Gold List 2020 hotels

One of Paris’s best-loved palace hotels has been utterly transformed, and its sass and zing have pulses racing.

As long as you're prepared for the sticker shock, this Place Vendôme palace is a must-stay for history buffs and hotel junkies.

Step into a Hollywood institution where you're still likely to spot a celeb or two.

Your own Malibu beach house. 

This grande dame is the ultimate in traditional luxury: a rich-hued marvel of a place that defines classic Venetian hospitality.

An elegant Andalusían finca with a hedonist, bohemian soul.

Out on the Cambodian archipelago of Koh Rong, this escapist paradise brags conservation credentials, locally sourced food, and high design.

This masterfully designed hotel is a home-away-from-home in New York’s quiet-luxe Tribeca neighborhood.

A home turned hotel offers more than a playful take on French hospitality.

Shepherded by fifth-gen Sonomans (and siblings), Farmhouse Inn looks and feels like a classic New England country charmer—with California wine county street cred

A palatial Andalusian finca, with golf on the side.

The grande dame of Budapest hotels, on the Danube river.

A grand Bavarian icon on a hill amid forests and greenery.

Porto Zante in the Greek island of Zakynthos brings spoiling villa living to another level.

On the fringe of a lagoon in Noonu Atoll, blanketed in racing-green jungle and ringed with neon-white beach, Soneva Jani is the second Maldivian island home of the visionary brand. It’s an unreal world, where children and adults alike trail about the jungly interior on bikes, hang in hammocks on Robinson Crusoe beaches, throw themselves down slides, splash about on technicolor reefs and watch dolphins race through iridescent baby-blue waters. The overwater villas have glass-bottom floors and pool decks with corkscrew slides, and the fantastical Den, just a year and a half old, is the largest kids’ club in South Asia. But it’s not just about embracing your inner child. Adult treats include The Gathering, on the north side, an overwater barn of restaurants, a library and wine cellar. Eating is taken seriously—from a meat-free outpost by Bocuse d’Or-winning Swedish chef Mathias Dahlgren to the garden-set idyll So Local, as well a rotation of visiting chefs (2024’s include Tom Aikens and Jane Alty, co-owner of London Thai street-food hero The Begging Bowl). A treehouse-like Island Spa has egg-shaped rooms linked by walkways floating towards a yoga shala. Soneva Soul is the brand’s new, more ambitious approach to health. This year, it has launched three-, seven- and 14-day wellness journeys around foundational health, sleep, detoxing and anti-aging, using its magic blend of naturopathy, Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine alongside high-tech treatments such as platelet-rich plasma therapy and ozone therapy. Feeling well is at Soneva’s core—way beyond ditching one’s shoes on arrival. From $2,397. —Lydia Bell

Founded by King Mohammed VI, this private, palatial resort took 1,200 master craftsmen over three years to construct.

More like a dozen separate ryokans than one hotel in the business district of Otemachi. 

Five-star hotels don’t come more luxurious—or better located—than this.

A handsome (not to mention, massive) 17th-century estate with plenty of royal appeal.

This adults-only property in Bantry Bay houses a private modern art collection.