The World's Top 100 Hotels
A hotel can buy a lot of things, but not a Michelin Key, a Forbes five-star rating, or a place on the World's 50 Best Hotels list. Those are earned in front of anonymous inspectors and expert panels, and they're what this ranking is made of.
These are the best places to stay in the world, one score per hotel, weighted by the rigor of each honor and kept current as new lists and ratings land.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
- Michelin Guide 3 Keys
- 50 Best #1 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
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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.
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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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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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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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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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The gleaming white facade still lights up Copacabana Beach at night, by design. This grand hotel, a Belmond property, has been the anchor of the neighborhood since the Jazz Age, modeled loosely on the great seaside palaces of Nice and Cannes and now arguably more famous than either. Beach-view suites run steep; standard rooms face the city and cost less. The pool terrace is where well-heeled guests and locals perform for each other. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels.
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Pine trees and private beaches on the Athenian Riviera, where Aristotle Onassis and Frank Sinatra once kept company. This sprawling modernist resort curves around a bay on the Lemos Peninsula, its terraced architecture stepping down to three sandy beaches and a boardwalk lined with cabanas facing open water. Rooms lean mid-century, with geometric tiles and sea-view terraces. The spa, a Nobu, a Michelin-starred seafood room, and a private tender for island day trips round things out. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin 3 Keys.
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Twelve acres of canyon gardens in the middle of Los Angeles, with a swan lake at the entrance that no one can resist photographing. This is a hotel that runs on discretion, the opposite of see-and-be-seen, where the saltwater pool still has a genuine deep end and the rooms have outdoor fireplaces. The bar has been a quiet local haunt for years, and The Restaurant has drawn fresh attention since a French Laundry alum took the kitchen. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels.
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The only hotel inside Brazil's Iguaçu National Park, this pink colonial-style resort means everyone else files out at dusk while you watch the falls go dark from a barstool close enough to feel the spray. Portuguese-tiled interiors, tropical gardens, and a palm-lined pool fill the hours when 275 waterfalls aren't doing it. A Forbes Five Star and Michelin three keys. Helicopter departures over the falls leave at dawn, if you can manage it.
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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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A saltwater pool carved into the rockface above the Mediterranean is a fairly confident statement for a hotel to make, and Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc backs it up across 22 acres of pine-shaded peninsula at the far tip of Cap d'Antibes. The rooms look more or less as Fitzgerald would have left them, which is either atmospheric or demanding, depending on your tolerance for grandeur. Forbes Five Star and Michelin 3 Keys.
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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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Perched above the Ayung River with rice terraces dropping away on every side, Mandapa is a Ritz-Carlton Reserve resort outside Ubud that keeps just 35 suites and 25 private pool villas. Each guest gets a personal patih butler, daily yoga and Balinese healing sessions run by local practitioners, and the option to trek the paddies or join a temple blessing. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
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Forty-two restored siheyuan scattered across a historic hutong neighborhood, each behind its own wooden gate with its own address. That's the hotel, a Forbes Five Star and number fourteen on the World's 50 Best Hotels list. Getting to dinner means wandering laneway alleys past laundry lines and e-scooters, which is either charming or inconvenient depending on your mood, though a butler escort and buggy are always on call.
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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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The pale-pink landmark on Sunset Boulevard has been hiding celebrities in its private bungalows since forever, and that arrangement suits everyone just fine. It's a full-service luxury hotel with tropical gardens, a retro pool that looks like a film still, and guest rooms fitted in English furniture and marble baths. The Polo Lounge still runs on handshakes. Forbes Five Star, a Michelin 3 Keys, and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
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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.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
- The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
- 50 Best #32 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- 50 Best #9 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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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.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 3 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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The original 1930s clubhouse, all Jazz Age plasterwork and old-glamour bones, still stands at the center of this Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key Four Seasons in Surfside. Beachside cabanas, a lavish spa, and the kind of hush that suggests everyone around you is very deliberately not checking email. Thomas Keller's Surf Club Restaurant is on-site, which means dinner requires zero commute. More hideaway than scene, which is precisely the point.
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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.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 3 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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The rooms at this Rosewood resort start at over 900 square feet and come with pebble-inlaid floors, adobe fireplaces, and a semi-private plunge pool on the patio, which sets a fairly clear tone for everything else. The infinity pool along the Sea of Cortez is vast enough that you can genuinely pretend you've swum out to meet the porpoises. It holds a Forbes Five Star, two Michelin Keys, and a spot at number 44 on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
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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.
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A colonial-style hacienda hidden behind jungle and coconut palms on a stretch of Riviera Maya beach that makes the Caribbean look like it's showing off. Maroma is a Belmond luxury resort holding a Forbes Five Star, two Michelin Keys, and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels. Furniture and artwork are made in the hotel's own workshop, the temazcal sits right on the sand, and Curtis Stone has a restaurant here, because of course he does.
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A protected cove with waves breaking onto what may be Cabo's finest beach sits just below this Forbes Five Star resort, which also holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list. The 122 rooms and 52 residences lean into contemporary Mexican design with an indoor-outdoor flow that makes walls feel optional. The bay delivers serious snorkeling and diving, the infinity pool handles the lazy afternoon, and the spa is the largest on the Baja peninsula, if you're keeping score.
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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.
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Every guest gets their own riad, not a room, complete with a rooftop plunge pool, a private courtyard, and a butler who will arrange a Bentley to the airport. The hotel was built at the direction of King Mohammed VI to be a living showcase of Moroccan craft, and the tile work, carved cedar ceilings, and mother-of-pearl details make that ambition hard to miss. Staff move through underground tunnels so the serenity stays unbroken. It holds a Forbes Five Star and sits at number 13 on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- 50 Best #13 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
- 50 Best Art of Hospitality Award 2026 · MENA's 50 Best Restaurants
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The Florentine red dome and latticework facade overlooking the Gateway of India make the Taj Mahal Palace unmistakable from the harbor. It's a grand luxury hotel with two personalities: the Heritage Wing runs to four-poster beds, onyx columns, and hand-knotted carpets, while the Tower Wing goes sleek and modern with Arabian Sea views. Ranked 38th on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, it's been hosting royalty and film stars for as long as anyone can remember.
