A carbon-neutral Swiss wellness retreat. A private island off a Norwegian fjord. Nintendo's former headquarters reimagined by Tadao Ando. These are the hotel openings rewriting the travel playbook — and the ones we'd pack a bag for right now.
Every year brings a wave of hotel openings. These thirteen are the ones that stopped us mid-scroll. What connects them isn't a price point or a star rating — it's intention: architects and founders who started with a place, a history, or an obsession and built something that couldn't exist anywhere else.
Europe
The Carlton, Milan
Five years, sixty million euros, and one of Milan's most storied addresses later — the Carlton is back. Rocco Forte's sixteenth property reopens on Via della Spiga, right in the heart of the Quadrilatero, with 71 rooms and suites designed by Olga Polizzi alongside Paolo Moschino and Philip Vergeylen. The interiors nod to the city's midcentury greats — think Gio Ponti geometries, burgundy and chartreuse accents against warm ochre walls, and tactile Italian materials that recall the elegant restraint of Villa Necchi Campiglio. Downstairs, Fulvio Pierangelini runs the kitchen at Spiga with the kind of refined simplicity that makes you forget you're eating in a hotel, while Salvatore Calabrese's Carlton Bar (opening spring 2026) promises aperitivo hour worthy of the address. The Irene Forte Spa rounds it out with Sicilian botanicals and a thermal suite. Time your visit for the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics — the city will be electric — and book a Forte Suite with terrace views over the rooftops.
Milan, Italy · November 2025 · Stay if you: want a front-row seat to Milan at its most dynamic — fashion, design, and now the Olympics — without sacrificing the intimacy of a private residence. · roccofortehotels.com
Six Senses London, Bayswater
It took a three-year delay and the full architectural muscle of Foster + Partners to get here, but Six Senses' first UK outpost is finally arriving inside The Whiteley, the Grade II-listed former department store in Bayswater. The 109-room hotel and 14 branded residences — interiors by AvroKO and EPR Architects — sit just moments from Hyde Park and Notting Hill, but the real draw is below street level: a 2,300-square-metre spa housing London's first magnesium pool, cryotherapy chambers, flotation pods, and a biohacking lounge that reads more like a longevity lab than a hotel amenity. Six Senses Place, the brand's debut private members' club, adds a wellness-driven alternative to London's traditional club scene. Whiteley's Kitchen, Bar and Café champions what they're calling maverick British cuisine — seasonal, local, and refreshingly unfussy. Rooms start around £700 per night, and given the buzz, early booking is strongly advised.
London, England · April 2026 · Stay if you: believe a hotel spa should double as a science lab — and want to walk to Portobello Road after your cryotherapy session. · sixsenses.com
Lilløy Lindenberg, Bergen
Four rooms. One private island. Zero Wi-Fi. Lilløy Lindenberg is the kind of place that makes you wonder why hotels ever got so complicated. Set on Midtøyni, a fjord-flanked island near Bergen, this latest project from the Frankfurt-based Lindenberg group is a restored century-old farmhouse and annexe wrapped in mint-green clapboard. Bergen-based duo Vera & Kyte led the renovation, ferrying materials across unruly waters with a low-waste philosophy that prioritized keeping the bones of the original house intact — stripped timber walls, reinforced beams, and all. The interiors are quietly Nordic: ceramics by Joris-Jan Bos, glassware by Sigrid Rostad, and seaweed-filled mattresses that somehow manage to be both eccentric and deeply comfortable. Chef Antje de Vries runs a plant-based kitchen that feels like an extension of the landscape. To get here, fly into Bergen, drive 45 minutes, then take a five-minute boat. The effort is the point.
Bergen, Norway · Now Open · Stay if you: crave genuine disconnection — no screens, no schedules, just cold fjord air and the sound of absolutely nothing. · thelindenberg.com
Huus Quell, Gonten
You may not have heard of Gonten, a tiny village in Switzerland's Appenzell region, but tech mogul Jan Schoch is betting you will. The founder of Leonteq AG poured his fortune into building one of the only carbon-neutral hotels on the planet — a five-story structure fabricated from roughly 6,000 locally sourced trees, assembled without a single nail or metal frame, insulated with geothermal wells and solar arrays, and finished with lime-based plaster that actively absorbs CO₂. But Huus Quell isn't just an engineering marvel — it's a proper wellness destination. The 2,200-square-metre Quell Spa, designed by GOCO Hospitality, spans three floors with nine pools, eight saunas, and an L3 Longevity Circle biohacking suite offering cryotherapy, infrared therapy, and hyperbaric oxygen chambers. A preserved 400-year-old tavern anchors the property in local tradition, and Switzerland's largest wine cellar sits below. Appenzell is rolling green hills, painted chalets, and mooing cows — the Swiss postcard you didn't know was real.
