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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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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.
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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.
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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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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 arched windows and yellow-ochre façade give nothing away, but this Forbes Five Star hotel spent its earlier life as a political prison, which is either a great story to tell at dinner or a mild haunting, depending on your outlook. It sits steps from the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, and the rooms are all hand-woven carpets and Murano glass. A small, quietly opulent base for the old city.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 3 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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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 grand foyer alone tells you what you're in for: marble floors, birds of paradise, and ornamental stonework salvaged from the banks and social clubs that once occupied this corner of Centro. It's a luxury hotel in the most old-Madrid sense, except the rooms are thoroughly modern and the service is Four Seasons, which earns a Forbes Five Star and a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels. The building's angled facade at Sevilla and Alcalá has already become part of the skyline.
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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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Every suite faces south, which means Lake St. Moritz and the Engadine mountains fill every window without exception. This Forbes Five Star hotel sits just outside the town center, all-suite throughout, with butler service and a 24-hour car on call. The Bel Etage, anchored by two historic fireplaces, is where guests gather before and after dinner while someone plays the grand piano, which is either charming or a lot, depending on your mood.
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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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Cathedral-ceilinged villas rise over a Maldivian lagoon, the whitewashed walls bouncing equatorial light across the water while coconut-thatch screens soften what is, underneath, a very French operation. Belgian architect Jean-Michel Gathy designed the whole island from scratch, and the scale is deliberately extravagant. A Forbes Five Star private-island resort where the majordomo greets you in French and Guerlain runs the spa, which tells you exactly the register.
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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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White marble and pearlescent finishes run throughout this Forbes Five Star hotel on Al Maryah Island, a nod to the UAE's pearl-diving past that somehow doesn't feel like a museum. The building's facade, inspired by souk fabrics, deflects the region's brutal sun while looking the part. Business travelers, locals, and holidaymakers circulate through the lobby in equal measure, kept moving by a staff that treats a slow check-in as a personal failure.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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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 neoclassical facade sits right on the Quai des Bergues, with the lake and Alps framing the view in a way that feels almost implausible. This Forbes Five Star hotel carries the formal French grandeur you'd expect, softened by genuinely modern touches and the kind of Four Seasons service that makes other hotels feel like they're still figuring it out. A rooftop spa and sky-lit indoor pool round out the picture for anyone who considers a bathrobe an itinerary.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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A Forbes Five Star hotel on the Corniche, Four Seasons Doha has its own private beach and five pools in the middle of West Bay's glass-tower sprawl. Service runs to cold towels and sunglass cleaning poolside, or custom bathrobes for returning guests. Nine restaurants include Nobu, perched over the Arabian Gulf, and Le Deli Robuchon for casual French. Discreet and polished, the way old luxury is supposed to feel.
- 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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The pool sits so close to the Bosphorus that Europe and Asia share the horizon at once. This Forbes Five Star hotel occupies a 19th-century Ottoman mansion on Çırağan Caddesi, and the setup is as theatrical as it sounds: ferries pass, minarets recede, and the Asian shore is right there. A hammam anchors the spa, rooms run toward the palatial, and the ferry quay is a short walk.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 1 Key
- 50 Best 2025 · Most Admired Hotel Group Award
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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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The heated outdoor pool looks out over Eduardo VII Park, which feels like a reasonable reward for staying at one of Lisbon's grande dame hotels. The Four Seasons Ritz holds a Forbes Five Star and draws a guest list that skews toward heads of state and touring rock musicians, often in the same week. Art deco bones, a lounge of contemporary Portuguese art, and a gastronomic restaurant and spa round out the picture.
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Five Star
- Michelin Guide 2 Keys
- 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 hotel folds so quietly into Higashiyama's narrow lanes, with black-tiled roofs and natural materials echoing the neighborhood's old temples, that you might mistake it for a traditional townhouse complex. Inside is a luxury hotel with airy rooms that sit somewhere between a ryokan's calm and a proper international stay. Kyoyamato, one of Kyoto's most storied restaurants, is on the premises. The World's 50 Best Hotels list has it at number 59.
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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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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.