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Every American president since Truman has kept a suite here, which tells you roughly what kind of hotel The Carlyle is. It sits on the Upper East Side, one block from Central Park, and runs on old-world Manhattan formality so thick you feel underdressed just reading about it. Novelty, as the thinking goes, is for downtown. The Carlyle holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels and two Michelin Keys, and neither comes as a surprise.
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The Mark is a hotel on Madison Avenue where Jacques Grange's monochromatic striped marble and spearmint lacquered bathrooms do most of the talking before you've even unpacked. The Upper East Side address puts the Met two blocks away, though Jean-Georges Vongerichten's kitchen and a New York outpost of Caviar Kaspia make leaving feel like an unreasonable ask. Met Gala week, the lobby fills with people whose outfits are the reason museums exist. Michelin 2 Keys and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
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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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Fifty-two chimneys and 365 leaded windows give you a sense of scale before you've even unpacked. This Forbes Five Star Gothic Revival manor hotel sits on hundreds of acres of Limerick countryside, complete with gargoyles, four towers, and fireplaces designed by Augustus Pugin. The outdoor pursuits run from falconry to fishing, and the Tom Fazio golf course keeps things suitably grand. Four restaurants and a spa handle the indoor hours.
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A former private residence carved into the pale limestone rock of one of Provence's most dramatic hilltop villages, La Bastide is a 40-room luxury hotel with views over the Luberon that make checkout feel like a personal failure. Sixteenth-century bones, eighteenth-century interiors, and a vaulted spa inspired by Sénanque Abbey give it a layered richness that takes a few days to fully absorb. It holds a Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys.
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The resort is poured into a canyon floor in the Four Corners desert, its low concrete pavilions shaped around a natural rock outcropping so the land stays the main event. Amangiri is a remote luxury resort on 600 acres of Utah scrubland, the kind of place where the silence is the amenity. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list. Slot canyons and mesa views come standard; crowds do not.
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A hillside olive grove in Rutherford that started as a Provençal restaurant and kept going until it became a Forbes Five Star resort. The 33 acres feel genuinely removed from the valley floor, and the rooms lean into the California light without apology. There's a spa, a pool, and the kind of staff-to-guest ratio that makes hot-air ballooning seem like a reasonable thing to schedule before breakfast.
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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.
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Bill Bensley designed this 47-room luxury hotel as a love letter to the opera house a few blocks away, imagining where the singers and costume designers might have stayed during the golden age of the art form. Every room pays tribute to a different opera figure, the spa runs theatrical, and the drinking options range from a chic bar to a full cocktail lounge. It holds a Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys, which tells you roughly what a night here costs.
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The spa is built around a cenote, a natural underground pool the ancient Maya considered sacred, which sets the tone for this wellness resort buried in the Yucatán jungle about 25 minutes from Mérida. The 40 casitas each come with a private pool; the restored hacienda villa adds its own spa suite and gym. Jorge Vallejo of Quintonil oversees the restaurants. One of the World's 50 Best Hotels, and holds two Michelin Keys.
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The only property on Saint Barthélemy certified as a palace hotel by French hospitality authorities, Cheval Blanc sits right on Flamands Bay, the island's most coveted stretch of white sand. It holds both a Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys. Villas, bungalows, and suites vary in layout and placement, some beachfront, some tucked into hillside gardens, but privacy runs consistent throughout. The Guerlain spa and a restaurant by Jean Imbert round out what is, even by St. Barts standards, a serious operation.
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A Beaux Arts facade on the Caspian waterfront, looking out over a park toward the water, in a city that hasn't exactly been overrun with luxury hotels. The Four Seasons Baku holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys, and the interiors lean contemporary marble and chandelier while the indoor pool channels a Roman bathhouse vibe. The restaurant, bar, and tea salon make it a genuine meeting place for the whole city, not just guests.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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Rooms on the upper floors look directly over the Public Garden, which is the kind of view that makes you forget what a hotel room costs. This is a classic luxury hotel that holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, and a recent renovation sharpened the interiors without leaning on tired colonial signifiers. The beds are serious, the marble bathrooms feel almost indulgent, and an eighth-floor indoor pool adds a quietly civilized touch.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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The stained-glass ceiling of the lobby alone stops guests mid-check-in, and the view straight down to the Chain Bridge with Buda Castle beyond it is the kind of thing hotels put on brochures and rarely deliver. This Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key hotel occupies a painstakingly restored Art Nouveau palace on the Danube, with 179 rooms that run large by any measure. The rooftop spa has an infinity pool and Omorovicza treatments; the cocktail bar hosts dance performances on the first Thursday of each month.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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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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A 43-foot illuminated spiral staircase greets you before you've found the check-in desk, which sets the tone for this Forbes Five Star, Michelin Key hotel on Al Soor Street. Yabu Pushelberg handled the interiors, so the luxury feels considered rather than loud, with oak herringbone floors, hand-cut crystal, and a bronze Marc Quinn sculpture doing the talking. The spa is elaborate, the rooftop buzzes, and the pool cabanas are air-conditioned, because Kuwait.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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The glass-domed Rotunda at the center of this Forbes Five Star, Michelin Key hotel is where breakfast, cocktails, and afternoon tea all happen to share the same magnificent ceiling. The building started life as the Port of London Authority, and the Corinthian columns and crystal chandeliers haven't forgotten it. Rooms run to marble bathrooms with heated floors; top-floor residences add private terraces and full kitchens. The Tower of London is across the street, which is a lot to live up to.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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Boston's second Four Seasons sits in a Henry Cobb skyscraper, which means floor-to-ceiling glass and views that remind you this city is actually quite flat. The hotel is contemporary in a way that still feels safe for anyone who travels with a hanging bag, with a full spa, an indoor pool, and Zuma and LPM for dining. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, and the room views alone reframe the city.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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Three historic buildings, one modern addition, and somehow it all coheres on the Vltava riverbank a short walk from Charles Bridge. This Forbes Five Star hotel holds a Michelin Key and earns both by doing exactly what a great luxury hotel should, just a degree better than expected. Pierre-Yves Rochon handled the interiors, Prague Castle fills the better room windows, and the Old Town is essentially at the front door.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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A circular fireplace cast in an ancient bronze map of Korea anchors the lobby of this 29-story Forbes Five Star luxury hotel in Gwanghwamun. The design nods to an old palace, then pulls it firmly into the present, with over 130 Korean artists represented throughout. Floor-to-ceiling windows on every floor split the view cleanly between Gyeongbokgung Palace on one side and a skyline of glass and commerce on the other.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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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.
