The 100 Best Places to Stay and Do in the World

Victoria Harbour fills the windows of the classic rooms, and the city's social scene has been gravitating to the bars and restaurants here for longer than most guests have been alive. A grand full-service luxury hotel on Hong Kong Island, it holds a Forbes Five Star, a Michelin Key, and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list. The Aubrey upstairs does the harbor view properly, and the spa runs two full floors.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. The 50 #41 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
3. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Sitting on the Kowloon waterfront with most of its 400-plus rooms aimed straight at the Hong Kong skyline, this 65-floor luxury hotel holds the top spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list and three Michelin Keys. Designer Tony Chi folded checked wool, tweed, and Damien Hirst sculptures into something that feels more like a very grand private residence than a tower block. Eleven bars and restaurants, the Asaya spa, and entry-level rooms that start at 53 square metres keep you from ever needing to leave.

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2. The 50 #1 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
3. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended

A titanium and bronze roof catches the Andes light like something that wandered off a design school thesis and into the Chilean wine country. The vineyard and estate at Viña VIK covers a few thousand hectares, and exploring it by horseback or mountain bike is the point, whether you're scouting the organic garden or simply getting lost among the vines. It holds the top spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which tracks.

1. The 50 #1 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

The lobby ceiling is washi paper, cathedral-tall, and the city you just left is thirty-three floors below: gone. Aman Tokyo is a luxury hotel occupying the top six floors of an Otemachi skyscraper, and it earned its reputation by making urban Tokyo feel like a remote retreat. Rooms read like a modernist ryokan, the spa runs to onsen-style stone baths with hypnotic city views, and the Imperial Gardens sit conveniently in your sightline. Ranked in The World's 50 Best Hotels.

1. The 50 #25 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

The spa entrance is tucked into one of the lower levels of Capella Singapore, which means you arrive through tropical rainforest before you've even changed into a robe. Auriga is a full-service luxury spa on Sentosa Island, where the soundtrack outside involves actual monkeys. A Forbes Five Star and a spot on Vogue's 100 Best Spas list suggest the treatments match the setting, which sets a high bar before anything begins.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

1. The 50 #4 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

The Santiago Calatrava roof ripples like a wave above the vines, making Bodegas Ysios one of the more photogenic reasons to rent a car in Rioja Alavesa. It's a working winery open for guided tastings and vineyard walks, with a wine bar perched above the barrel room for anyone who'd rather just stare at the Sierra de Cantabria with a glass in hand. Ranked third on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, and the vines out front have been at it for over a century.

1. The 50 #3 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

Carrara marble and hand-blown Venetian glass share space with kimono textiles and bamboo wall baskets, forty floors above Tokyo Station. This 98-room luxury hotel is Bvlgari in its Roman jeweler mode, fusing sharp Italian design with a subtle Japanese sensibility, and doing it with a straight face. Rooms open to cinematic city views; the spa runs to a 25-metre pool and nine treatment rooms. It holds a Forbes Five Star, three Michelin Keys, and a spot at number fifteen on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

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3. The 50 #15 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

A former Department of Education building, all golden Edwardian sandstone and ornate bones, now holds one of Sydney's more considered luxury hotels. The restoration layers Aboriginal art and bush-scented spa products into what could easily have been a generic grand-hotel renovation. The 20-metre pool sits where an art gallery once stood, which feels about right. Ranked 12th on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, and holding a Michelin Key.

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2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. Michelin Guide 1 Key

1. The 50 #5 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

The safe in every room comes with three watch winders, which tells you most of what you need to know about this hotel. Cheval Blanc occupies the restored La Samaritaine building above the Pont Neuf, where nearly all 72 rooms look out over the Seine toward Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower. Peter Marino's interiors swing between hushed gold-toned rooms and riotous public spaces hung with serious art. It holds a Forbes Five Star, three Michelin Keys, and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

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2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. The 50 #21 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

The brass banister gets polished every day, which tells you everything about this Art Deco Mayfair hotel. Claridge's is old-school London grandeur without irony: gilded columns, Lalique vases, bathrooms with showerheads so spectacular that guests have reportedly tried to pocket them. Service runs on courteous familiarity rather than cool detachment. It holds a Forbes Five Star, three Michelin Keys, and a spot at number 16 on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

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2. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
3. The 50 #16 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

Limestone cliffs spike straight up behind a strip of white sand, and the visual contrast is the whole argument for the boat ride out here. Entalula holds the number one spot on the World's 50 Best Beaches list, and the relative quiet confirms why: access is by boat only, so the crowds that pack El Nido's more reachable shores never quite materialize. The water is clear enough to make swimming feel like an afterthought you'll spend an hour doing anyway.