Gonten, Switzerland · April 2025 · Stay if you: want to biohack your morning, hike through a storybook valley after lunch, and drink rare Swiss wine in a four-century-old tavern by evening. · appenzellerhuus.ch
Casa de las Artes, Madrid
Madrid's Art Triangle — the Prado, the Thyssen, the Reina Sofía — finally has a hotel that matches its energy. Casa de las Artes, part of the Meliá Collection, occupies four heritage-protected buildings anchored by a palatial 1913 block originally designed by Ricardo García Guereta as the headquarters of Spain's railway workers' association. Father-and-daughter duo Álvaro and Adriana Sans of ASAH Studio reimagined the interiors with a boutique sensibility that feels cultured rather than corporate — think live music in the lobby, cinema nights, literary events, and a culinary program celebrating the seven fine arts. The common spaces genuinely come alive in the evenings, and the service strikes that rare balance between attentive and invisible. It's not white-glove luxury — it's something better: a hotel that builds a thoughtful cultural world around you. Dual entrances on Atocha and Moratín streets put you within a short walk of essentially everything.
Madrid, Spain · Now Open · Stay if you: want your hotel to feel less like a place to sleep and more like a private cultural institution — with the Prado as your neighbor. · melia.com
Black Sand Hotel, Ölfus
Iceland's South Coast has been overdue for a proper hotel, and Black Sand delivers with quiet confidence. Set in the Ölfus region, about forty minutes from Reykjavík, the property faces the North Atlantic from a stretch of volcanic black beach — the kind of landscape that makes everything else feel like set design. Rooms are pared back and Scandinavian in the best sense: DUX furnishings, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a palette that lets the view do the talking. ÓMUR, the eighty-seat restaurant, serves New Nordic cuisine sourced from the surrounding coastline, and the spa offers geothermal hot tubs, cold plunges, and sauna rituals that feel less like amenities and more like the reason you came. Opening rates start at $210 per night including breakfast — an almost suspiciously good deal for a brand-new Icelandic hotel with this much design intention. The South Coast's greatest hits — Seljalandsfoss, Vik, the Westman Islands — are all easy day trips from here.
Ölfus, Iceland · January 2026 · Stay if you: want to stare at the North Atlantic from a geothermal hot tub on a black volcanic beach — and pay surprisingly little for the privilege. · blacksandhotel.is
Casa Bonavita, Attard
When the founders of The Rug Company decide to open a hotel, you pay attention. Christopher and Suzanne Sharp spent five years restoring a 1740 palazzo in Attard, a quiet village in Malta's interior, and the result is Casa Bonavita — seventeen rooms dressed in Sicilian marble, Murano glass chandeliers, and hand-printed wallpaper depicting the streets of Valletta. Suzanne Sharp Studio handled the design with the kind of obsessive material attention you'd expect from people who built a career on texture: every surface, every tile, every light fixture tells you someone cared deeply. Two pools, a spa with hammam, sauna, and cold plunge, and a Mediterranean restaurant that leans on citrus and herbs from the palazzo's own gardens. Malta rarely shows up on best-hotel lists — which is precisely why it should. Attard is fifteen minutes from Valletta, and the island itself is compact enough that nothing feels far. Fly direct from most European capitals.
Attard, Malta · May 2026 · Stay if you: have a weakness for impeccably restored historic homes — and want to discover the Mediterranean island no one's talking about yet. · casabonavita.com
Luura Cliff, Paros
The debut property of a new brand backed by the Elie Khouri family office and plugged into the Ennismore ecosystem, Luura Cliff stakes its claim on Paros' western coast overlooking Agia Irini bay. Elastic Architects shaped the exterior; Lambs and Lions studio designed the interiors. The 39 adults-only suites each come with a private pool — a smart move on an island where the light alone is worth the airfare. The food and drink program punches well above its weight class: Mimi Kakushi, which landed on the World's 50 Best Bars list in 2025, is setting up here alongside La Cantine du Faubourg, a name familiar to anyone who's dined well in Dubai or Paris. Wellness leans Mediterranean — olive oil rituals, salt scrubs, the kinds of treatments that feel ancient and indulgent at once. Paros is a fifteen-minute flight from Athens or a quick ferry from Mykonos, but it moves at its own pace — unhurried, sun-bleached, and increasingly excellent. Future Luura properties are already planned for Sands (2028) and Athens.
