The next-gen guesthouse
Casa Fortunato, Lisbon, Portugal
Mr & Mrs Smith’s hotel of the year. Husband-and-wife owners Antonio and Filipa met as architecture students and imagined one day opening a hotel. They transformed their office into a nine-room, next-level design den that opened in 2019. The pride taken in doing things their way is palpable.
The superior spa-cation
Euphoria, Mystras, Greece
A spa with (spectacular) rooms. After overcoming cancer, the retreat’s founder, Marina Efraimoglou, visited destination spas around the world and dove into holistic healing. She used those experiences to create Euphoria Retreat, a 31-room hotel built into the Peloponnesian mountainside and centered around personalized wellness programs.
The cultural incubator
Stamba Hotel, Tbilisi, Georgia
Tbilisi is Europe’s coolest city-break destination. Stamba is a hotel built around the skeleton of an old Soviet printing press, where trees grow through the lobby floor and vines snake up the atrium. The hotel serves as a centrepiece for Georgian arts.
The shared intimacy suites
Urban Cowboy, Nashville, U.S.
The Cabin bedroom has two beds in an open-plan room with a free-standing bathtub between the two. Its Lion’s Den bedroom has three beds in a similar layout; again one free-standing tub in the center. This being Nashville, these are occasionally colonised by touring bands, but they are deeply romantic rooms atop a beautiful and open-minded hotel.
The landscape-as-romance retreat
The Retreat at Blue Lagoon, Iceland
A hotel carved into a secluded side of Iceland’s most iconic natural wonder invites solitude and seduction in equal measure. See also: Utah’s otherworldly Amangiri, where some suites also have rooftop beds for stargazing.
For self-care secondments
The Dutchess, New York State, U.S.
This place is all about the absence of information: a minimal website, no pictures, no social media presence, no phone number, no expectations, no promises. Remember delayed gratification? It’s present here in set mealtimes and slow, seasonal food.
For food-first adventures
Ergon House, Athens, Greece
The logical extension of a restaurant-with-rooms, Ergon House has added boutique bedrooms to its highly successful market. We’ll surely see more of this trend, where accommodation is woven into other hospitality concepts, such as fitness and wellness for example.
Bio-positive breaks
Salt of Palmar, Mauritius
The first eco-hotel on Mauritius, its inventive roll-call of locally inspired activities beats the average luxury resort: engage in a skills-swap experience by sharing your expertise with a local (and vice versa); attend a rehearsal of the village’s Hindu wedding singers; or join the sunrise running club.
For nomadic immersion
Shakti Sikkim Village Walk, Himalayas, India
This isn’t a hotel, it’s a trio of rural houses with host families in scenic Sikkim. Wake up beside mountains, meadows and cardamom fields at these three remote village dwellings, which share their setting with snow leopards, black bears, red pandas and more.
FUTURE-FACING HOTELS:
Where to Get a Taste of Tomorrow Today
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