Namib Desert, Namibia
Ten canvas tents on stilts among granite boulders in the southern Namib desert, in Namibia's Karas region, styled after 1920s explorer camps and furnished with hundreds of period antiques. An all-inclusive lodge with an infinity pool, reached by a five to six-hour drive from Windhoek or a chartered light aircraft.
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Lago di Garda, Italy
An eco-built wellness resort on a wooded hillside above the western shore of Lake Garda, set in a private estate of woodland and olive groves within the Alto Garda Bresciano park. Every room has a lake-view terrace, and the 4,300-square-metre spa blends classical Chinese medicine with Western research.
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Kinosaki Onsen, Japan
A ryokan of more than 150 years in Kinosaki Onsen, a willow-lined hot-spring town on the San'in coast of northern Hyogo. Tatami rooms look onto clipped Japanese gardens, meals are kaiseki built around Tajima beef and winter snow crab, and guests stroll the town in yukata between its seven public bathhouses.
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AlUla, Saudi Arabia
Around 100 tented villas set against the sandstone cliffs of the Ashar Valley in AlUla, north-west Saudi Arabia, on the edge of an ancient palm oasis and a short drive from the Nabataean tombs of Hegra. A sustainability-minded resort with a pool, the Thuraya wellness centre and a full programme of desert and cultural activities.
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Yakushima, Japan
Twenty-nine cedar-clad villas on a quiet hillside on Yakushima, the World Heritage island of ancient cedar forest off southern Kyushu, with the mountains behind and the sea in front. A spring-fed outdoor pool, a seaweed-based spa, and prix-fixe dinners built on island produce.
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Vals, Switzerland
A design pilgrimage in the remote Graubunden village of Vals, at the head of an alpine valley. The hotel is attached to the 7132 Thermal Baths that Peter Zumthor built in 1996 from 60,000 slabs of local quartzite, and its rooms come in two styles: larger contemporary suites, or the compact House of Architects rooms by Zumthor, Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma and Thom Mayne.
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Tokyo, Japan
A modern ryokan stacked into a 17-storey tower in Tokyo's Otemachi financial district. Shoes come off at the entrance, every floor is tatami with just six rooms and an attended tea lounge, and the top floor holds an open-air onsen fed by dark mineral water drawn from 1,500 metres below the city.
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New York, United States
The east-coast sibling of The Ranch Malibu, on 200 lakeside acres in Sloatsburg, about an hour north of New York City. Up to 25 guests a week follow a fixed programme of group hikes, strength and mobility classes, yoga, a daily massage and plant-based meals, with no phones on show and no menu to choose from.
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Kyoto, Japan
The first Six Senses in Japan, opened in 2024 in Kyoto's temple-dense Higashiyama district, next to the garden of the 16th-century Toyokuni Shrine. Eighty-one rooms in a playful, Heian-inspired design around courtyard gardens, with a spa built around onsen-style bathing.
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