Graz
The trouble with the hotel star rating system is: what happens when your hotel gets to 5? OK, some places have started marketing themselves as 6 (or even 7) star places, but that's just getting a bit silly. Hotel manager Florian Weitzer has...
Arraiolos
If you're planning to hold the world's governments hostage for $50billion with a space death ray, here's where to hide out while you're doing your plotting. There's more than a touch of the Bond villain about Villa Extramuros, but in the best...
Siena
Italy is full of old things, and it's full of beautiful places, but there can't be many older or more beautiful places to stay than the medieval Hotel Monteverdi. Set in the Tuscan hills between Rome and Florence, the village of Castiglioncello...
Gotland
Sometimes, words can seem so futile. Perhaps if I were blessed with the sort of powerful grasp on the English language as a Jack Kerouac, or a Hunter S. Thompson, then I may feel differently; but every now and again I stumble across images, places,...
Paris
There's no escaping art in Paris, it's all around you, and nowhere more so than Jules & Jim Hotel, where guests walk through a 15-metre photo gallery before they've even got to reception. Works are selected from Parisian galleries, some offbeat,...
Ripon
We're living in harsh times. The economy is in the toilet, unemployment is rife, and suddenly all the materialism of the recent past can at times seem a little bit, well, distasteful. What better time to reconnect with your spiritual side, and get...
Miami
With interiors by Kelly Wearstler and a Philippe Starck-designed spa, the very stylish Viceroy Miami has it all. Although a little bit big to be defined as a boutique hotel, everything has been carefully studied to give the same impact and service...
Baja California
Ahh, the great outdoors. Many a hotel promises to put you in touch with nature, but frightfully few deliver. Endémico - a series of luxury cabins perched on the winery-crowded hills of Baja California, Mexico - is one that delivers, and deliver in...
Los Angeles
Los Angeles doesn't say “intimate” to most travellers, in fact it probably scares a lot of people spoon-fed violent cop dramas, so guests at the boutique Palihotel are in for a pleasantly welcoming surprise. The 32-room establishment in...
Montauk
British readers may struggle to reconcile this retro summer camp-style resort with the Butlin's holidays of their childhood, but for the Stateside crew, this place hums summer like creek swimming and The Wonder Years. Based on a 1952 cabin-style...
Berlin
Who doesn’t want to wake up to something beautiful? OK, so you’re not dating a supermodel, but don’t despair, Claudia Schiffer may be out of reach but Germany has more than one statuesque blonde on the market, and this one is asking you to...
Porto
The word hostel may have you immediately reaching for the insecticide, but it’s time to put aside your prejudices and embrace communal quarters - the number of 'hip hostels' on our radar continues to rise. Have a gander at this re-imagining of...
Stuff Crush
Weirdness is a notion long entwined with the concept of creativity. Mocked by the strait-laced confined to their boxes of conformism, celebrated by the bold and the brave who pursue the outré as a means of pushing beyond the banal. In Weird...
City Notes
In Montreal’s Little Italy, a new arrival is making waves with a fresh take on Italian dining. Pasta Pooks, which opened in March 2025, is a compact five-seat takeout counter serving pasta and natural wine in a space that marries Old World charm...
City Notes
A once-forgotten 19th-century residence in Savannah’s historic district has been brought spectacularly back to life, reincarnated as The Douglas; a refined 16-room boutique hotel at 14 East Oglethorpe Avenue, where design meets old-world...
Dispatches
In a country where club floors open with Buddhist chants and Ladyboys offer dawn alms in corsets and stilettos, Elizabeth Waterman has found a world of contradictions too vivid to ignore. Over the past three years, and across four extended trips,...
Dispatches
No matter what type of business you run, a clear and comprehensive digital marketing strategy should be at the heart of it. Companies are continuing to invest more and more into getting themselves noticed online, and if you aren’t up to date with...
Dispatches
Moving, renovating, or downsizing in a fast-growing city like Dallas can quickly become overwhelming. Between tight housing transitions, unpredictable weather, and the sheer logistics of packing up a home or office, it’s easy to feel buried under...
Dispatches
Drivers race the yellow light constantly. It's become normal behavior. Someone sees the light turn yellow and accelerates to beat it rather than slowing down. Another driver is already committed to going through. They collide in the middle of the...
Dispatches
Once upon a time, hotels were where we went to escape real life, and homes were where we returned to it. Today, that separation is disappearing. The warmth, comfort, and design sophistication that once defined boutique hotels are now finding their...