Journeys and collections
The hotels we recommend, read a second way: routes to take them in, with the nights and the way between, and sets that belong together.
Journey · Pearl River Delta
The St. Regis circuit
5 stops · 7 nights · a loop
Five St. Regis hotels around the mouth of the Pearl River, taken as a loop. Border crossings rather than flights, and you end up back where you started.
Journey · Kyoto · Nara · Osaka
Best of Kansai
4 stops · 12 nights
The old capital, the older one, and the city that ignores both. Four hotels a train ride apart: a night or two on the river at Arashiyama first, five above the lanes of Higashiyama, a night or two on the edge of the deer park at Nara, and two or three beside Osaka Castle Park. Not a single leg needs a car.
Journey · Hanoi to Bali
Best of Southeast Asia
6 stops · 15 nights
Six stops down the length of Southeast Asia, from the old French quarter of Hanoi to the rice terraces above Ubud: the Metropole, the Oriental on the river at Bangkok, the new towers of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, and Bali to finish. Flights rather than trains: the hops are short and the hotel is the point of the stop.
Journey · Hakodate · Niseko · Otaru · Sapporo
Hokkaido by train
4 stops · 8 nights
Up the island by rail, with no car: the Shinkansen from Tokyo to the port of Hakodate, the Hakodate line to Niseko below Mount Yotei, the local train down the valley to the canal town of Otaru, and the coast line into Sapporo. Four stops and a different Hokkaido at each: the port, the mountain, the harbour and the city.
Journey · Edinburgh · St Andrews · Gleneagles
The Lowlands circuit
3 stops · 10 nights
Scotland's Lowlands by rail, with no car of your own: five nights in Edinburgh, the train over the Forth and up through Fife to the home of golf, and on to the great hotel in the Perthshire hills. Three stops, each a short ride from the last, and a choice at the end: Glasgow for a night or two more, or back to Edinburgh for the flight.
Collection · One studio, six hotels
Asia by André Fu
3 hotels · 3 not yet stayed
The quiet one. Fu's interiors are the reason to stay in several of these rather than the hotel next door — restrained, warm, and unmistakably his once you have seen two of them.
Collection · The MICHELIN top rating
Three Keys
8 hotels · 108 not yet stayed
The Guide only began rating hotels in 2024 and has been sparing with the third key. These are the ones in our book that hold it.