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Every villa comes with its own private pool, which does make the infinity pool overlooking the bay feel almost unnecessary. This Forbes Five Star resort sits just across the bay from the airport, so the beach begins almost immediately. Complimentary water sports and beachside dining fill the days, and the place manages to feel romantic and family-friendly at once, a trick most resorts attempt and few pull off quietly.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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Eighteen acres of terraced gardens slope down to the Ayung River, and the resort grows much of what ends up on the plate, eggplant and lemongrass among them. At 60 rooms it runs small for a Four Seasons, so the pools, restaurants, and pair of spas all feel like they belong to you rather than a convention. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a 50 Best Most Admired Hotel Group Award.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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Canopy Suites sit on stilts in the treetops with private infinity pools, which tells you most of what you need to know about the ambitions here. This Forbes Five Star resort on a scenic hilltop above the Pacific mixes rose stucco buildings and thatched pavilions with an Arnold Palmer golf course, a sprawling spa, and several restaurants. Howler monkeys provide the ambient noise, and the Pacific breezes do the rest.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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Bungalows carved into black lava rock replace the usual hotel tower here, which tells you a lot about the Four Seasons Hualalai's approach to resort life on the Big Island. The saltwater pool has cabanas that close for full privacy, and a separate encounter pool lets you swim alongside eagle rays. The adults-only pool and a Jack Nicklaus golf course exist for those not chasing fish. A Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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Lanai has no traffic lights, most of its roads are unpaved, and the Four Seasons sits on a bluff above one of the few beaches in Hawaii inside a marine reserve. It's a full-scale luxury resort, Forbes Five Star and Michelin Key, with a Jack Nicklaus golf course, a spa, koi ponds, and enough pool area to get genuinely lost. Spinner dolphins pass offshore while guests book Jeep excursions or do nothing whatsoever, which is also a perfectly defensible plan.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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The adults-only serenity pool, where you float with a spicy hibiscus margarita while staring at Lanai, is the one that matters most. This Forbes Five Star resort on Maui's sunny Wailea coast is where the first season of White Lotus was filmed, so yes, you will recognize the lobby. Multiple pools, oceanview restaurants, and an outdoor gym that at least lets you feel the trade winds while you suffer. A Michelin Key holder.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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Eighty-five rooms and suites spread across low-slung buildings among actual working vineyards in Calistoga, so the wine country backdrop isn't decorative. The style is modernist with a farmhouse lean, the spa has an outdoor garden, and bikes sit ready for anyone who wants to feel virtuous between meals. The on-site fine dining restaurant, Auro, holds a Michelin star. The resort also holds a Forbes Five Star.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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The beach here is the widest strip of sand on the island, and the resort knows it, orienting everything around that fact. This is a Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key property done in pistachio and rose, with a spa, multiple pools, and a beach club that quietly absorbs most of your plans. Mauro Colagreco runs the flagship restaurant, Florie's, where South Florida produce meets his Italian and Argentine instincts. Palm Beach is already the opposite of hustle.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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Waiters who wade into the surf to deliver drinks to guests mid-wave set the tone for this Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key resort on its own quiet spit of coast above Puerto Vallarta. Fifty-two acres of jungle and white sand, two private beaches, and a range of pools give the place the feel of a small principality. Casitas, suites, and villas all face the water, and the beach-boho aesthetic is consistent enough that you won't feel shortchanged by your room tier.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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A grand Scottish resort that once ran on society-calendar logic, open summers only, for the kind of people who made a point of venturing north. Now it's year-round and rather more international, but 850 acres of Perthshire, three championship golf courses, and a spa with an outdoor hydrotherapy pool under open sky have a way of making that feel irrelevant. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels. You can still arrive by train, which feels correct.
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A private funicular carries you down to the beach, which tells you something about the scale of this Forbes Five Star, Michelin three-key resort on Cap Ferrat, tucked between Nice and Monaco on 17 pine-shaded acres. The white marble lobby runs to Murano chandeliers and Lalique crystal, yet the staff manage to make it feel unhurried rather than intimidating. Guests rarely leave the grounds, and given the pool club, the gardens, and the general air of consequence, that's hard to argue with.
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A jungle road narrow enough to make you question the GPS leads to this intimate beachside resort sprawling across fifty acres between Tulum and Playa del Carmen. The main house was once a European duchess's home, and the guest rooms, jungle suites, and freestanding bungalows still carry that privately owned feeling. Three restaurants, an organic spa, and two pale blue pools sit between you and the white sand beach. It holds a Forbes Five Star and Michelin's 3 Keys.
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Bougainvillea tumbles over sun-bleached terraces above a private Tyrrhenian cove, and the white-and-yellow stripes of the beach club have barely changed since Slim Aarons pointed a camera at them. This clifftop resort on Monte Argentario holds a Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list. Fifty rooms and cottages mix terracotta floors and exposed beams, and the bar pours a Pelican Martini to anyone who needs convincing this is still the place to be.
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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.
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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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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.
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Shingled cottages scattered across 250 acres of St. Helena woodland, reached by golf cart, set the tone at this secluded wine-country resort. Meadowood holds a Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys, and it earns them quietly, through handwritten welcome notes and staff who seem to have memorized your preferences before you arrived. Three pool areas, a spa, and the kind of wine immersion that makes Napa feel like homework you're thrilled to do.
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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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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.
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The two towers are shaped to echo the Thai wai, palms pressed together in greeting, which is either a beautiful design concept or a very tall way to say hello. Either way, it works. This luxury hotel on Phloen Chit Road holds a Michelin Key distinction and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list. Inside, fan-shaped lights and Thai sculptures fill the marble lobby, and rooms run to floor-to-ceiling angled windows in soft plums and blues.
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Boats bring you to your room here, which should tell you most of what you need to know. Rosewood Mayakoba is a luxury resort on the Riviera Maya where the villas and suites sit among canals, lagoons, and mangrove forest, each with a private plunge pool and some perched on stilts above the water. A tequila library and a raw bar handle evenings. It holds a Forbes Five Star and appears on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
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Perched above Épernay on a hillside of famous Champagne vines, this Forbes Five Star hotel was carved out of an old coaching inn where Napoleon once stopped to rest. Every one of the 47 rooms faces the Marne Valley, so waking up to that view is less a perk than a policy. There's a spa, a Michelin-starred restaurant on site, and enough local grapes outside the window to make the minibar feel redundant.