1. World's 50 Beaches #1 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

Floor-to-ceiling windows frame Victoria Harbour from most rooms in this high-rise luxury hotel tucked into the International Finance Centre in Central. The mosaic-tiled outdoor infinity pools compete with that same view and mostly hold their own. Rooms run large by Hong Kong standards, finished in the kind of crisp, neutral calm that makes you forget you're in one of the densest cities on earth. A Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key.

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2. The 50 #86 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
3. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Twelve acres of canyon greenery swallow the Hotel Bel-Air so completely that the spa visit feels less like a city errand and more like a disappearing act. The grounds are famously labyrinthine, with tucked-away paths and canopy cover that make it easy to lose track of both time and, apparently, fellow Beatles. A Forbes Five Star spa in a setting that does most of the work before you even lie down.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

A neoclassical palace on the Place de la Concorde, the Crillon's address alone is the kind of thing that makes other addresses feel apologetic. This Rosewood hotel holds 78 rooms and suites dressed in parquet, marble, and calm neutral tones, plus a suite Karl Lagerfeld designed as if the 18th century had simply decided not to end. The subterranean pool, the tasting-menu restaurant, and Bar Les Ambassadeurs complete the picture. It holds a Forbes Five Star and ranks 23rd on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

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2. The 50 #23 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
3. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

A weeping cherry tree anchors the central courtyard pond, and the whole hotel seems organized around the idea that you should keep looking at it. Hotel The Mitsui is a luxury property on the former Mitsui family estate, directly facing Nijo Castle, with an onsen fed by hot springs pulled from beneath the grounds. Forbes Five Star, and ranked on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. The 50 #46 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

The glowing iceberg bar top gives away the vibe: this Avenue Montaigne palace hotel has always dressed like it's going somewhere important. Belle Époque bones run through the whole building, but the rooms tilt toward the Eiffel Tower and the Dior Institut spa does light therapy in what used to be a setting for Josephine Baker sightings. Celebrity chef Jean Imbert oversees the dining. Forbes Five Star, three Michelin Keys, and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

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2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. The 50 #80 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

The former Old War Office, where Churchill paced and Ian Fleming quietly took notes for a certain fictional spy, is now a Raffles hotel. The 120 suites carry names like Churchill and Granville, the corridors run two and a half miles, and a hidden bar in the old MI6 interrogation rooms bans photography. Nine restaurants, a Guerlain spa, and a Forbes Five Star plus a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels round out a place that takes its own mythology rather seriously.

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2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. The 50 #31 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

A Neoclassical palace on a Rheingau hillside that has been growing Riesling longer than most countries have existed, Schloss Johannisberg is a winery visit where the cellar tour goes genuinely deep: barrels made from the estate's own forest, abbey vaults holding around 25,000 bottles, and vintages stretching back to the mid-1700s. It ranks second on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which gives you a sense of the company it keeps.

1. The 50 #2 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

The rooftop cold plunge pools look out over the Santa Ynez Mountains, which is a strong argument for skipping the beach one afternoon. Sense is a spa tucked into the second floor of the Rosewood Miramar Beach's Manor House, all gauzy curtains and plush lounge chairs, with six private treatment rooms and the kind of hush that costs what it costs. Forbes Five Star and on Vogue's list of the world's top spas.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

A 31,000-square-foot Spanish-style villa tucked among cypress, oak, and olive trees, this spa leans into Ojai's reputation as a healing vortex while keeping things cream-and-white minimalist rather than patchouli-soaked. Treatment rooms, hot tubs, fireplaces, an apothecary, and an artist cottage make up the complex, alongside guided hikes and, yes, GPS-led treasure hunts. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a spot on Vogue's 100 Best Spas in the World.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

A Richard Rogers glass tower tucked into a cobbled Belgravia yard, London's first all-suite hotel announced itself quietly and then let the details do the shouting. Sixty-one suites divided among a dream team of designers give each floor its own personality, while the subterranean spa, rooftop bar, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant keep guests from needing to leave. On the World's 50 Best Hotels list at number 32, and holding a Michelin Key.

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2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. The 50 #32 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

Pillbox-hatted pageboys at the door set the tone before you've even checked in. The Peninsula is Hong Kong's grand colonial hotel, the one locals call "the Pen," where afternoon tea in the gilded lobby comes with a string quartet and petit fours as a matter of course. Rooms run high-tech alongside genuine antiques, the views back across to Hong Kong Island are quietly spectacular, and the staff have a talent for appearing and vanishing at exactly the right moment. Forbes Five Star.

