouse buildings in the heart of Sonoma wine country, MacArthur Place is a boutique hotel that moves at a slower speed than the tasting-room circuit outside its gates. The 69 rooms spread across 20 low-slung historic buildings, so it feels less like checking in and more like borrowing a friend's very well-appointed ranch. Forbes Four Star. The spa keeps guests horizontal well past noon.

Perched on a cliff above the Pacific in Dana Point, this Waldorf Astoria resort fans out across lush gardens that step down through pools, a sculpture garden, and a Robert Trent Jones Jr. golf course before hitting a private beach club. Six ocean-view restaurants, a full spa, and enough on-property activity to make nearby attractions feel like homework. A Forbes Four Star property where "casual elegance" is less a cliche than an actual operating philosophy.

A rooftop beehive supplying honey to the bar and kitchen is a flex most waterfront hotels don't bother with. This 424-room hotel sits on the harbor between Faneuil Hall and the Seaport, so the views are doing a lot of work whether you're in the lobby, lined in Italian marble and Texas limestone, or up in your room. Three dining options, a spa, and a health club round things out for a property that leans toward the polished business-traveler end of the scale.

A 33-story oval glass tower two blocks from the Broadway honky-tonks, the JW Marriott is a full-service downtown hotel with 533 rooms, a spa, a rooftop pool, and three restaurants. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the skyline, and the bronze and gold metalwork throughout is meant to echo the Cumberland River. Michael Mina's rooftop bar sits at the top of it all, which is either very Nashville or very not Nashville, depending on your mood.

Montage Hotels built its name on rarefied seclusion, so their Pendry line is a deliberate pivot: an urban boutique hotel planted in the thick of the Gaslamp Quarter, where the six bars and restaurants are meant to pull in neighborhood regulars as much as guests. Rooms run loft-apartment styling rather than resort grandeur, and the whole thing skews younger and more affordable than its Montage cousins, without exactly being a bargain.

The old Charles Street Jail, a granite hulk from the mid-1800s, is now a full-service luxury hotel where the do-not-disturb sign reads "Solitary" and the in-room safe doubles as a bedside table. The conversion leans into the bit without apology: a cocktail bar in the original cellblock, restaurant names that wink at incarceration, and mugshot art on the walls. The rooms are comfortable, the theming is committed, and the location near Beacon Hill is hard to argue with.

Oak Creek runs right through the 11-acre property, which means the sound of moving water follows you nearly everywhere at this Forbes Four Star luxury resort in Sedona's Red Rock Country. Cottages, cliff-side suites, and lodge rooms all lean into the setting, with creek or red rock views depending on your luck. The rugged landscape does most of the decorating, which is a relief given how hard resort design usually tries.

A polished-concrete courtyard, warmed by mid-century Danish armchairs, sets the tone at this boutique hotel on East Cesar Chavez. The Heywood holds a Michelin Key, and what's quietly notable is how thoroughly Austin-rooted it is: the architects, designers, artists on the walls, and most of the supply chain are local, with women running the show from ownership down. Style with a conscience, and it doesn't feel the need to remind you constantly.

A Michelin Key hotel just outside the Chinatown Gateway, The Hoxton, Portland brought its London post-industrial bones to a century-old building and then let the in-house design team loose on Northwest modernism of the Sixties and Seventies, which turns out to be a very good fit. The result feels less like a branded import than a building that always looked this way, which is probably the highest compliment a hotel can earn without admitting it was trying.

A Scottish-style links course wraps around this Forbes Four Star resort on the northwest edge of Pebble Beach, which means you can watch golfers trudge through coastal wind from the heated pool without lifting a club yourself. Rooms are well-appointed, the grounds roll straight into sand dunes and the Pacific, and the property has enough bars and restaurants that you never need to leave, which some guests appear not to.

A Forbes Five Star resort on Cape Cod's southeastern elbow, with a private beach, a full-service spa, and a Lexus shuttle that'll whisk you wherever the peninsula demands. The shingle-style main house has been around forever, and the formula hasn't changed much: fishing charters, sunset sails, a kids' program in summer, and the general understanding that leaving the property is optional.

Twenty-seven acres of salt marshes, gardens, and woodlands sit between this Forbes Five Star resort and Pleasant Bay, with the Atlantic just beyond. It's classic Cape Cod country-inn territory, the kind where staff track you down on the tennis court to ask if you need anything. Rooms run from spacious suites with gas fireplaces and marble baths to snug private cottages, all done in upscale New England style without tipping into fussy.