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The "no news, no shoes" policy is literal: shoes are collected at arrival and returned only at departure. This private-island resort in the Maldives' Baa Atoll is accessible only by seaplane, and once you land, bicycles are the transport and outdoor bathrooms are standard. Villas disappear into dense jungle, butlers are around the clock, and the organic gardens feed restaurants scattered across the island. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
- 50 Best #28 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
- 50 Best SeiBellissimi Art of Hospitality Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
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Marlon Brando discovered this private atoll while filming "Mutiny on the Bounty" and reportedly secured the lease partly with a homemade apple pie, which is a negotiating tactic worth studying. The Brando is a carbon-neutral luxury resort on Tetiaroa, a short flight from Tahiti, with 35 private villas, each with its own pool and beach. Breakfast honey comes from a nearby motu. It holds a Forbes Five Star and three Michelin Keys.
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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.
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Perched in Beverly Hills' Golden Triangle, this Forbes Five Star hotel looks out over Beverly Canon Gardens, where white parasols and a fountain do their best impression of a Roman piazza. Rooms run floor-to-ceiling windows and proper beds. The rooftop holds a pool and a Dante outpost for cocktails above the Hollywood Hills. Somewhere below, a dedicated caviar and oyster bar awaits guests who find the minibar insufficiently ambitious.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- Time Out The 17 best hotels in Los Angeles
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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.
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The unmarked black gate is a deliberate tease: no sign, no fanfare, just a turn off the street and suddenly you're inside a 1960s New Khmer villa that once hosted visiting heads of state as King Sihanouk's personal guest house. Aman restored it from a shell using old photographs, and the K-shaped pool and circular domed restaurant survive intact. The two dozen suites come with private courtyards and deep soaking tubs. Temple tours and remork rides are folded into the rate. Forbes Five Star and Michelin 2 Keys.
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A turreted castle on Lough Corrib, surrounded by wild Irish woodland, Ashford Castle is a Forbes Five Star hotel where the activity list reads like a country estate wishlist: falconry, archery, horse riding, clay pigeon shooting, and fishing trips with a local guide on the lake. The 83 rooms come with original antiques, open fires, and chandeliers. The kind of place where staff quietly hand you a wax jacket before you've thought to ask.
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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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The carved wood ceiling in the lobby has been there since the hotel opened, and the staff behaves as though it always will be. This is a grand Alpine resort in St. Moritz, old-school glamour at altitude, with an ice-skating rink on the grounds and complimentary laundry for children under twelve, which tells you something about who stays here. The Hitchcock Suite is self-explanatory. Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
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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.
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A 48-story tower cantilevered above a lovingly restored 1916 Chamber of Commerce building, all red brick and imposing columns, isn't a subtle move, but Bvlgari pulls it off. The hotel holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys, and the rooms occupy the skyscraper's upper floors with views split between the Bund and the Pudong skyline. Bronze accents, travertine, and dark woods run throughout, and the subterranean spa is a serious operation.
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The sculpted gardens by landscape designer Enzo Enea are the quiet surprise, a genuinely serene ribbon of green tucked into Chaoyang's embassy district. This is a luxury hotel where the Italian design firm Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel did every room, butler service comes standard, and Maserati handles the airport run. Forbes Five Star and Michelin's 2 Keys confirm what the imported marble and subterranean mosaic-tile pool already suggest.
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Perched on a clifftop nearly 500 feet above the Indian Ocean at Bali's southern tip, this Forbes Five Star resort makes the setting the main event. Sixty-odd villas and mansions blend Milanese furniture and traditional Balinese craft in a way that somehow doesn't feel like a mood board. Frangipani-scented paths wind down through volcanic gardens to the water, and the buggy ride to your villa is its own quiet ritual.
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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.
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White Moorish domes against Caribbean blue is the opening image at Cap Juluca, a Belmond resort strung along a mile of Maundays Bay. Rooms, suites, and villas all come with ocean views and private terraces, some with private pools. The spa is lavish, the handful of on-site restaurants lean into local flavors, and the beach is the kind that makes people question their decision to ever own property elsewhere. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.
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One of the very few swimmable beaches on this stretch of Baja coastline makes Chileno Bay an outlier before you even check in. The Auberge Collection resort sits in a protected cove halfway between San Jose and Cabo San Lucas, its bleached-wood minimalism stepping back so the three-tiered infinity pool and Sea of Cortez can do the talking. Rooms start at a generous 760 square feet with a soaking tub and outdoor shower. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.
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A boutique hotel built into a volcanic rock above Baie de Saint Jean, Eden Rock is the kind of place that makes other resorts look like they're trying too hard. The rooms are genuinely singular, the staff treats discretion as a professional sport, and a coral reef sits just off the beach for snorkeling. A Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list confirm what the crowd already knows.
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Perched on the cliffs of Punta Ballena where the Pacific meets the Sea of Cortez, Esperanza is a 57-suite Auberge resort with the only private beach in Los Cabos, so the seclusion is structural, not just a vibe. Casitas have terraces and ocean views; the Cocina del Mar restaurant is carved into the bluff. The palapa spa goes deep on traditional medicine wheel treatments. Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys. Celebrities come, and the Frette linens apparently come standard.
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The stuffed woolly mammoth skeleton under the red tent in the lobby tells you immediately what kind of hotel this is: one where restraint was never on the mood board. Alan Faena's Miami Beach property holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys, and earns both by committing fully to its own maximalist vision, Old Hollywood glamour reread through a fever dream. Collins Avenue regulars check in and never quite want to leave.
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The Four Seasons brand started in Toronto, so the Yorkville flagship carries a certain pressure to get things right. This glass tower hotel earns its Forbes Five Star with quietly luxurious rooms recently renovated to nod at the Canadian landscape, a Daniel Boulud restaurant on site, and service that reportedly sets the standard for every other property in the chain, which is either reassuring or a lot to live up to, depending on your mood.
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Georgetown's grand old luxury hotel, the Four Seasons holds a Forbes Five Star and draws the kind of guests who already know what thread count they prefer. The 222 rooms lean traditional in a city that considers tradition a professional requirement, so the aesthetic fits like a well-pressed suit. Bourbon Steak handles dinner, a proper fitness club handles the rest, and the staff handles everything with the unhurried confidence of people who've seen every VIP twice.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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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.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- 50 Best #66 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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A Versailles-inspired Grand Pavilion and a French-style garden the size of a small principality announce what kind of resort this is before you've found your room. Grand Lisboa Palace holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys, and it earns the scale with 1,350 ornate rooms that blend Portuguese tiles and Chinese motifs, a spa, a hundred-plus-boutique mall, and thirty places to eat. Pack accordingly.