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2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
3. The 50 #54 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

The spa at this storied Surfside property holds a Forbes Five Star and a spot on Vogue's list of the world's top spas, which tracks once you're inside: hushed, unhurried, a few miles north of South Beach's particular chaos. It's the kind of place where the treatment rooms feel genuinely removed from everything, and the taupe-toned quiet is, against all odds, exactly what you wanted.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

Floor-to-ceiling windows on the 35th floor frame Central Park and the Hudson River, which is either a calming backdrop or a reminder of how far you'd fall if you weren't so relaxed. This is a full spa, Forbes Five Star, with Asian-influenced treatments, a vitality pool, an amethyst steam chamber, and an Oriental Tea lounge. The staff consults before treatments rather than just handing you a menu, which makes the difference.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

The check-in desk doesn't exist, which tells you something about this hotel's priorities. André Fu's design runs the full length of a Pacific Place tower, with rooms large enough to embarrass most Hong Kong apartments, limestone tubs, and floor-to-ceiling windows facing the skyline. The art collection runs to 400 pieces. Salisterra on the 49th floor handles Mediterranean food and harbour views. Ranked tenth on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

1. The 50 #10 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

Every suite has a working fireplace, which feels like a minor miracle in Midtown Manhattan. Aman New York is a hotel occupying the upper floors of the old Crown Building on Fifth Avenue, with 83 residential-style suites, a three-floor wellness complex mixing cryotherapy with Traditional Chinese Medicine, an omakase restaurant, and a speakeasy-style jazz club below. It holds three Michelin Keys and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

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Forty thousand square feet of indoor-outdoor spa space on the sixth floor of Rosewood Hong Kong, with Guerlain treatments and a partner in Vogue's 100 Best Spas in the World. For a city where square footage is practically a luxury good, the sheer room to breathe here makes a statement before anyone lights a candle. Book ahead; this is not the kind of place you wander into between dim sum and the Star Ferry.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

A doorman in a top hat meets you outside eleven joined Georgian townhouses in Mayfair, which sets the tone for this grand, old-school London hotel. Brown's has been around forever, and a top-to-bottom renovation by Olga Polizzi brought the interiors into something more cultured and contemporary than the usual country-house look. Shelves of British literature, the Donovan Bar, and Charlie's for pre-theatre dinners round things out. Forbes Five Star and Michelin 2 Keys.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The grapes here are picked berry by berry, by hand, across multiple passes through the vines, because a whole cluster would be too imprecise for what Château d'Yquem is trying to do. A visit to this Sauternes estate means walking vineyards given over to noble rot, the peculiar fungus that concentrates the juice into something its devotees treat less like wine and more like evidence. It ranks ninth on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

1. The 50 #9 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

1. The 50 #7 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

The penthouse terrace looks straight at the Eiffel Tower, which feels almost too on the nose, yet here we are. This is a grand palace hotel in the 8th, where Art Deco bones meet Louis XV interiors and rooms that, even at their smallest, feel like a proper Parisian apartment. The wine cave holds around 50,000 bottles, the spa is among the most lavish in the city, and three Michelin-starred restaurants occupy the ground floor. Forbes Five Star and Michelin's 3 Keys.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
3. The 50 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award

The first Four Seasons to open in Europe, this Mayfair hotel has aged the way Mayfair pretends to, with genuine care rather than denial. Rooms come with city or Hyde Park views from private balconies, the tenth-floor spa sits above most of the neighborhood, and Yannick Alléno's Pavyllon London handles dinner. The concierge team holds more Les Clefs d'Or keys than any other London hotel. Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
3. The 50 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award

The grand foyer alone tells you what you're in for: marble floors, birds of paradise, and ornamental stonework salvaged from the banks and social clubs that once occupied this corner of Centro. It's a luxury hotel in the most old-Madrid sense, except the rooms are thoroughly modern and the service is Four Seasons, which earns a Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels. The building's angled facade at Sevilla and Alcalá has already become part of the skyline.

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2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
3. The 50 #66 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

White cliffs curve around a cove of pale pebbles and turquoise Ionian water, and the only way in is by boat or down a trail steep enough to discourage the casual visitor. That self-selection is the whole point. Fteri Beach on Kefalonia ranks second on World's 50 Best Beaches, and Europe's top-ranked beach overall, which means you won't be alone, but it's still quieter than anywhere that takes a shuttle bus.

