The Best Hotels Near The Ritz-Carlton, Langkawi, by the Record
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Perched between ancient rainforest and the Andaman Sea, this resort wears its setting rather than fighting it, with kampong-style village architecture, indigenous building materials, and infinity pools that blur into the horizon. The spa and beachside restaurant both take their shapes from traditional Malay fish traps. When the jungle gets to be too much, touchpad blinds seal out every last leaf.
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The jungle is so dense here that you can lose sight of the resort from inside the resort, which tells you most of what you need to know about the Datai. This luxury beach resort on Langkawi sits on the Andaman Sea, a short walk uphill from a white-sand beach into untouched rainforest. Rooms in the main building reach above the canopy for sea views; outlying villas go deeper into the trees. Monkeys and lemurs occasionally patrol the poolside. It holds a spot on the World's 50 Best Hotels list.
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The owners dismantled a collection of antique Chinese, Malay, and colonial houses from their original sites and rebuilt them here, beam by beam. The result is a boutique resort that feels more like a small, eccentric neighborhood than a hotel. Heritage Houses range from multi-room splits to a self-contained unit, each mixing period architecture with contemporary interiors. No two are remotely alike, which is rather the point.
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Ninety villas and pavilions scattered across one of the Andaman Sea's better-looking stretches of beach, many of them open to the sea air on at least one side. This is a Five Star resort in the barefoot-luxury mode, where "barefoot" is doing some heavy lifting, given the hockey-rink pool and the sprawling spa. The restaurant pulls Indian, Italian, and Japanese into the same open-air room, which sounds chaotic and somehow isn't. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.
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Some villas here sit close enough to the beach that the tide sets your schedule. This is a small pool villa resort on Koh Lipe, where each standalone villa comes with high walls, a plunge pool, and floor-to-ceiling glass pointed at either the sea or the treetops. The interiors are unfussy without feeling bare, deep bathtubs, soft beds, and room to actually decompress. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.