Casitas scattered across 57 acres of high desert, each with a kiva fireplace and a private terrace, give this Four Seasons the feel of a small compound rather than a hotel. The Southwest decor is restrained enough that you won't feel like you wandered into a gift shop. A shuttle runs to Santa Fe proper, though the spa and the Sangre de Cristo views make a strong case for staying put. Forbes Four Star.

The pool at this mid-century hotel has hosted more lives than most buildings, including a stretch as an office, a radio station, and a filming location for Top Gun. Now it's back as a full urban resort on El Cajon Boulevard, renovated by a local hospitality group with retro glamour intact. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key. Expect good cocktails, a scene around the pool, and a vibe that takes the past seriously without being stuffy about it.

The name nods to the Prohibition speakeasy that once operated in the basement, which is a better origin story than most boutique hotels can manage. Lark Hotels gave the old house a full renovation, and their signature formula is intact: photogenic rooms, genuinely comfortable beds, and a walkable neighborhood that makes you feel like a local who somehow has nicer lodgings than anyone else on the block. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

The red brick shell of a 19th-century orphanage in the Lower Garden District has been turned into a boutique hotel that wears history without being suffocated by it. Rooms lean into retro detail while staying genuinely comfortable, and the food program is serious, with a French-Vietnamese cafe and an Italian restaurant on site. The Paradise Lounge lobby bar opens to a patio, which in New Orleans is exactly the right idea. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Period lanterns, glossy windows, and varicolored brickwork set the tone before you even walk in. The Spectator is a boutique hotel where the French Quarter and Market Street meet, wearing its Roaring Twenties bones lightly, with Modernist awnings keeping things from tipping into full costume drama. Four floors, a debonair bearing, and a Michelin Key make it a natural base for Charleston at its most photogenic.

Rows of towering palms line the drive up to this Spanish colonial resort sitting at the base of Camelback Mountain, and the inside follows through: Oriental rugs, deep saturated colors, and none of the beige Southwestern pastels you'll find everywhere else in Phoenix. Stone paths wind through orange groves and tucked-away courtyards. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key. It reads less like a hotel than like a very grand private home someone forgot to lock.

Vineyards press right up to the guest room windows at this lodge and spa tucked into Carmel Valley, which sets the tone for everything: limestone fireplaces, marble soaking tubs for two, Italian linens, and a spa that works with wine grapes and lavender grown on the property. The pool anchors the center of the resort, and the restaurant draws its own crowd. It holds a Forbes Four Star and two Michelin Keys.

The complimentary cocktail hour is hosted by your personal valet, who already knows your name before you've set down your bags. Casa Palmero is a boutique resort at Pebble Beach built around a Spanish Colonial manor house, all fountains and courtyard and lush Mediterranean landscaping. It holds a Forbes Four Star. With only a handful of rooms, it operates less like a hotel and more like borrowing a wealthy friend's estate, assuming that friend also pre-books your tee times.

The lobby frames the 18th hole and Stillwater Cove behind it, which tells you immediately what kind of resort this is. Golfers do make pilgrimages here, but the Forbes Four Star property also has a beach and tennis club with a heated pool, horseback trails on the same grounds where National Velvet was filmed, and rooms with big windows or private patios pointed squarely at the Big Sur coastline.

A sweeping spiral staircase and a towering wine cellar greet you in the lobby, which sets the tone for this 234-room luxury hotel on West End. Champalimaud designed the interiors, and the result lands somewhere between art hotel and serious whiskey destination. Three in-house dining and drinking spots lean into Southern fare, and the rooftop pool deck has skyline views that make Nashville's reputation for a good time feel like an understatement.

A boutique hotel built around the fact that Boise sits on the 43rd parallel in the 43rd state, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your tolerance for a theme. Rooms are contemporary with local artwork and a gem-toned palette, and the staff runs an arts passport program with access to the city's ballet, philharmonic, and opera. Chandlers, the onsite restaurant, doubles as a martini bar with live jazz most nights.

A hidden inn spread across a cluster of restored adobe houses in what locals call the oldest neighborhood in the country. The owners spent a lifetime collecting, and it shows: Persian rugs, Tibetan furniture, carved Indian doors, and bathrooms tiled in onyx and lapis. Wood-burning fireplaces, quiet courtyards, and a spa rooted in Silk Road rituals round it out. A passageway off the patio leads to the Dragon Room bar, where Georgia O'Keeffe used to drink.

A Romanesque Revival house on Piedmont Avenue, Stonehurst Place is a Midtown B&B where eight rooms sit inside a building that has been around forever, with two tucked into the carriage house out back. Rooms range from cozy attic retreats to suite-sized quarters with spa bathrooms. A screened porch handles the slow-morning reading crowd, and a sleeping porch moonlights as a TV lounge. Gourmet breakfast is included. It holds a Michelin Key and AAA Four Diamonds.