1. World's 50 Beaches #2 · The World's 50 Best Beaches
2. World's 50 Beaches #1 · Europe's 50 Best Beaches

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

The wine that put Constantia on the map centuries ago is a sweet dessert wine, and Klein Constantia is the estate that brought it back from near-extinction. Set in the Constantia hills with Table Mountain overhead and ocean on the horizon, it's a working vineyard you can explore by bike or 4x4, taste through in a room framed by jacaranda trees, or linger over in the fine-dining bistro. Ranked sixth on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

1. The 50 #6 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

One street off the Champs-Élysées and practically next door to the Élysée Palace, this boutique hotel occupies a stately Haussmannian building with interiors by Jacques Garcia at his most refined. Suites outnumber rooms by design, each scaled and furnished closer to a private residence than a hotel room, with butler service to match. It holds a Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys. The wine cellar runs to over a thousand labels, which the name quietly hints at.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Rooms facing the Jardin des Tuileries and a seventh-floor suite with a 360-degree rooftop terrace set the tone at this palace hotel on the rue de Rivoli. The Versailles-inspired interiors survived their recent renovation largely intact, the service remains old-world without apology, and the Valmont spa is the only one of its kind in Paris. A Forbes Five Star and Michelin's 3 Keys confirm what the address already implies.

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2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

1. The 50 #8 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

Suites named after Somerset Maugham and James Michener tell you something about the company this riverside hotel has kept for a very long time. It sits on the Chao Phraya in Bangkok, all teak, marble, and tropical gardens, with 393 rooms attended by 24-hour butlers. The Authors' Lounge does afternoon tea in the original Victorian building, and the spa has a reputation that travels well beyond Thailand. Number 7 on the World's 50 Best Hotels, Forbes Five Star.

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2. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
3. The 50 #7 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

The floor managers stationed on every level around the clock give you a sense of what kind of hotel this is. A grand Edwardian pile on Knightsbridge, with Hyde Park on one side and Harrods on the other, it holds a Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys, and the service runs accordingly. Rooms are classic and traditional rather than fashionably stark. The shopping options outside are, to put it gently, dangerous.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The gold cutlery is not a flex, it's just the baseline here. This grande dame hotel on the Golden Triangle of Art has been collecting Belle Époque grandeur since forever, and a major renovation brought it back without softening a single gilded edge. The 153 rooms run white and gold throughout, the marble pool is heated, and Quique Dacosta runs the kitchen. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. The 50 #71 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

Black wood floors greet you at check-in, and the rooms are reportedly the largest on Hong Kong Island, which helps explain the crowd of finance types who treat the place as a second address. This Forbes Five Star hotel in Central keeps only around 100 rooms, so the staff tends to learn your name fast. The spa spans two floors and the adjacent Landmark mall makes impulse shopping a structural hazard.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

The rooms on upper floors look directly across the Imperial Palace moat, which means your morning coffee comes with a view most Tokyo residents will never get. This luxury hotel in Marunouchi sits about as close to the Imperial Palace grounds as a civilian can get, and it leans into that proximity with calm, considered interiors that feel genuinely Japanese rather than generically grand. A Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys. Service here has a way of quietly resetting your expectations.

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2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The hotel folds so quietly into Higashiyama's narrow lanes, with black-tiled roofs and natural materials echoing the neighborhood's old temples, that you might mistake it for a traditional townhouse complex. Inside is a luxury hotel with airy rooms that sit somewhere between a ryokan's calm and a proper international stay. Kyoyamato, one of Kyoto's most storied restaurants, is on the premises. The World's 50 Best Hotels list has it at number 59.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. The 50 #59 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
3. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A mushroom-shaped rock formation called El Hongo rises from the shallows of this protected bay outside La Paz, and it has become something of an unofficial mascot for one of the world's genuinely spectacular beaches. Strict regulations cap visitor numbers and freeze development, so the water stays that improbable turquoise and the sand stays clean. Seven coves sit within the bay, the tide never clears chest height, and you can walk between them all.

1. World's 50 Beaches #8 · The World's 50 Best Beaches
2. World's 50 Beaches #2 · North America's 50 Best Beaches

Every room is a suite, and every suite comes with a dedicated butler, which sets the tone before you've even spotted the liveried Sikh doormen at the door. This storied Singapore hotel holds a Forbes Five Star and sits at number five on the World's 50 Best Hotels list. The white neo-Renaissance building, lush gardens, rooftop pool, and Long Bar, where the Singapore Sling was invented, give guests plenty of reasons to never actually leave.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. The 50 #5 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

The tulip lamps on the bedside tables survived the renovation intact, which tells you everything about how the Ritz Paris approaches change. This is the grande dame of Place Vendôme, a Belle Époque palace hotel where Coco Chanel kept a suite for decades and the Hemingway Bar still feels like a shrine. Suites are named for past residents. The spa could swallow a lesser hotel whole. Forbes Five Star and Michelin's 3 Keys.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Two miles of powdery white sand with water so clear it looks filtered, Shoal Bay East is Anguilla's signature stretch and holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Beaches list. Laid-back bars sit at the edges without crowding the shoreline, and the coral reefs just offshore make it a natural snorkeling stop. Somehow it stays calm even when it isn't empty, which is the real trick on a Caribbean beach this good-looking.

