The Best Hotels in Okinawa

Kouri Island sits two bridges off the Okinawa coast and is, by local tradition, called Love Island on account of some heart-shaped rocks. One Suite THE GRAND is a 21-room luxury boutique resort there, and the island being a quiet leisure spot rather than a busy one is the actual selling point. Every room faces the sea, many terraces come with an outdoor jacuzzi, and the Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Five suites, no restaurant, no spa, and that is entirely the point. This ultra-modern boutique hotel sits on a cliff above the East China Sea, its white rectangular facade designed by Shinichi Ogawa & Associates to get out of the way of the view. Each suite opens through oversized sliding glass doors onto a private terrace with an open-air bath and infinity pool. The interiors are all-white and minimalist, leaving the ocean to do the decorating.

Kouri Island reaches the main island by a single bridge over water so green it looks filtered, and Baton Suite sits right at that edge. It's a small suite-only resort where every room faces the East China Sea, either across the bridge or down into a tropical garden and pool. Deep soaking tubs, daybeds at floor-to-ceiling windows, and some rooms with kitchens. The pace here is essentially legislated by geography.

Eleven suites arranged like a village deep in Okinawa's subtropical Yanbaru Forest, where the concrete is bare brutalist and the floors are warm hardwood, and somehow the two get along fine. This small luxury resort sits in the mountainous north of the Motobu Peninsula, far enough from anywhere to feel like a genuine escape. The spa leans into the surrounding greenery, and the restaurant turns local produce into fine dining without making a fuss about it.

Kouri Island is connected to Okinawa's mainland by a single long bridge, which does a good job of filtering out anyone who isn't serious about doing nothing. Yawn Yard is a boutique hotel of angular blonde-wood villas scattered across a forested hill above the emerald sea. Private outdoor dining areas, optional infinity plunge pools, ocean views, and a house policy of zero screens. The rooms are pale-wood and minimalist, and the silence is the amenity.