Paros, Greece · May 2026 · Stay if you: want the Greek island fantasy — private pool, world-class cocktails, golden light — without the Mykonos circus. · luurahotels.com
Zannier Île de Bendor, Bandol
In 1950, Marseille-born pastis pioneer Paul Ricard bought a rocky seven-hectare island off the coast of Bandol and turned it into his personal vision of Mediterranean life — a glamorous gathering place for artists, families, and anyone who understood that the best parties happen near saltwater. Seventy-five years later, his great-grandson Marc de Jouffroy has partnered with Arnaud Zannier to bring the island back. After a five-year gut renovation led by Hardel Le Bihan Architectes and landscape studio Niez, Zannier Île de Bendor reopens as a 93-room village-style retreat spread across three distinct zones: Delos (39 keys channeling 1960s Riviera glamour), Soukana (49 keys built around wellness and reconnection), and the Madrague Houses (five two-story residences with private gardens for families). Chef Lionel Levy — a Marseille institution — runs eight dining venues, from the gastronomic Le Grand Large with panoramic sea views to Café Paul Ricard serving traditional Provençal fare and Bar Patrick, named for Ricard's beloved son. The 1,200-square-metre wellness centre draws on Ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine, and naturopathy, with hammam, mud baths, and a reformer Pilates studio. True to Paul Ricard's wish to "make Bendor an island garden," the island now has fifteen percent more trees than before the rebuild. Seven minutes by boat from Bandol, forty-five minutes east of Marseille. From $750 per night including transfers and breakfast.
Bandol, France · May 2026 · Stay if you: want a private island in the South of France that feels less like a resort and more like a beautifully restored village with its own mythology. · zannierhotels.com
North Africa & The Middle East
Jnane Rumi, Marrakech
Tucked inside Marrakech's Triangle d'Or in La Palmeraie, Jnane Rumi is the passion project of Dutch art lawyer Gert-Jan van den Bergh — and it shows. The property was originally designed in the 1930s by Charles Boccara, Marrakech's most influential architect, then meticulously restored by his protégé Nicolas Bodé with Belgian creative director Jacques van Nieuwerburgh and Dutch-Moroccan interior designer Mina Abouzahra. The result is eleven suites in the main villa, three garden pavilions, and a private annexe set within a hundred-year-old garden of 150-plus palm, olive, and pistachio trees. The art collection alone — works by Mous Lamrabat, Khalil Nemmaoui, Louis Barthélémy — would warrant a visit, but it's the dining, led by chef Karin Gaasterland (formerly of El Fenn), and the frescoes by Roberto Ruspoli in the dining room that make the whole thing feel like staying inside someone's extraordinary private world. Rates start around €500 per night.
Marrakech, Morocco · April 2025 · Stay if you: collect rare art, love garden hotels, and want a Marrakech experience that feels more like a private house party than a riad. · jnanerumi.com
The Malkai, Oman
This might be the most ambitious hotel concept on this list. The Malkai isn't one property — it's three: a trio of fifteen-suite tented camps spanning Oman's coastal farmlands near Muscat (Barkaa), the Al Hajar mountains (Hajar), and the desert dunes of Sharqiyah. The idea is a multi-day journey between them in a Land Rover Defender 110, guided by a personal Murshid who serves as driver, storyteller, and cultural interpreter across four to ten nights. Founded by the Khimji family — the same dynasty behind The Chedi Muscat — and designed by Singapore's Unscripted Design with landscapes by Marcus Barnett Studio, the 85-square-metre Pavilion Suites draw on the Bedouin bayt al-sha'ar tent tradition while incorporating Omani marble, Ryukyu limestone, and palm leaf resin. Each camp has its own marble swimming pool, farm-to-fork dining, and access to experiences ranging from a private island in the UNESCO-listed Ad-Dimaniyat archipelago to falconry in the dunes. Nothing else in the region operates quite like this.
Oman (three locations) · Autumn 2026 · Stay if you: want a genuine expedition — desert, mountains, coast — with the kind of luxury that makes roughing it feel like a philosophical choice. · themalkai.com
East Africa
&Beyond Suyian Lodge, Laikipia
If your safari bucket list starts and ends with the Mara, Suyian is here to redirect your attention. &Beyond's newest lodge sits within the 44,000-acre Suyian Conservancy in Laikipia — a less-visited, crowd-free pocket of Kenya that happens to be one of the best places on earth to spot the ultra-rare melanistic leopard (yes, an actual black panther). The architecture, by Nicholas Plewman with Michaelis Boyd and Fox Browne Creative, channels an Afro-Wabi-Sabi aesthetic: earthy textures, hand-crafted details, and a rounded structure that mimics the region's ancient kopje rock formations. Fourteen suites, each with a private plunge pool, overlook the Ewaso Narok River with Mount Kenya as backdrop. Activities go well beyond game drives — think camel safaris, horseback treks, night drives, Swahili cooking lessons, and visits with local Samburu and Pokot communities. Rates start at $1,500 per person per night, all-inclusive. Fly into Laikipia's Loisaba Airstrip from Nairobi's Wilson Airport on Safarilink or AirKenya; the lodge handles the rest.
