My Top 10 Hotels, Thus Far

To me hotels are an integral part of any travel experience. My criteria are straightforward: The hotel must be architecturally interesting; incorporate high-quality design and materials; offer great service; be hip or dignified (but not too too); and go for $300 or less per night. Each month I eagerly await my new travel magazines to see if there are any new gems to be plucked, and far more often than not I’m disappointed.

First, the hotels touted in Travel + Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler (to cite the biggies) are too expensive for my budget: Since when did $400 or $500 a night become the norm? And, truth be told, it’s not only my budget---I’d be willing to splurge for a transcendent experience, but not for what is basically a business hotel with a lot of concierge or spa services I’m not going to use.

Second, the hotels are often in places like Canouan, Dubai, Cancun, Taiwan, and the Maldives---all places that, for one reason or another, are not at the top of my personal list of future destinations.

Third, I seek out unusual, smaller, and often newer properties that often don’t show up in the guidebooks or the Travel + Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler annual readers’ polls of top hotels. Those polls are, by and large, retreads of the previous year’s list, with a few new properties. In Granada, for instance, it’s a sure bet that the top pick will always be the Parador de Granada, which is situated, admittedly, on a coveted spot within the romantic Alhambra grounds, one of my favorite places in the world. But why stay at a parador that charges $310 a night and is booked a year in advance, yet hasn’t invested in its infrastructure in years and has less than stellar service, when you can stay at a nearby five-star hotel that is a luxurious and well-conceived refurbishment of the old Convent of Santa Paula, yet charges only $150? You can always visit the Alhambra on a night tour. Similarly, when in Lisbon, why follow the readers’ poll and stay at the oh-so-predictable Four Seasons Hotel Ritz for $452 a night, when you can stay at the sleek, contemporary Solar do Castelo, built within St. Jorge's Castle walls on the site of the former Alcáçova Palace kitchens, for $250?

It does takes some sleuthing to unearth the gems. And I must confess that I’m secretly pleased (and smug) when Travel + Leisure or one of the other travel magazines touts a find several months later, as was the case with Solar do Castelo and La Sacristia. Finally, two caveats: Properties often change ownership or undergo other revisions, so I strongly suggest that you check out the hotel’s Web site, as well as the comments of recent guests at tripadvisor.com. Also, particularly with the larger hotels, you will need to hunt around on Travelocity or other search engines to get a discounted room rate. 

Following is my current top 10 list, in no particular order:

1.    La Sacristia  (Tarifa, Spain)

2.    Hotel Les Ateliers de l'Image (St-Remy-de-Provence, France)

3.   La Casa de los Milagros  (Oaxaca, Mexico)

4.    Hotel Monasterio  (Cusco, Peru)

5.    Villa Sumaya  (Lake Atitlan, Guatemala)

6.    Hotel Gault  (Montreal, Canada)

7.    AC Palacio de Santa Paula  (Granada, Spain)

8.    Hacienda Puerta Campeche (Campeche, Mexico)

9.    Castle Hotel "Auf Schoenburg"  (Oberwesel, Germany)

10.  Solar do Castelo (Lisbon, Portugal)

Comments

[Mark Johnson]

Cool list. We just linked to it:

http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2005/2/10/154916/313/Title/One_Bloggers_Top_Ten_Hotels_List

Send me an email. Would love to get you involved submitting to HotelChatter.

Cheers,

Mark

[Bob Colwell]

In planning a trip around the world, I stumbled upon your current top 10 hotels list. Thank you!

Something else I stumbled upon today that would be of interest to anyone interested in lists such as yours would be the Tablet Hotels website - http://www.tablethotels.com - which is subtitled "Unique Hotels for Global Nomads." It led me to very cool and affordable hotels in Sydney, Singapore and Athens that I'm not sure how I would have found otherwise.

Try it - you'll like it.

Safe travels,
Bob