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Every room faces the East China Sea, which is the whole thesis of this sprawling coastal resort in Onna Village. Named after its Honolulu sister property, "halekulani" translates roughly as house befitting heaven, and the interiors lean into that with a signature palette of seven shades of white that makes the ocean outside look even more absurdly blue. A Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys, plus diving, hot springs, and enough dining to argue about where to eat each night.
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The Bellini was invented here, which tells you something about the kind of hotel this is. Perched on the tip of Giudecca Island, Cipriani is a Forbes Five Star property that holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, sitting across the lagoon from the city it lets you briefly escape. Murano glass, Fortuny fixtures, manicured gardens, and a heated saltwater pool fill the grounds, while suites in the Palazzo Vendramin annex come with a private butler.
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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.
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Two floors carved out of a large Tokyo business hotel, Executive House Zen operates as its own quiet world above the Akasaka Estate gardens, one of the few patches of green left in this part of the city. Pierre Hermé pastries in the lounge and Ferragamo in the bath set the register. Rooms are generous, the lounge runs six meals a day, and guests borrow the full hotel below, including dozens of restaurants. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key.
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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.
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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.
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A pre-arrival consultation kicks things off before you've even packed a bag, which tells you everything about the register of this Forbes Five Star wellness resort on its own private Maldivian island. The whole stay is organized around four pillars, mind, microbiome, skin, and energy, with naturopaths and movement specialists mapping out a program built specifically for you. The ocean is still there whenever you want it.
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Winston Churchill painted Marrakech from his third-floor suite here, and the hotel has been setting an impossible bar for guests ever since. La Mamounia is a grand Marrakech resort where Moorish arches, Art Deco edges, and twenty acres of orange trees and bougainvillea compete for your attention. Jean-Georges Vongerichten runs two restaurants, Pierre Hermé handles the pastry, and the lantern-lit spa has been on everyone's mood board for years. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels.
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That cherry-red façade on the cliffs above Positano is the postcard before you even check in. Le Sirenuse is a boutique luxury hotel, still run by the family that built it as a summer home, which explains why 58 rooms feel less like inventory than a houseguest situation with better towels. The views over the Tyrrhenian are the kind that make you miss your flight on purpose. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
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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.
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Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Huangpu River from every room at this Forbes Five Star hotel on the Pudong side of Shanghai, where the skyline is newer and the architecture doesn't do the nostalgic Bund thing. Some 4,000 works of contemporary art fill the property, curated down to the last hanging angle. The spa has a separate lounge just for foot massages, a tepidarium, and a crystal steam room, which tells you how seriously they take the whole operation.
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The top floors of a 79-story Futian skyscraper, where the rooms are among the largest in Shenzhen and the panoramic windows do a lot of the decorating for you. This Forbes Five Star, Michelin Key hotel has eight restaurants and bars, including the much-talked-about Bay by Chef Fei, plus a 68th-floor spa with treatments that involve quartz sand, which sounds either deeply relaxing or like something you'd need explained twice.
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A Frank Gehry fish lamp in red, pink, and peach dangles from the lobby ceiling, which is either a bold opening statement or a gentle warning about what follows. This Forbes Five Star, Michelin Key hotel sits steps from Wangfujing and a short walk from the Forbidden City, and the rooms face that direction deliberately. The spa has a skylight lap pool, the bar staff wear Vivienne Tam, and MO Bar runs late with cocktails and a sunset terrace.
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A private corridor connects the hotel directly to the Prudential Center, which in a Boston February is less a perk and more a lifeline. The Mandarin Oriental is a luxury hotel in Back Bay, its lobby built around local granite, feng shui principles, and a long gas fireplace that earns its keep most of the year. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, and the staff seem to know the difference between attentive and hovering.
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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.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
- Time Out The 35 best hotels in New York City
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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.
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Ski-in/ski-out access to Big Sky Resort, three fly-fishing rivers nearby, and a Tom Weiskopf golf course next door keep the itinerary full at this Forbes Five Star, Michelin Key mountain resort. When you come in from the cold, the walls of windows, deep leather chairs, and roaring fires make sure you know you're still in Montana, just a warmer version of it. The spa runs to 11,000 square feet, in case the slopes weren't enough.
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Ski-in/ski-out from Empire Pass, with staff who will warm your boots and help you buckle them if you ask, which sets the tone for the whole operation. Montage Deer Valley is a full-scale mountain resort with craftsman-style rooms, a spa with indoor and outdoor pools, and year-round access to hiking, biking, and fly-fishing when the snow melts. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key.
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The 130 rooms here are bungalows scattered among heritage oaks, stained the same quiet brown so they nearly disappear into the hillside. This Forbes Five Star resort sits deep in Sonoma wine country, with vineyard views from two pools, an archery range, a yoga lawn, and an 11-treatment-room spa that will absolutely derail your itinerary. The terrace at the bar, with Mount St. Helena on the horizon and a local pour in hand, makes a compelling case for doing nothing at all.
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Stone pathways wind through lush gardens on a clifftop bluff above Laguna Beach, which sets the tone for this full-service luxury resort. The Arts and Crafts movement is the organizing inspiration, and original works from that era share walls with contemporary pieces throughout. Rooms and bungalows have private balconies with ocean views, fire pits burn at dusk, and the pool sits improbably blue below the Pacific sky. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.
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Fifty clapboard cottages built in the Low Country style sit among rivers, marshes, and Spanish-moss-draped maritime forest midway between Hilton Head and Savannah. This sprawling resort holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys, and the Southern hospitality is less a policy than a local condition. Screened porches, abundant waterways, and a 13,000-square-foot spa keep guests occupied long after they've run out of excuses to stay.
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The building itself is the first thing: a free-form figure-eight wrapped in a latticed steel exoskeleton, one of the final projects Zaha Hadid completed before her death. Inside, glass bubble elevators climb past origami-folded walls to a rooftop pool, two Alain Ducasse restaurants, and a spa. The 770 rooms run large by any standard. A Forbes Five Star hotel on the Cotai Strip that earns its keep before you've even checked in.
