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Written by Rebecca Ellwood
Some hotels offer a room for the night. These offer something closer to a parallel life: one where the champagne is vintage, the architecture stops you mid-sentence and the staff seem to anticipate what you want before you’ve thought to ask.
They span continents and climates – cliffside eco-sanctuaries, intimate lodges tucked into national parks – but what they share is the kind of considered, unhurried excellence that’s genuinely rare. The sense that every detail, from the thread count to the transfer, has been thought about by someone who cares deeply about getting it right.
The most luxurious hotels in Bali
The Mulia, Bali
There are not many places in the world that embody five-star elegance quite like The Mulia, a gem on Nusa Dua’s sun-kissed beachfront. Consistently ranked one of the best resorts in the world, it’s immediately clear why this sanctuary of exotic luxury receives A-list acclaim. With multiple glittering pools, nine restaurants and bars serving a smorgasbord of cuisines, an ultra-luxurious spa and enchanting, butler-serviced pool villas – among the largest on the island – it’s easy to forget that some of Bali’s finest beaches also await on the doorstep.
The Apurva Kempinski Bali
Perched on a clifftop above Nusa Dua’s protected coastline, The Apurva Kempinski is one of Bali’s most architecturally captivating hotels. This terraced resort cascades down toward the Indian Ocean in a series of pools, gardens and open-air pavilions inspired by traditional Indonesian palace design. The 475 rooms, suites and villas are substantial, many with private pools and ocean views that make leaving feel like a genuine effort. Dining is a serious affair: Koral, Bali’s first aquarium restaurant, serves coastal dishes from across the Indonesian archipelago in a room where the walls are the reef; while the Japanese Izakaya by OKU brings the precision of its award-winning Jakarta original to the Nusa Dua shoreline. The Apurva Spa draws on traditional Lulur and Jamu techniques – indigenous treatments that feel rooted in place rather than imported from a wellness trend.
The most luxurious hotels in the Maldives
Soneva Jani
If you’re not yet familiar with Soneva, you’ll certainly want to be. The ultimate destinations to embark on a wellness and relaxation journey, Soneva resorts are, quite simply, exquisite, and designed to create those extraordinary moments of luxury travellers’ dreams. Book into Soneva Jani’s private overwater villa with a slide into the impossibly turquoise lagoon, and spend evenings stargazing at the observatory and feasting on sashimi and champagne. There’s simply no finer way to experience the Maldives.
Soneva Fushi
Soneva Fushi is the brand’s original Maldives resort, the island where the whole philosophy began, in Baa Atoll’s UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, back in 1995. More than 30 years on it remains the benchmark for a certain kind of Maldivian experience: 63 jungle villas scattered through dense tropical foliage, each with an outdoor bathroom where showers cascade from rocks and bathtubs sit open to the sky, a concept Soneva Fushi pioneered. Guests arrive by seaplane, surrender their shoes on arrival and get around by bicycle. Every detail is considered: a dedicated chocolate room, a treetop restaurant, the Maldives’ only glass-blowing studio and a 100% plant-based restaurant growing its own produce in an onsite garden.
The most luxurious hotels in Dubai
Atlantis The Royal
Perched on the crescent of Palm Jumeirah, Atlantis The Royal is Dubai at its most unapologetically extravagant: 795 rooms and suites, 90 swimming pools including the sky-bridge infinity pool at Cloud 22, and a dining lineup that reads like a roll call of the world’s most recognisable chefs. Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner sits alongside Nobu by the Beach, and a Persian fine dining restaurant, among 16 restaurants in total. The Awaken Spa spans over 32,000 square feet and draws on local ingredients including oud, Dubai desert sand and Gulf Sea salt for its signature treatments. Rooms are quietly luxurious with muted tones and floor-to-ceiling windows that let the Arabian Sea do the talking. The suites and penthouses are another matter entirely, with 44 featuring their own glass-sided private pools suspended in the sky.
Raffles the Palm, Dubai
Luxury finds its home at Raffles the Palm in Dubai. This is a five-star resort that knows how to command your attention – and make your jaw drop. Located on Palm Jumeirah, one of the city’s most coveted stretches of real estate, Raffles the Palm is grand on every scale, from the wings of suites that stretch out across private beachfront to a lobby chandelier dripping with 40,000 Swarovski crystals.
Burj Al Arab Jumeirah, Dubai
Hands down the most iconic structure on the Dubai skyline, Burj Al Arab Jumeirah is a pinnacle of luxury renowned the world over. In fact, it’s widely regarded as the most luxurious hotel in the world – and it’s not hard to see why. Aside from its extraordinary, genre-defying architecture and prime real estate on its own island, touches such as a fleet of Rolls-Royce cars for chauffeuring guests, a rooftop helipad and an onsite Michelin-starred restaurant cement its status as one of – if not the – most extraordinary hotels of all time.
The most luxurious hotels in Thailand
Capella Bangkok
Voted one of the world’s three best hotels in 2025, Capella Bangkok earns that distinction through something harder to manufacture than marble lobbies or river views: genuine restraint. The hotel sits low on the east bank of the Chao Phraya – just 101 suites and villas, every one of them facing the river – in a city where luxury hotels typically compete on scale. Here the competition is precision. Each suite has floor-to-ceiling windows, a private balcony and the kind of unhurried service that makes Bangkok’s traffic feel a world away. Dining pivots between two poles: the two-Michelin-starred Côte, where chef Mauro Colagreco applies French Riviera technique to the Thai pantry, and Phra Nakhon, a sun-washed conservatory serving the kind of Thai family recipes that feel genuinely handed down rather than reverse-engineered for tourists. The hotel’s greenhouse supplies both kitchens with herbs and edible flowers – a small detail that tells you exactly how seriously they take this.