A glass-encased walkway with water cascading around you is the first thing that happens, which sets the tone for a hotel that seems determined to pretend Times Square isn't happening outside. The seventh-floor lobby is all-white and calm, a minor act of defiance against the chaos below. It's still a W in the middle of the tourist vortex, but the interior makes a reasonable case for ignoring that entirely.

Sage Lodge sits on the banks of the Yellowstone River in Paradise Valley, which is either the most on-the-nose name in Montana or earned by the view, probably both. This Michelin three-key resort pairs modern-rustic rooms with a spa and two restaurants drawing from local ranches and farms. The northern entrance to the park puts you away from the crowds, which is the whole point.

Ski-in/ski-out access at the base of the Tetons, with a dedicated ski concierge to handle the lift tickets so you never have to queue at a kiosk like a civilian. This is a full-service mountain resort, which means gas fireplaces in the rooms, Western-leaning decor, and the general sense that someone is always around to solve your problems. Forbes Four Star. Summer fly-fishing trips replace the ski crowds, but the unhurried pace stays year-round.

Rooms at this 64-room adults-only hotel look directly onto the Beringer Estate vineyards, which sets the tone before you've unpacked. The Indonesian-born Alila brand usually goes modernist, but St. Helena softened it into something with Arts and Crafts warmth. The spa is lavish, the restaurant sits in a separate Georgian farmhouse that reads as an intentional counterpoint to the rest, and downtown St. Helena is just outside. A Forbes Four Star property.

Rough Oklahoma sandstone cut into a hillside at 7,000 feet, with suites that look straight out over the Tetons, describes this Aman resort well enough to explain why Wyoming made sense for a brand that started in Bali. Fewer than 40 suites means the whole place feels private, each room with a fireplace and a soaking tub angled toward the mountains. A Forbes Four Star property, and genuinely unlike anything else in the Rockies.

Six rooms in a residential house a few blocks from the Danforth Street sibling, this Lark Hotels guest house holds a Michelin Key and wears its size lightly. Vintage furnishings and local artwork give it the feel of staying with someone who has better taste than you do. The neighborhood is quiet, walkable, and genuinely residential, which means you'll pass actual Portlanders on the way to breakfast.

The rooftop radio tower sign still blinks over Ponce de Leon, and the Clermont Lounge still does its thing in the basement, which means this 94-room boutique hotel exists, rather perfectly, as the respectable middle of a very Atlanta sandwich. The red-brick building has been around forever and renovated thoroughly, with a restaurant by a celebrated local chef and a Michelin Key to its name.

Shinola, the brand that sells you a handsome watch and a bicycle you'll never ride, also runs this downtown Detroit hotel, and it lands with the Michelin Guide's one Key designation. The rooms carry the same crafted-in-America aesthetic the brand trades on, and the address on Woodward puts you squarely in a neighborhood that has visibly decided it isn't done yet. A stay here feels less like a hotel booking and more like a small wager on the city.

The multicolored lights wrapping the 16-story tower make the resort hard to miss in the low-slung Coachella Valley skyline. This is a full-service casino resort with 71,000 square feet of gaming floor, two outdoor pools, a spa, a concert venue, and a sports bar with screens big enough to cause a mild panic. Las Vegas is four hours away, which the resort is clearly fine with. Forbes Four Star.

Every room has a Juliet balcony and an electric fireplace, which tells you something about what Mirbeau is selling. This Forbes Four Star inn and spa in Rhinebeck takes its aesthetic cues from French Impressionism, soft palettes and all, though the Hudson Valley does most of the heavy lifting. The 12,000-square-foot spa is the main event: a Himalayan salt sauna, eucalyptus steam room, and a heated outdoor whirlpool with its own bar for anyone who needs a rosé with their jets.

Ocean Drive is all neon and bass drops, which makes The Betsy's quietly art-forward lobby feel like a different city entirely. This boutique hotel holds a Michelin Key and earns it through restrained, gallery-like interiors and a pace that has no interest in competing with the clubs next door. Guests who want South Beach energy but need somewhere civilized to recover from it tend to find their way here.

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Midtown skyline from rooms that got a serious refresh, with local art on the walls and furniture that no longer suggests a corporate retreat. This is a contemporary hotel on Peachtree Street, polished and spacious, with a lobby full of comfortable couches that actually invites lingering. The bar next door pulls in the neighborhood crowd, which in Midtown means you'll never feel like you wandered into an airport Marriott.