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The pink has been here so long it barely registers as a choice anymore, just the color Cape Town's skyline expects. Mount Nelson is a grand Belmond hotel set in nine acres of gardens at the foot of Table Mountain, and it carries the low hum of a place where heads of state and rock stars have all quietly checked in. The interiors run plush and the hospitality runs warm, with the Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list to show for it.
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Occy's Left, the surf break that made this corner of Sumba famous, still draws wave-chasers to what is now a full-scale luxury resort sitting between a private beach and untamed jungle. Private infinity pools, butler service, open-air spa pavilions, and three restaurants have replaced the surf-shack origins, though something unhurried in the atmosphere suggests they were never entirely erased. The Michelin Guide awarded it 3 Keys.
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Villas sit either in the treetops or on coastal cliffs above the Pacific, each with a private plunge pool and round-the-clock butler service, which tells you exactly what kind of resort this is. It holds a Michelin 3 Keys and ranks among the World's 50 Best Hotels. Enrique Olvera runs the clifftop restaurant. The spa brings in traditional healers for indigenous ceremonies, because a plunge pool apparently isn't enough.
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A promontory perch above the Sea of Cortez, where the Pacific and the Cortez waters meet at the tip of Baja, gives this Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key resort a setting that does a lot of the work. The 55 acres of cliffside villas and suites come with butler service, a sprawling spa, a Jack Nicklaus golf course, and one of the few swimmable beaches on this stretch of coast. The crowd runs younger and more photogenic than the Bing Crosby era, but the instinct is the same.
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Treehouse villas perched in 200-year-old rainforest trees, ground-level villas threaded through tropical undergrowth, and a palm-fringed stretch of Riviera Nayarit coastline that somehow still feels undiscovered. This Forbes Four Star resort on the Vogue 100 Best Spas list makes a feature of the temazcal, a pre-Hispanic sweat ceremony that predates the wellness industry by several centuries. Eighty acres, a private plunge pool, and a dedicated host who handles the details you didn't know you needed handled.
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Donatella Versace had creative control over every inch of this hotel inside the Grand Lisboa Palace complex, and it shows: marble everywhere, mosaic floors, stylized columns, and fabrics dyed in colors that would embarrass a sunset. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys. Rooms skew Italian palazzo, with enough gold and pattern to make restraint feel like a personal failing. The Cotai Strip casinos are a short walk away, if you tire of staring at the décor.
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The Rosewood Guangzhou occupies the top 39 floors of the CTF Finance Centre, which means you're checking into what may be the tallest five-star hotel on earth. Seven restaurants and bars, an expansive two-story spa, and some vertiginous views come with that altitude. The interiors run sleek and contemporary without feeling corporate. It holds both a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, so expectations are set accordingly before you even reach the 70th floor.
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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.
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Pink open-air cars shuttle guests around the 16 acres here, which tells you something about the register: this is a Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key oceanfront resort that takes relaxation seriously and has the budget to prove it. Art Deco touches, a Sense spa, two pools, and private bungalows set among English-garden landscaping, all facing a south-coast beach the property calls the American Riviera. A Goop shop is on site, naturally.
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A former maternity hospital and a Jean Nouvel tower wrapped in 250 trees form the bones of this luxury hotel in Bela Vista, and the 450 site-specific works by Brazilian artists mean every corridor argues with the last. Philippe Starck handled the interiors, and the rooftop pool and jazz bar have become destinations on their own. It landed at number 24 on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
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On 340 acres in the Blue Ridge foothills, this full-service luxury resort was modeled after founder Sheila C. Johnson's own nearby home, and it does look suspiciously settled-in for a modern build. Horse trails and working stables share billing with a sprawling spa and several restaurants, putting equestrian country at the center rather than the background. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, and one of too few Black-owned hotels at this level.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- Washingtonian Neighborhood Guide: Where to Eat, Shop, and Play in Middleburg
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Private cottages tucked into 550 acres against the Santa Ynez Mountains, with the Pacific spread out below. San Ysidro Ranch is a resort that has been a discreet hideaway forever, the kind of place where Winston Churchill and the honeymooning Kennedys came specifically to be left alone. The cottages are the point, not the lobby scene. It landed on the World's 50 Best Hotels list, which tracks for somewhere this quietly serious about making guests disappear.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
- 50 Best #68 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
- Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
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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.
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Floors 34 through 52 of Renzo Piano's glass spike above London Bridge, the Shangri-La holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, and the swimming pool on the 52nd floor is the highest in Europe, which is either thrilling or unsettling depending on your relationship with heights. Every room has floor-to-ceiling windows, marble bathrooms with heated floors, and views stretching toward Kent. Borough Market is a short walk downhill, back in the world of mortals.
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A 40-ton metal tree outside sets the tone: nature and city, held in deliberate tension. This Forbes Five Star, Michelin Key hotel sits in Toronto's financial district but reads more like a sanctuary, with carved wooden screens, cascading waterfalls, and rooms so generous that the standard category runs larger than most hotels' suites. The fifth-floor spa has a hammam and a 20-meter pool with floor-to-ceiling views over the city below.
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A wellness resort tucked into a sal forest in the Himalayan foothills, where the intake process starts weeks before you arrive, when the team begins mapping your Ayurvedic dosha from home. The 21-acre estate is all low, symmetrical pavilions folded into the trees, and your stay, which runs a minimum of five nights, is fully programmed: yoga, treatments, guided nutrition, and therapeutic seasonal meals, all built around you.
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Floor-to-ceiling glass hovers over mallee scrub on Kangaroo Island's southwest coast, which is about as remote as luxury gets in Australia. This 25-room coastal lodge runs on a fully inclusive model, open bar and gourmet meals included, so the main decision each morning is whether to join a sea lion tour or simply watch a kangaroo wander past from the sunken lounge. The spa has the same view, and reportedly so does the wildlife. Holds a Michelin 2 Keys and appears on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- 50 Best American Express Travel One To Watch Award 2025 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
- 50 Best #69 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
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Heated sidewalks run through the whole property, which tells you everything about the philosophy at this Forbes Five Star, Michelin Key lodge sitting mid-mountain at Deer Valley. Rooms come with jetted tubs; suites add stone fireplaces and gourmet kitchens. The ski valet handles your gear so you never have to think about it, and the Troll Hallen Lounge is exactly the kind of firelit room you want after a day on the slopes.