Four Seasons Bangkok at Chao Phraya River
The Four Seasons on the Chao Phraya is expansive; a low-rise resort that sprawls across interconnected courtyards, lily ponds and gardens in a way that feels more like a riverside estate than a city hotel. Designer Jean-Michel Gathy took the lead on the interiors, filling communal spaces with large-scale contemporary art sourced through a partnership with Bangkok’s Museum of Contemporary Art; the result is part hotel, part gallery. The 299 rooms are muted and elegant, some with floor-to-ceiling river views, and the two infinity pools positioned directly on the waterfront make the Chao Phraya feel like an extension of the property. Dining ranges from Cantonese at Yu Ting Yuan to seasonally inspired Italian at Riva del Fiume, while BKK Social Club brings a spirit of genuine glamour to the evenings. A private boat ferries guests along the river to Icon Siam and historic temple precincts, removing any reason to hail a tuk-tuk.
The most luxurious hotels in Australia
Capella Sydney
For many years, the sandstone building on Bridge Street was strictly off-limits: the Edwardian Baroque home of Sydney’s Department of Education, admired from the outside by generations of Sydneysiders who never got to see what lay within. An extensive restoration changed that and Capella Sydney ranked 12th on the World’s 50 Best Hotels list in 2025. The 192 rooms and suites are grand while simultaneously cosy, with full-length windows and custom Italian linen throughout. The building’s former sixth-floor gallery is now Auriga Spa, with a heated indoor pool, steam room, sauna, ice fountain and FluidForm Pilates in-room sessions. At ground level, Brasserie 1930 gives Australian produce an Italian twist, while the Aperture courtyard sits beneath mechanical flower sculptures by Amsterdam’s Studio Drift and draped in a living wall of native flora.
The Calile Hotel, Brisbane
Brisbane’s most photographed hotel earns its reputation not through spectacle but through the precision of its design. Conceived by local architects Richards and Spence, The Calile is a subtropical resort embedded in a city streetscape; its breeze-block facade, palm-shaded pool deck and arched doorways create Palm Springs meets Queensland vibe. The 175 rooms are quietly considered, most with individual balconies, Grown Alchemist amenities and locally curated minibars. The pool, ringed with semi-private cabanas and drenched in sunlight, is the social heart of the hotel. Dining spans Hellenika, one of Brisbane’s most enduringly popular Greek restaurants, and SK Steak and Oyster, which regularly ranks among the city’s hardest tables to book. The Kailo Wellness Medispa sits at the serious end of hotel spas, offering everything from IV vitamin drips to full-body scrubs using native Australian ingredients.
Southern Ocean Lodge, Kangaroo Island
Perched on the limestone cliffs of Hanson Bay on Kangaroo Island’s south-west coast, Southern Ocean Lodge is as remote as luxury accommodation gets in Australia. Suites look out over the Southern Ocean, the next landfall south being Antarctica. Rebuilt and reopened in December 2023 by its original architect, Kangaroo Island-born Max Pritchard, the lodge took out Gourmet Traveller’s Resort of the Year in 2025. Every suite has a private deck, EcoSmart fireplace and deep soaking tub. All dining, an open bar of South Australian wines, and guided island experiences are included like wildlife encounters in Flinders Chase National Park, clifftop walks, and visits to a fur seal colony at Admirals Arch.
The most luxurious hotels in Europe
Mandarin Oriental, Paris
You can’t have a conversation about the world’s most luxurious hotels without name-dropping this most elegant of brands: with origins dating back to the Victorian era, Mandarin Oriental has a rich and storied history in luxury hospitality. Its Paris outpost is exemplary of the Mandarin Oriental ethos, showcasing timeless elegance and thoughtful service. Expect the best of the best with dining at the two-Michelin-starred Sur Mesure, and treatments at Spa by Mandarin Oriental, Paris, named Best Luxury Hotel Spa at the World Luxury Spa Awards.
COMO The Halkin, London
Looking for top-tier luxury in the big city? The COMO boutique hotel brand specialises in understated, ‘home-away-from-home’ luxe, resulting in the feel of staying in a (very exclusive) private home. Nestled in a Georgian townhouse near Hyde Park, in exclusive Belgravia, COMO The Halkin welcomes those with impeccable taste. Its rooms and suites are each a haven from the frenetic energy of the city, with whitewashed walls accented with walnut panelling. A spa offering holistic treatments centred on COMO’s signature Shambhala approach eases you further into a sense of serenity.
Further afield: extraordinary hotels worth the journey
Rosewood Hong Kong
Voted the world’s best hotel in 2025, Rosewood Hong Kong rises 43 floors above the Kowloon waterfront, a position that gives many of its 413 rooms an unobstructed view across Victoria Harbour – that improves considerably after dark. The hotel’s approach to dining is genuinely impressive: 11 restaurants and bars spanning Cantonese fine dining, refined Indian street food, a French patisserie and DarkSide, a jazz bar where rare whisky is served as the harbour glitters below. The Asaya Spa by Guerlain covers the wellness offering, while a 25-metre infinity pool on the sixth floor makes the most of the setting. An in-house art collection of internationally sourced sculpture, paintings and photography means there is plenty to look at before you even reach your room.
Esperanza, Auberge Resorts Collection
Mexico’s Los Cabos attracts the well-heeled with good reason, thanks to its dreamy beaches, out-of-this-world diving and exceptional luxury resorts. One of its finest is Esperanza, Auberge Resorts Collection: home to the only private beach in Los Cabos. Here, indulge in the one-of-a-kind luxury one can expect from the prestigious Auberge Resorts Collection. Wake in an ocean-view villa, dine cliffside on succulent seafood and explore the beach on horseback for a truly unforgettable experience.