Harbor views come standard at this full-service hotel in Boston's Seaport District, where the rooms angle toward the water and the nautical nods in the decor are tasteful enough to forgive. Three dining options, a health club with massage, and complimentary bikes keep things moving. The Convention Center is steps away, which tells you something about the weekday crowd, but the ICA and the waterfront are right there too.

A 23-room boutique hotel on El Camino Real where valet, gratuities, room service, and a personal concierge are folded into the rate, so the only decision left is what to do with your hands. Staff greet you by name with your preferred drink, the shared library and kitchen are yours to treat as home, and the guest pantry freezer is stocked with Tin Pot Creamery ice cream. Silicon Valley's expense accounts have found their natural habitat.

A Morris Lapidus building at the foot of Lincoln Road, sitting right on the Atlantic, is a pretty strong opening argument for a hotel. The Ritz-Carlton South Beach is a full resort in the classic Miami Beach mold, with ocean-view rooms done in warm interiors, marble baths, and beds topped with feather mattresses. The spa anchors the property, and a VIP Club Lounge is the only one of its kind on South Beach, for guests who prefer their perks with a zip code.

John Pawson's cedar-doored, travertine-and-tropical-greenery tower sits exactly where the Sunset Strip bleeds into Beverly Hills, and the hotel doesn't pretend that's a coincidence. Rooms run spare and luxurious, with city or Hills views, while downstairs the restaurant, lobby bar, rooftop, and subterranean nightclub form a full ecosystem for people who want refinement and decadence in the same evening. The spa exists, diplomatically, to make tomorrow possible.

A rooftop pool in the Meatpacking District has a way of announcing itself, and this boutique hotel has been making that announcement since the neighborhood was still figuring out what it wanted to be. The surroundings have since settled into high-end retail and the Whitney, and the hotel has kept pace with a refreshed interior and a contemporary art collection that gives the common areas something worth slowing down for.

A living wall of air plants greets you in the lobby, which still manages to feel less like a hotel check-in and more like a very tasteful friend's house in Yountville. Bardessono is a wine country resort built around serious green credentials, all low wood-and-steel buildings, olive trees, water features, and the kind of air that smells faintly of rosemary whether you want it to or not. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

A Victorian-era mansion built in Aesthetic Movement style anchors this boutique hotel on Healdsburg's west side, a pointed rebuke to the region's endless Tuscan fantasies. The interiors, by co-owner and designer Jay Jeffers, layer period details against modern interventions, a serious art collection, and decades of accumulated antiques and curios. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

The lobby ceiling drips with Murano glass, modeled after a Renaissance castle in Genoa, which is exactly the kind of sentence that prepares you for The Breakers. This grand oceanfront resort covers 140 acres and runs to two golf courses, a tennis complex, a sprawling spa, and a beach club where uniformed concierges deliver cold drinks to guests in private poolside bungalows. It holds a Michelin Key and a Forbes Four Star.

A fireside butler will light your cottage fire pit on request, which sets the tone for this sprawling Wine Country resort on the Napa-Sonoma border. The location is its quiet trick: both valleys are under twenty minutes away, so you can do Scribe one afternoon and Trefethen the next without committing to a county. The spa sees hotel guests only. Forbes Four Star.

Three restored 19th-century buildings sit steps from Lexington Green, where the Revolutionary War opened for business. The Inn at Hastings Park is a Relais & Châteaux property with 22 rooms spread across a former private home, a politician's residence, and a carpentry barn, which is either atmospheric or a trivia question depending on your mood. Walden Pond is nearby for the philosophically inclined. It holds a Forbes Four Star and a Michelin Key.

A boutique hotel planted in the middle of Charleston's historic district, steps from Waterfront Park and a short walk from the South of Broad townhouses that look like they were painted for a calendar. Rooms, the atrium, and the roof terrace all catch harbor views, though the Michelin Key it holds suggests the location is doing the real heavy lifting. The galleries, antique shops, and Southern restaurants nearby are the actual argument for staying here.

The name is a portmanteau of Swiss and Texan, which tells you almost everything about the mood here. This Harwood District hotel plays continental service standards against big-hat Texan swagger, and the combination reads less like a theme than a personality. Spacious rooms with commanding views, decor with a freewheeling sense of humor, and a rooftop worth returning to every night. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

MOLLIE Aspen earns a Michelin Key for doing what almost no Aspen ski hotel bothers to attempt: taking design seriously. The look is somewhere between Bauhaus and Japanese-Scandinavian minimalism, which sounds like a grad-school thesis but reads as calm and cool in person. It sits just off Main Street, a short shuttle from the mountain, and the on-site bar and restaurant keep things lively once the lifts close. Not a log in sight.