Laikipia, Kenya · July 2025 · Stay if you: want to track a black leopard at dawn, ride a camel through acacia woodlands by midday, and fall asleep to absolute silence. · andbeyond.com
The Americas
Amanvari, East Cape
Aman's first Mexico property arrives not in the well-trodden corridors of Los Cabos but on Baja California's East Cape — a stretch of coastline where desert, estuary, and the Sea of Cortés collide in a landscape so cinematic it borders on implausible. Designed by Elastic Architects with early input from Heah & Co., the resort's 18 casitas are elevated above the terrain, framing panoramic views of the Sierra de la Laguna mountains through open-air courtyards finished in white concrete, natural stone, and tropical hardwoods. Interiors are grounded by bespoke ceramics and original artworks by Mexican artisans — no imported décor performing a vague idea of "local." The Aman Spa introduces a contemporary interpretation of the temazcal, the pre-Hispanic sweat lodge ritual, alongside signature Spa Houses, open-air yoga pavilions, and longevity-focused treatments that feel genuinely rooted rather than borrowed. Dining spans Italian, Japanese, and Baja regional cuisines, leaning into the East Cape's extraordinary seafood and seasonal produce from Costa Palmas' own eighteen-acre organic orchards. Amanvari sits within Costa Palmas, a 1,500-acre private estate with three miles of swimmable beach, a deep-water marina, and a Robert Trent Jones II golf course. Branded residences — beachfront, hillside, or golf-course-facing — offer private pools and full Aman Private Office services for those ready to commit. Fly into San José del Cabo; the East Cape is about an hour's drive north.
East Cape, Baja California, Mexico · Spring 2026 · Stay if you: want Aman's signature silence in a landscape where the desert drops into the sea — and you'd rather discover Mexico's next great coast than follow the crowds to Cabo. · aman.com
Japan
Rosewood Miyakojima, Okinawa
Rosewood's Japanese debut lands not in Tokyo or Kyoto but on Miyakojima — a remote, nature-soaked island in Okinawa where the water is absurdly blue and the pace is set by sugarcane fields and coral reefs. Holland-based Studio Piet Boon designed the 55 villas and houses as low, modernist forms in tones that mirror sea, rock, and forest — concrete planes that sit lightly on the landscape, emphasizing texture over polish and letting the setting do the heavy lifting. The culinary program is strong: NAGI blends Italian and Japanese traditions, MAAS focuses on seafood, YUKUU serves poolside, and CHOMA offers a dedicated washoku pavilion. The Asaya Spa draws on Okinawan ingredients — turmeric, shikuwasa citrus, mozuku seaweed — rooted in the island's famed Blue Zone longevity culture. Miyakojima is a direct flight from Tokyo or Osaka, and the lack of international tourist infrastructure is part of its charm. Come before everyone else figures it out.
Miyakojima, Okinawa, Japan · March 2025 · Stay if you: want to experience Japan's most beautiful water at a resort designed with the restraint and material intelligence the island deserves. · rosewoodhotels.com
Marufukuro, Kyoto
Before Mario, before Donkey Kong, before the Switch — there were playing cards. Nintendo was founded in Kyoto in 1889, and in 1933 its second president built the company a purpose-built headquarters near its original hanafuda shop. Today, that building is Marufukuro, an eighteen-room hotel designed by Tadao Ando with the kind of tasteful restraint that lets history speak for itself. The original Showa-era details are still intact: the "Nintendo Playing Card Co." signage, the green-tiled roof, an original cage elevator, stained-glass windows, and art deco fireplaces. Ando's new wing adds his signature concrete minimalism without competing with the heritage. Chef Ai Hosokawa runs Restaurant Carta, and a library traces Nintendo's full arc from hanafuda to global domination. It's not a themed hotel — there are no mushroom motifs — but the subtle nods will thrill anyone who understands the cultural weight of the brand. Kyoto Station is six minutes away. Book well in advance; with only eighteen rooms, availability disappears fast.
Kyoto, Japan · Now Open · Stay if you: appreciate design, history, and cultural storytelling — and want to sleep inside one of the most quietly significant buildings in modern Japanese business history. · marufukuro.com
What ties this list together isn't geography or price — it's a shared conviction that where you stay should be inseparable from where you are. Restored palazzos, carbon-neutral timber, wabi-sabi concrete, Bedouin tent canvas: the best new hotels aren't decorating rooms, they're telling stories rooted in place, material, and craft. Pack accordingly.
