Thank you Expedia for sponsoring this blog post.
Leave it to Expedia to create a space where I can finally put all of my favorite hotels in one spot! I’m loving my new Travel Shop in the Expedia app where I expand on all of my favorite stays around the world. Broken down by category, you can easily search for honeymoon hotels, lux adventure lodges, the most unique lodging options around the world and so on! Here’s a sneak peak (with a side of wanderlust) on what you can expect to see. Disclaimer: continued reading might have you booking flights ASAP.
Talk about a bucket list hotel! A private hut on the water? That’s what fairytales are made of, which I guess, in turn, made me Cinderella for a few days. Honeymooners travel far and wide to arrive at their very own hut on the water, and here we were, mother and daughter, experiencing the most romantic place on earth together,ha! It was a trip I’ll never forget, and the fact that Six Senses Laamu has a barefoot policy with no shoes necessary made me feel right at home.
The biggest surprise from the stay? How accommodating the resort was to children. This paradise wasn’t just for honeymooners (or mother-daughter trips!). With a jungle cinema and 46 ice cream flavors to indulge in, the resort also has the perfect room – opt for the Lagoon Beach Villa with two bedrooms and a private pool. The desired mode of transportation is by bike so just make sure the kiddos can ride easy, and fly easy at that – nobody said paradise was a breeze to get to!
My advice to you is if you aren’t a certified scuba diver before you come to the Maldives, do something about that. Laamu Atoll is a diver’s paradise with amazing visibility and rare marine life. Not only a diver’s playground, Six Senses Laamu offers surfers what they can’t get just anywhere – the Yin Yang break with big waves from June – September.
If there was ever the perfect honeymoon hotel, it would be Santa Caterina. I can confidently say that because it was ours I may be a little biased, but this hotel single-handedly made our honeymoon. We began our post-nuptial vacation right here where a beautiful historic residence meets the Mediterranean Sea. Talk about a place that hits all five senses. Surrounded by lemon groves, you can almost smell the property before you spot it. Tucked away in a quiet corner of Amalfi, the position of Santa Caterina is a 10 minute walk from the town center, a coveted location indeed.
Suspended high above the sea, one wouldn’t dream of the hotel as having immediate access to a pool or beach…until you look down that is. Exclusively for hotel guests, the Beach Club is nestled in the cliffside and surrounded by the natural environment of the Amalfi Coast. To gain access, guests take the exposed elevator down to the very bottom level, gazing through the glass at the sheer beauty before them. While its pace is slow and steady, it truly does feel like quite the joy ride
From poolside cocktails to lunch at Restaurant al Mare, the options are LimitLes. It was at this Beach Club where I discovered I actually loved my most despised food on the planet: olives. I’ve loathed them for 35 years except for Italian olives, it seems. I don’t know what it is, but they just taste, well, really good in Italy. As does everything else!
In need of a wellness retreat? Look no further than Entre Cielos, a luxury wine hotel and spa set in the Lujan de Cuyo region of Argentina’s wine country in Mendoza. I was lucky to stay in their vineyard loft suspended above the vines. The pod comes complete with expansive deck and Jacuzzi where I spent most of my time, plus cozy indoor luxuries. Seeing the sunrise and sunset over the snowcapped Andes mountains and plucking grapes off the vine just steps away from this home-away-from-home is something everyone should experience.
Don’t miss the hotel’s famous hammam with lavender steam bath, pool, spa treatments and of course, all the wine you could ever want. Come hungry because you’ll leave full. With homemade empanadas, any cut of meat under the sun PLUS flan dessert complete with dulce de leche and fernet y cola will send you into a lovely state of unconsciousness as you drift off to a food induced coma. Disfruten!
I’m always talking up Tierra Patagonia, Atacama’s sister property, but there’s no reason that this adventure lodge can’t stand out on its own. Located in the driest place on earth, Tierra Atacama holds a special place in my heart. I loved it SO much that I brought two more LimitLes retreats so other women travelers could see it for themselves.
I’m a firm believer that it’s the little things that make life beautiful, and this is the very foundation upon which Tierra Atacama is built. With attention to detail as their speciality, this luxury all-inclusive hotel puts emphasis on efficient service, modern, local design, and tailor-made excursions into the Atacama Desert. Feel like stargazing in the middle of nowhere at midnight? You can do that. What about hiking a volcano? You can do that, too. The activities are as much a part of the affair as the unobtrusive service that can be seen in the warm staff, the welcoming guides and even the little milk chocolates that are delicately placed upon your pillow at night.
Because Atacama has almost zero air pollution, it’s no wonder this high altitude area with its crystal clear skies is a major hub for astronomical research and home to cutting-edge observatories. Below the stars, though, exist numerous activities for the avid hiker to the lazy vacationer. Think turquoise hot springs, salt lagoons so dense you float, smoking hot geysers, high sand dunes and salt flats chock full of flamingos. The sky’s the limit with Tierra Atacama.
Anyone fancy a nontraditional hotel?? When I have the chance to go outside the box (or dare say take The Road Les Traveled), I book it ASAP! The locals call this Bubble Hotel the ‘5 Million Star Hotel’ and after spending a night here, I know why. I was literally living inside my own bubble with only a thin, clear barrier separating me from the trees, wind, wildlife, and Northern Lights. Don’t forget that starting in September, the Aurora Borealis come out to play!
Many visitors book at the Bubble Hotel while on a larger tour through the Golden Circle, but a few bubbles are allocated to accommodation-only guests, like I was! This is my kind of luxury adventure if I’ve ever seen one – and the definition of glamping. Before you ask, yes, a service house with toilets, showers and a kitchen was only a few yards away
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