1. World's 50 Beaches #6 · The World's 50 Best Beaches
2. World's 50 Beaches #1 · North America's 50 Best Beaches

The spa inside the Royal Mansour sits within a medina-within-a-medina, where the corridors are lined with hand-carved wooden latticework and Zellige tiles in Fez blue and saffron. Hammam rituals draw on traditional Moroccan treatments, and the whole thing is unhurried in a way that makes a two-hour session feel like the bare minimum. A Vogue 100 Best Spas pick and Forbes Four Star property, it sets a high bar for doing absolutely nothing productive.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

Waikiki has been pulling people in since Hawaiian royalty claimed it as a retreat, and SpaHalekulani is where you go when the tourist squall gets to be too much. The spa holds a Forbes Four Star and a spot on Vogue's 100 Best Spas in the World list, and it carries both without making a fuss about it. Treatments lean into Pacific traditions, and the whole operation is quiet in a way that Waikiki, bless its heart, generally is not.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

A Damien Hirst hangs in the corridor and a Barbara Hepworth sits around the corner, which tells you roughly what kind of hotel this is. The Connaught is old Mayfair luxury, renovated enough to stay relevant but not so much that anyone would mistake it for a boutique. Guy Oliver's muted, clean-lined interiors hold their seriousness well. The Connaught Bar and Hélène Darroze's three-Michelin-star restaurant keep guests from leaving. On the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
2. The 50 #29 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

The building stands alone, a 24-story structure designed to resemble a traditional Japanese lantern, which at night, thanks to careful lighting, it actually does. A luxury hotel in Marunouchi, it sits across from the Imperial Palace gardens, giving rooms a rare patch of darkness in a city that never dims. A fleet of Rolls-Royces handles ground transport, room service arrives through a wall hatch, and the 24th-floor views are the kind that make the room rate feel like a separate conversation. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The forecourt's famous covered driveway, the only street in Britain where traffic drives on the right, is a reliable hint that ordinary rules don't apply here. This landmark London hotel holds a Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys, and splits its rooms between Art Deco and Edwardian styles. Gordon Ramsay runs three dining rooms on site. The American Bar, restored to its precise 1889 state, is the draw for anyone not staying.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The spa here runs on the 111Skin brand, a skincare line with a cult following among people who take their serums very seriously. It sits inside Adare Manor, a Gothic Revival pile in County Limerick that has had serious money spent on it, and the surroundings set a certain tone before you've even booked a treatment. Forbes gave it four stars, and Vogue named it among the 100 best spas in the world.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

The spa sits inside a Georgian manor on 240 acres of Berkshire countryside, close enough to Heathrow that the contrast feels almost theatrical. It's the full Dorchester Collection treatment: unhurried, quietly grand, with staff who actually seem pleased to see you. The grounds border Windsor Great Park, so there's a good chance you'll spot a polo chukka on the way in, which sets the tone nicely. Vogue named it among the 100 best spas in the world.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
2. Vogue 100 Best Spas in the World

The tasting room's camera-aperture architecture, all dramatic angles and floor-to-ceiling glass, was designed to pull your eye toward the vineyards outside, which is a neat trick given what's in the glass. Aperture Cellars pours Bordeaux-inspired Sonoma wines across a few tasting tiers, from introductory blends up to a private gallery session with limited releases. A rotating photography exhibition runs throughout. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

1. The 50 #14 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

Beyoncé performed at the opening party, which tells you everything about the register this Palm Jumeirah resort is operating at. Ninety pools, sixteen restaurants anchored by names like Heston Blumenthal, a salt cave, a jellyfish aquarium, and gold-plated toothbrushes waiting in the bathroom. The rooms are, somehow, calm and minimalist. The suites have glass-sided sky pools. It holds a Forbes Five Star and sits at number six on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
3. The 50 #6 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

A 24-hour light installation made from 2,000 LED-embedded Harcourt glasses greets you in the foyer, and that's just the warm-up. This Midtown luxury hotel, the crystal brand's first, sits across from MoMA and commits fully to the bit: silver-leaf paneling, pleated-silk walls, fresh roses in orb arrangements, and enough Baccarat crystal to humble a museum gift shop. Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key. Resign yourself to being out-dressed by the lobby.

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2. AAA Five Diamonds
3. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A private park in the middle of Zürich is the first clue that this old-school luxury hotel operates by its own rules. It sits just off the Bahnhofstrasse, the city's main shopping corridor, yet the grounds feel genuinely removed from it. Chagall and Miró have slept here, as have a small roster of European royals who apparently found the alpine views agreeable. Forbes Four Star. The kind of address where the concierge has seen everything and shows nothing.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The winery is built in the shape of a cross, which sounds like an architectural boast until you learn the four wings actually feed wine by gravity into underground cellars beneath the Uco Valley floor. Tastings happen down there, around a two-tonne limestone table pulled from a nearby quarry, with oak barrels and compass roses carved into the stone for company. Salentein holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, and the Andes looming outside make the whole thing feel slightly unreal.

