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Umaid Bhawan Palace Was Built as a Famine Relief Project and Is Still Half Royal Home Today

Commissioned in 1929 partly as a drought-relief employment scheme, Jodhpur's Umaid Bhawan Palace took fifteen years to build and now stands as three things at once: a working royal residence, a museum and a heritage hotel.

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Hotel Danieli Has Been Checking Guests Into a Doge's Palace for Two Centuries

On the Riva degli Schiavoni facing the Venetian lagoon, Hotel Danieli occupies a 14th-century doge's residence that has been taking in guests since 1822, its Gothic courtyard largely unchanged since Dickens and Wagner stayed there.

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Explora Patagonia Built Its Hotel Around the Excursion, Not the Room

On the shore of Lake Pehoé inside Torres del Paine National Park, Explora's flagship hotel sells guided daily excursions rather than room categories, with the building itself designed to disappear into the steppe.

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Rosewood Mayakoba Built Its Villas Around Riviera Maya's Lagoons, Not Just Its Beach

Inside the 620-acre Mayakoba development north of Playa del Carmen, Rosewood's property is built entirely of villas and suites strung along mangrove canals, with a spa set on its own lagoon island rather than the beachfront.

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Koh Samui's Best Villas Have Moved Uphill, Away From the Beach They Once Needed

Koh Samui's newer luxury circuit has shifted from the crowded Chaweng strip to headland and hillside villas above Choeng Mon and Laem Yai, with Ang Thong Marine Park and Fisherman's Village in Bophut as the main excursions.

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Amanwana Skips the Villa Altogether for a Tented Camp on Its Own Indonesian Island

On Moyo Island off Sumbawa's north coast, Aman's first tented-camp property sets raised canvas suites on a beach backed by monsoon forest, with a waterfall, a wildlife reserve and Saleh Bay's whale sharks all reachable by boat.

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Amanera Puts an 18-Hole Golf Course on the Cliffs Above One of the Caribbean's Best Surf Beaches

On the quieter, Atlantic-facing side of the Dominican Republic, Amanera pairs a Robert Trent Jones II golf course cut into cliffs and ravines with casitas overlooking Playa Grande, one of the north coast's most photographed beaches.

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Four Seasons Punta Mita Built Two Golf Courses Around a Pacific Surf Break, and the Surfers Won

On Mexico's Riviera Nayarit, Four Seasons Resort Punta Mita sits on a private peninsula best known not for its two Jack Nicklaus golf courses but for El Anclote, the beginner-friendly surf break at its edge.

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Ashford Castle Has Stood on Lough Corrib Since the 1220s, and Guests Still Arrive Past Its Falconers

A 13th-century castle on Lough Corrib that passed through Anglo-Norman, Guinness and now Red Carnation hands, Ashford Castle keeps its falconry school and its long guest list intact.

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Queen Victoria Once Spent a Week Painting at This Highland Hotel Below Ben Nevis

Inverlochy Castle, a Victorian baronial mansion on a wooded estate below Ben Nevis near Fort William, has been a hotel since 1969, more than a century after Queen Victoria spent a week there sketching the glen.

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Jade Mountain Was Built With No Fourth Wall, So Every Room Faces the Pitons

Jade Mountain, built into the hillside above Anse Chastanet on Saint Lucia's west coast, does away with a fourth wall in every suite so its private infinity pools open directly onto the Pitons.

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Song Saa Was Built on Two Uninhabited Islets and Became Cambodia's First Private Island

Song Saa, spread across two small islets joined by a footbridge in Cambodia's Koh Rong Archipelago, opened in 2012 as the country's first private island resort and helped establish one of its first marine protected areas.