The Best Hotels for 2026: Boutique Openings, Design Stays & Wellness Retreats

Boutique stays, design hotels, the 2026 openings worth booking, and the wellness retreats that actually deliver — selected by our editors and tested where possible.

50 Hotel articles

100+ Properties reviewed

4 Editorial pillars

2026 Hot List baked in

From our writers

The places we keep going back to

From Paris to Lisbon, Europe's most beautiful Airbnb apartments to rent in 2026 — curated before new regulations reshape the map. The aesthetic on this list ranges from quiet Haussmannian to maximalist Lisbon, but the connecting thread is rooms that photograph the way they actually feel.

— Denis Zaykovskiy in Europe's Most Stylish Airbnbs for 2026 · Europe

If you've ever stood under a hotel rooftop bar at sunset and felt the city become a model of itself, you'll understand why we built this list. The tallest hotels with bars on top — from the Burj Al Arab to the Park Hyatt Shanghai — make the elevator ride the start of the evening.

— Locals Insider in The Tallest Hotels in the World with Bars on Top · Worldwide

Editor’s quick picks

Our most-read guides in this section

A handful of editor-chosen articles to start with — the ones we keep sending people to.

Boutique design Europe's Most Stylish Airbnbs Denis Zaykovskiy, in /hotels/ Wellness retreats 25 Best Luxury Wellness Retreats Worldwide Locals Insider editorial Thermal stays 20 Best Hot Spring Resorts in the World Ranked by travelers Rooftop views Tallest Hotels with Bars on Top Sky bars worth the elevator Ayurvedic retreats Best Ayurvedic Retreats in India Real reviews by price & program Find your match Boutique Hotel Matcher Take the 60-second quiz

From the 2026 lists

The names topping every 2026 list

The LocalsInsider team follows the awards too. Here are the hotels making consistent appearances on the 2026 Condé Nast Hot List, World's 50 Best, Tatler, and Forbes Travel Guide.

Best in Europe Passalacqua Lake Como, Italy

Best in Asia Rosewood Hong Kong World's #1 hotel 2025

Best in Africa Royal Mansour Marrakech, Morocco

Best in N. America Chablé Yucatán Mexico

Hot List headline Naples Beach Club Four Seasons, Florida

London debut Six Senses London The Whiteley restoration

Kyoto opening Capella Kyoto Kengo Kuma, Mar 2026

Italian alpine Lake Como EDITION Ian Schrager, 2026

Silent retreat Eremito Umbrian 14th-c. monastery

Remote luxury Sheldon Chalet Denali, fly-in Alaska

Wellness island JOALI BEING Raa Atoll, Maldives

Aparthotel of year Wilde Lisbon + Vienna Edyn Group, 2025-26 openings

Off the beaten path

Not-so-obvious picks

Two of our most-read editorial deep dives in this category.

Greenland's Ilimanaq Lodge: 15 timber cabins beside an icefjord

From the 2026 hotels guide: a tiny Inuit settlement of fifteen black-stained timber cabins on the Disko Bay coast, with Koks pop-up dining (the two-Michelin-starred Faroese kitchen runs a season here each summer). Excursions are Inuit-led; the icebergs are the show.

from our 2026 hotels guide Read the full hotel guide → Top 25 list

Luxury wellness retreats — JOALI BEING to Chiva-Som

Our editor-curated list of the world's most rigorous wellness destinations, from Maldivian well-being islands to Henri Chenot's South Tyrol palace and Thailand's medically-led RAKxa.