1. The 50 #12 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

Antonio Citterio's minimalist interiors sit on the fringes of Hyde Park, all dark oak, Italian marble, and vintage Bvlgari jewellery cases lit like relics. This is a luxury hotel in the deep Knightsbridge sense, meaning Harrods is a short walk and the prices assume you aren't counting. Forbes Five Star and Michelin's 3 Keys. The spa is genuinely monumental, the service is the kind that anticipates rather than reacts, and the Continental cool quietly unsettles old-school London hotel traditionalists.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 3 Keys

A marble statue of Emperor Augustus, on loan from the Torlonia Collection, holds court in the five-metre entrance hall of this luxury hotel on Piazza Augusto Imperatore. Rooms come in four color moods, bathrooms run to rare stone and bespoke mosaics, and the spa pools draw on ancient Roman bath architecture. Niko Romito oversees the restaurant upstairs. It sits at number 22 on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, which the building wears lightly.

1. The 50 #22 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star

A riverside hotel on the Chao Phraya where the rooms come with private terraces and the villas have plunge pools and their own gardens, all of it calibrated to feel like an antidote to Bangkok's cheerful chaos. The design leans clean and neutral, the service reportedly borders on telepathic, and dedicated "Culturists" will arrange a private meditation session at a centuries-old temple if that's your afternoon. Holds a Forbes Five Star and sits at number three on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. The 50 #3 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
3. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

Bollinger still farms two tiny plots in Aÿ that somehow escaped the phylloxera blight that wiped out most of Europe's vines, and the ultra-rare Vieilles Vignes Françaises made from them is what people make pilgrimages for. The house is pinot-dominant, aged in oak, and carries a particular richness you either find thrilling or a bit much. It placed fifteenth on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, which tracks.

1. The 50 #15 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

The cobblestone block it sits on feels more like a Soho mews than Soho, which is rather the point. This boutique hotel from the London-rooted Firmdale group layers bold English country house fabric and color against warehouse-style windows, so every room reads like a very confident decorator's private flat. A sculpture garden, a drawing room with an honor bar, and a Sunday Film Club keep the mood firmly residential. It holds a Michelin 3 Keys and a Forbes Four Star.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A narrow sandbar pushes far out into the lagoon at the northern tip, shallow turquoise water on both sides, almost no shade, nowhere to be except present. The beach itself is long enough that you can walk until the village feels theoretical, and the reef sections nearby draw enough marine life to make a snorkel mask worth packing. Ranked seventh on the World's 50 Best Beaches list, and easy to reach on foot from the village.

1. World's 50 Beaches #7 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

A rounded granite boulder formation that looks enough like a certain cartoon duck to earn the name sits at the edge of this remote beach in the Similan Islands National Park. Open only from November to May, when boats can reach it, the seasonal closure does the work most beaches can't manage: the sand stays fine and white, the water stays clear, and the crowd stays thin. Ranked tenth on the World's 50 Best Beaches list in 2026.

1. World's 50 Beaches #10 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

A winery in Las Compuertas where you can arrive by helicopter, which sets the tone. The Durigutti brothers focus on Malbec but also produce natural, organic, and rare cuvées that reward the detour. Cycling the vineyard rows and ending up at a gourmet picnic is a gentler option. The on-site guesthouse, Finca Victoria, has wooden-beamed ceilings and open fires. Ranked 11th on The World's 50 Best Vineyards list.

1. The 50 #11 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

Behind an unmarked stretch of wall on a quiet avenue sits what amounts to a Renaissance museum you can sleep in. The hotel spans two historic palazzi, with bas-relief friezes, restored frescoes, and silk wallpaper filling corridors that connect to one of Florence's largest private gardens. The pool runs ninety feet, the spa has ten treatment rooms, and a shuttle ferries guests to the Uffizi. Ranked ninth on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, it holds a Forbes Five Star.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. The 50 #9 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
3. The 50 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award

Two riverfront infinity pools and a spa the size of a small village signal that this Four Seasons, sitting on the Chao Phraya, was never going to be a place you just sleep in. Jean-Michel Gathy's design runs from gilded opulence to breezy tropical modernism across cascading courtyards that pull the river inside. The hotel ranks second on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, and with BKK Social Club, multiple restaurants, and a private longtail, that tracks.