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The clock tower above Waverley Station has run three minutes fast for over a century, so arriving guests don't miss their trains. This Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key hotel is the classic Edinburgh stay: kilted doormen, soaring ceilings, a dome-topped Palm Court, and rooms whose gas fireplaces and views of the castle make leaving feel like a poor decision. Bar Scotch holds the city's largest Scotch whisky collection, if you need a reason to stay in.
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The rooftop pool that was, for years, the only one in London gives you a decent sense of how The Berkeley operates: a luxury hotel in Knightsbridge that keeps getting there first, quietly. Rooms lean minimalist by the standards of the neighborhood, suites are dressed by guest designers, and Cédric Grolet handles afternoon tea. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys, which the regulars who've been booking the same room for decades probably already knew.
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A welcome drink made with honey from the hotel's own bees sets the tone at this Belmond property tucked between Sloane Square and Belgravia. Fifty-four rooms across five joined townhouses keep it feeling like a private house rather than a hotel, with 400-odd pieces of British art on the walls and access to the otherwise members-only Cadogan Place Gardens. Oscar Wilde's old room is now part of the Royal Suite. Forbes Five Star and Michelin two keys.
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Kengo Kuma designed this high-rise hotel on the edge of the Imperial Palace grounds, and the minimalist aesthetic is persuasive enough that you'll feel guilty leaving a toiletry cap off. Shoji screens, vast windows, and a view that's either all neon galaxy or, facing the Palace, total darkness. The Forbes Five Star and Michelin two-key property draws dignitaries who value the Hie Shrine greenery as a buffer from the city it's somehow also in the middle of.
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One of the Gilded Age mansions lining Newport's Cliff Walk, this small luxury hotel holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin two-key distinction. No two rooms share a period: Tudor, Georgian, and Renaissance suites each come with a fireplace, most with a Jacuzzi, and some with ocean views dramatic enough to justify the whole trip. Two restaurants, one fine-dining and one slightly looser, pull in locals alongside guests.
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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.
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No two rooms share the same design at this 88-room Tribeca luxury hotel, where hand-laid Moroccan tiles might give way to Japanese lacquerware or Italian linens depending on which door you open. Belgian designer Axel Vervoordt pulled it together into something that reads less like a hotel than a well-traveled collector's apartment. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels and a Michelin Key, and sits a block from the Hudson with good restaurants right outside.
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Yabu Pushelberg designed the interiors, and the suites average six hundred square feet, which tells you where this boutique hotel sits on the spectrum. The Hazelton is Yorkville's idea of a grand hotel, all heated bathroom floors, a private screening room that fills up during film festival season, and a lobby that skews Gatsby without apologizing for it. Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys. Celebrities apparently appreciate the discretion, though the bar patio is very much the opposite.
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A plantation-style inn tucked into the Blue Ridge foothills where most guests book a room and a table in the same breath, treating dinner as the main event and sleep as the gracious afterthought. The chef has held a Michelin star for years, and the Forbes Five Star rating keeps the staff sharp. Afternoons run to tea and scones; evenings to tasting menus that take a while. Hike, balloon, or antique between the two.
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A Book Lounge stocked with four thousand titles hand-picked by Karl Lagerfeld himself tells you everything about this hotel's tone. The only property designed entirely by the late fashion icon, it layers chinoiserie and Western art deco through 271 rooms where even the headboards quote Ming Dynasty imagery. The spa is suitably lavish, and Mesa by José Avillez handles dinner. Forbes Five Star and Michelin two Keys.
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A three-metre lobby urn overflowing with eucalyptus and roses sets the tone: this is a hotel that wants to whisper in a city that mostly screams. The Lana is the Dorchester Collection's first Middle East property, a dual-tower Foster + Partners structure on Marasi Bay with rooms in rose and blush velvet, rooftop views of the Burj Khalifa, a Dior Spa, and restaurants from Martín Berasategui and Jean Imbert. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
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The last building Mies van der Rohe ever designed now has a hotel on its lower floors, which is either a poetic ending or a very good address depending on your priorities. The Langham sits beside the Chicago River with travertine bathrooms, serious service, and afternoon tea if you want it. A Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys confirm the tier, though the river views from the upper rooms do most of the convincing on their own.
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Ski-in/ski-out at the base of the Silver Queen Gondola, which means you clip in roughly where you check out. The Little Nell is a Forbes Five Star, Michelin Key resort hotel that Aspen's serious regulars treat as the only address in town. Champalimaud's renovation left it looking like a very confident idea of mountain luxury, with fireplaces, deep sofas, and suites whose vaulted ceilings frame the kind of views that make unpacking feel optional.
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Grass-roofed hillside suites, creekside cabins, and cliffside rooms with views over Alexander Canyon give this Auberge resort on 4,000 acres outside Park City three genuinely different ways to sleep in the same landscape. Stone, glass, and wood are arranged to keep the mountains and canyon doing the decorating. Horseback riding, fly fishing, and heliskiing fill the days. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key.
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A working replica of Big Ben greets you at the entrance, which tells you everything about how committed this all-suite Macau hotel is to the bit. The Victorian-era atmosphere is maximalist in the lobby, then quiets down in the suites themselves, where marble nightstands and leather armchairs take over. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, and carries off its London-than-London premise with enough conviction to make the absurdity charming.
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A glass modernist tower rising from a rocky cliffside above Monaco, the Maybourne Riviera is a Forbes Five Star hotel that earns its dramatic entrance before you've unpacked. The group also runs Claridge's, which tells you where the bar sits. Sixty-five rooms were each designed in collaboration with artists and architects, and the infinity pool is literally carved from the cliff. Coco Chanel once built a villa nearby, so the neighborhood has form.
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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.
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The three-tiered pool stretching along the Chao Phraya is a good way to understand what this Forbes Five Star hotel is doing: classic Peninsula luxury with a riverfront view that the city's newer, trendier arrivals can't easily replicate. The 370 rooms look out over the water, river taxis connect you to the temples, and the skytrain handles the business district. Dining, a spa, and a large lawn round things out quietly and without fuss.
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Pearlescent white marble stretches across the lobby beneath a pair of Qin Feng ink paintings, with Peninsula Afternoon Tea laid out below them as if to say the British era never quite ended. This all-suite luxury hotel sits a short walk from Tiananmen Square, with Cantonese and modern French restaurants on site, a Clarins spa, and rooms where a bedside panel controls everything short of your mood. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key.