1. The 50 #2 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

On a clear day, the upper floors of this tower look straight out to Mount Fuji over the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace. A sleek, modern Four Seasons in the high-rise financial district, it holds a Michelin star at its French restaurant, where the chef sources ingredients from across Japan and keeps the butter mostly out of it. The spa runs deep on Zen design. Forbes Four Star and Michelin 3 Keys.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. The 50 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award

A 17th-century convent on the Cimiez hillside above Nice's old town, converted into an 88-room hotel where the nuns' cells now come with lime-plaster walls and Italian antiques, and occasionally a La Cornue range cooker. The cloister gardens slope toward a lap pool with Med views, and the subterranean spa draws on Roman bath logic. The restaurant leans into Riviera produce with minimal drama. Ranked 27th on the World's 50 Best Hotels list and holding a Michelin Key.

1. The 50 #27 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key
3. Le Fooding Le Fooding Guide

The Aman family's more sociable sibling, Janu Tokyo occupies the first 13 floors of a Cesar Pelli tower in the Azabudai Hills development, and unlike its cooler, more reclusive parent brand, it actually wants to be part of the city. A luxury hotel with 122 rooms, most with balconies facing Tokyo Tower, plus eight restaurants and bars, and a 4,000-square-metre wellness centre with a hammam, a banya, and one of the largest gyms in Tokyo. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels.

1. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
2. The 50 #37 · The World's 50 Best Hotels

The ivy-clad château and its Bordeaux-inspired Cabernet Sauvignons have landed Jordan on the World's 50 Best Vineyards list, at number thirteen. You visit by touring the 485-acre estate, then settling in for wine and food pairings in the vineyard or the library. The "Paris on the Terrace" experience leans hard into the French fantasy, with charcuterie, bread, estate olive oil, and music included, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your relationship with themed dining.

1. The 50 #13 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

Koh Rong sits in the Gulf of Thailand, reached by boat from the mainland, and the beach it's famous for runs for kilometers without a resort strip to break it up. The sand is powdery white, the water shallow and calm enough to wade out forever, and the jungle presses in at the edges. It landed at number nine on the World's 50 Best Beaches list. The low development isn't an accident; it's the whole point.

1. World's 50 Beaches #9 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

The old bank safes are still here, repurposed into the Banker's Bar, which tells you something about how this Forbes Five Star hotel on Passeig de Gràcia earns its drama. Casa Batlló is a short walk away, Las Ramblas and the Gothic Quarter not much farther. Back at the hotel there's a rooftop dipping pool, a garden, and a spa to help you recover from all that architecture.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The rooms start around the 35th floor, so Central Park and the Hudson are laid out below you like a diorama, and that view does a lot of the talking for a luxury hotel that also works hard to earn it. Wood paneling, marble, framed kimonos, and gold throw pillows signal the Mandarin group's Far Eastern aesthetic, carried off without feeling like a theme park. It holds a Forbes Five Star, and the spa alone draws guests who aren't even sleeping here.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. AAA Five Diamonds
3. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

The hotel starts at the 38th floor, which means the Tokyo skyline arrives before your luggage does. On clear days, Mount Fuji makes an appearance from the floor-to-ceiling windows, which the rooms are essentially designed around. Guest rooms lean restrained, fitting the Nihonbashi banking district, though the bathrooms are spa-sized enough to cause confusion. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, and the actual spa justifies both.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Tall palms and dense vegetation give way to a wide sweep of white sand on the sheltered side of Matamanoa Island, and on a quiet morning your footprints may be the only ones in it. The calm conditions make swimming easy all day, and long stretches stay deserted enough that solitude feels less like luck and more like the default setting. It ranked fifth on the World's 50 Best Beaches list in 2026.

1. World's 50 Beaches #5 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

At low tide, a two-kilometer sandbar rises from the Indian Ocean to join two small islands into one, then quietly vanishes again as the water returns. Nosy Iranja is an offshore island pair reachable by boat from Madagascar's northwest coast, where sea turtles nest and the snorkeling runs clear and warm. The World's 50 Best Beaches ranks it fourth in the world, which tracks.

1. World's 50 Beaches #4 · The World's 50 Best Beaches

The triple-height lobby windows framing Victoria Harbour feel less like a design choice and more like a declaration of intent. This Forbes Five Star hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui came back to its original name after a long run under another flag, and the charcoal-and-cream interiors by designer Chi Wing Lo give it a quieter confidence than its storied past might suggest. Most of the 497 rooms angle toward the water, and the two-Michelin-starred Lai Ching Heen anchors a dining lineup that has always been the real draw.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The seven-storey marble staircase alone is said to be worth $65 million, which puts the Rosewood London's priorities in perspective. This Forbes Five Star hotel occupies a grand Edwardian pile on High Holborn, originally built for an insurance company that clearly had ambitions beyond actuarial tables. Rooms are generous by London standards, and the suites ascend into near-parody, one wing having its own postcode. Scarfes Bar, named for the Gerald Scarfe illustrations covering its walls, is the warm, clubby heart of the place.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A former Bonaparte residence just off the Trocadéro, this hotel carries its lineage with a straight face and pulls it off. The Shangri-La group brought its decades of Far East luxury experience to a grand 19th-century Paris palace, and interior designer Pierre-Yves Rochon did the rest. Several rooms face the Eiffel Tower directly. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, and the Cantonese restaurant downstairs has its own devoted following.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The Italian marble tubs alone could justify the room rate, and they may well be the deepest in London. This is the grand hotel as it was meant to be, sitting opposite Hyde Park on Park Lane: opulent without tipping into excess, formal without the frost. The Dorchester holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys. Bars, restaurants, a celebrated spa, and staff who treat everyone like visiting royalty round out a property that set the template.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 2 Keys

The lobby is an exact replica of the 1962 original, right down to the carpet, because Yoshio Taniguchi rebuilt what his father designed and apparently took notes. This is a full-scale luxury hotel with a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, seven restaurants and bars, a 26th-floor spa, and a 41-story tower with views that make Tokyo look like a scale model. The Heritage Wing leans into traditional Japanese design while staying thoroughly modern where it counts.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

Soft jazz and fresh peonies in the lobby set the tone for this luxury hotel in Belgravia, a short walk from Hyde Park and Wellington Arch. The rooms draw on the grand country-house tradition while staying unmistakably contemporary, with floor-to-ceiling windows and deep-soaking marble tubs. A Peninsula Spa, a rooftop Cantonese restaurant, and a fleet of chauffeur-driven Bentleys complete the picture. It holds three Michelin Keys and a Forbes Four Star.

1. Michelin Guide 3 Keys
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The Beaux-Arts bones alone do a lot of the work here: Corinthian columns, marble staircases, chandeliers the size of small planets, and ceilings high enough to humble anyone who walks in overdressed. The Peninsula New York is a classic Fifth Avenue luxury hotel, the kind where the staff seems to know what you need before you do. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, which tracks for a place this committed to doing the traditional thing without irony.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. AAA Five Diamonds
3. Michelin Guide 1 Key

A Forbes Five Star hotel on the bank of the Kamogawa River, close enough to the water that the city views from the rooms feel more like a painting than a perk. The Ritz-Carlton brings its full-service playbook to a city long dominated by ryokans, so you get both the deep-bowing formality Kyoto demands and a concierge who will actually map your temple itinerary. Multiple subway stations sit within a short walk.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key
3. The 50 The 50 Discovery

The lobby is modeled on the living room of an 18th-century Georgian manor house, which is either a bold choice or a completely predictable one, depending on how well you know this hotel group. Either way, it commits. Wood-paneled corridors, antiques, Italian marble baths, and afternoon tea in a country that was never British. The rooms look out over Osaka's skyline or the bay. A Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, plus Japanese service layered on top of Ritz-Carlton service.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

The Great Room's 32-foot ceilings and André Fu's residential-scale design make the lobby feel less like a check-in and more like a particularly well-appointed living room. This Forbes Five Star, Michelin One Key hotel sits two blocks from the Wan Chai harborfront, with spacious rooms, soaking tubs, dramatic views, a spa, and an outdoor pool. Butler service, afternoon tea, and a Hong Kong-riff on the Bloody Mary round out the St. Regis signatures.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. Michelin Guide 1 Key

Butlers in white gloves and black tails unpack your bags and pour your morning coffee at this landmark Midtown hotel, a Forbes Five Star that has occupied Fifth Avenue's corner since before anyone you know was born. The marble staircases and original brass detailing survived a recent renovation intact, so the grand-hotel theatrics feel less like nostalgia and more like the building simply refusing to modernize its personality.

1. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
2. AAA Five Diamonds
3. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

Kengo Kuma's plant-packed lobby reads like a temple that took a wrong turn into a very fashionable bar, which sets the tone for this hotel occupying the upper floors of a Toranomon skyscraper. The 200-odd rooms go serenely minimal, all white fur throws and wood slats, with walls of glass framing Tokyo Tower. There's a spa, a pool, multiple restaurants, and enough moody bars to lose an evening without noticing. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels.

1. The 50 #45 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
2. Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
3. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. The 50 #10 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

1. The 50 #16 · The World's 50 Best Vineyards

Turquoise water meeting white sand at the edge of nowhere, Wharton Beach sits in the Duke of Orleans Bay area of Western Australia's southern coast, remote enough that even on a flawless summer day you may have the whole stretch to yourself. Dolphins work the break while surfers do the same. It ranked third on the World's 50 Best Beaches list in 2026, which should tell you something about the drive.

1. World's 50 Beaches #3 · The World's 50 Best Beaches