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A bedside panel controls the temperature, lighting, curtains, and music without your ever leaving the 300-thread-count sheets, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Forbes Five Star hotel on the Mag Mile. Rooms run to light wood and muted earth tones, marble bathrooms have soaking tubs with their own TVs, and a skyline-level spa gives you a reason to eventually get up. Discretion is the whole point, and the staff has clearly rehearsed.
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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.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- Time Out The 35 best hotels in New York City
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The art deco lobby on the Bund sets the tone: celadon walls, black marble floors, and the quiet suggestion that Shanghai's golden age never quite ended. This Forbes Five Star hotel carries a Michelin 2 Keys distinction and makes good on both with rooms where the tub fills at a button press and the drapes obey accordingly. The spa channels 1920s Paris, and the in-house restaurants cover fine dining and Cantonese without either feeling like an afterthought.
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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.
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A chandelier made from over 15,000 Czech crystals sets the tone in the lobby, and the hotel only escalates from there. This independent luxury hotel in Uptown Houston holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, with rooms starting at 500 square feet, marble bathrooms stocked with Acqua di Parma, Frank Stella originals on the walls, and a spa, pool, two restaurants, a cocktail bar, and a patisserie on the grounds.
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A custom scent hits the lobby before you've even found the check-in desk, which tells you everything about how this luxury hotel operates. Rockwell Group designed the interiors around the idea of levitation, and the oversized windows with their Imperial Palace-adjacent skyline views do most of the work. Bespoke beds, a Swiss spa, and a Club Lounge with panoramic reach round it out. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key.
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Perched at the corner of Central Park South and Sixth Avenue, this 33-story Ritz-Carlton holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, and earns both by feeling considerably smaller and quieter than it has any right to be. The rooms lean into a neutral palette with dark wood molding and plush club chairs, the kind of old-New York-club aesthetic that stops just short of stuffy. Central Park is right there, and somehow the street noise isn't.
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Five hundred acres of manicured Florida grounds sit at the headwaters of the Everglades, which is a strange and quietly wonderful fact about a resort this polished. The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key, with championship golf, a Five Star spa, lakefront trails, and a celebrity chef restaurant on site. Disney is close enough to be convenient and far enough to feel optional.
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Saguaros crowd the view in every direction at this Ritz-Carlton resort tucked against the Tortolita Mountains outside Tucson, and the property leans hard into that setting. More than twenty miles of hiking trails, three pools, a Jack Nicklaus golf course, and a spa built around holistic desert treatments all sit on the grounds. Private stargazing is on offer too, which makes sense when the sky is that dark. It holds a Forbes Five Star and a Michelin Key.
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Seven Mile Beach's most famous 144 acres, this Forbes Five Star, Michelin One Key resort pairs ocean and lagoon views with a lineup that reads like someone was given an unlimited budget and no reason to stop. Eric Ripert's Blue anchors the dining, Jean-Michel Cousteau runs an ocean conservation program, and Greg Norman designed the golf course. When this many big names show up to one address, the Cayman Islands must be doing something right.
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Floors 102 through 118 of the International Commerce Centre, which means your room sits higher than most clouds passing through Kowloon. This Forbes Five Star hotel and Michelin Key holder has Victoria Harbour views from every window, and the rooftop bar turns that into a theatrical event. Six restaurants cover the range from Chinese to Italian, so you'll never run out of excuses not to leave the building, which is basically the point.
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Each room comes with its own Zen rock garden, which feels about right for a hotel sitting on the shores of Lake Chuzenji inside Nikko National Park. This Ritz-Carlton is a long way from the brand's usual neoclassical grandeur, trading marble columns for spare contemporary architecture that reads as genuinely Japanese. Onsen baths, an expansive spa, and a picture window framing Mount Nantai keep you from ever feeling obligated to leave. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.
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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.
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Three pools kept at different temperatures sit between the hotel and the Atlantic, which tells you something about The Setai's approach. This Forbes Five Star resort on Collins Avenue leans into calm when everything around it leans into spectacle: soothing neutrals, a residential hush in the lobby, and suites spread across a 1930s Art Deco building and a newer tower. South Beach outside, spa retreat inside.
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A Forbes Five Star hotel tucked against Namsan Mountain, with Seoul's medieval city walls on one side and a city of ten million on the other. The Shilla has been around forever, but Samsung's ownership keeps it feeling sharp rather than musty, and the scale of the place, a massive property in the middle of it all, makes the mountain backdrop feel like a genuine surprise rather than a postcard prop.
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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.
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A lobby fireplace separates the mirrored bar from the seating area, and the whole ground floor reads like a museum annex, which is apt given that SFMOMA is next door and the Museum of the African Diaspora occupies part of the building. This Forbes Five Star hotel keeps rooms large by San Francisco standards, with neutral Yabu Pushelberg interiors and deep soaking tubs. Athletes, touring bands, and anyone else who needs a quiet car on call tend to wash up here.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
- Condé Nast Traveler 23 Best Hotels in San Francisco
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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.
- 50 Best #45 · The World's 50 Best Hotels
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Recommended
- Michelin Guide Selected Hotels
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Each of the 28 rooms and cottages at this all-inclusive Vermont resort is decorated in its own distinct world, from a fishing-themed rustic retreat to a full Moroccan hideaway with painted ceilings and tilework. Set on 300 acres of Southern Vermont farmland and forest, it lends itself to hiking, canoeing, fly fishing, and cross-country skiing. The resort holds a Forbes Five Star. Couples tend to find their way here, which says enough.
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You reach this Forbes Five Star, Michelin two-key resort by passing through a tunnel blasted through Pedregal Mountain, which sets the tone neatly. Every room faces the Pacific, and a personal assistant is assigned before you arrive, ready to arrange dolphin swims, a curandera session at the spa, or a private breakfast beside your plunge pool. This is emphatically not spring-break Cabo; it's the version where someone else handles all of it.
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Every room at this Ritz-Carlton Reserve comes with its own plunge pool, which tells you something about how seriously the place takes leisure. A 115-room resort on the Sea of Cortez where the architecture takes its cues from Baja rather than a European palace, the décor leans into local motifs, and butlers come standard. The spa draws a devoted crowd, and the restaurants track Los Cabos' food culture. It holds a Forbes Five Star and two Michelin Keys.