Insolito Boutique Hotel, a tranquil coastal resort nestled in a rocky hillside in Buzios, Brazil, opens a new restaurant, nine new guest rooms and a Parilla, a barbecue from Rio Plata. The new dining areas immerse guests in original culinary experiences that allow them to experiment and discover the Brazilian culture and way of life. The 20 themed guest rooms based around Brazilian history and culture include nine new spaces that reflect Brazilian Modernism, thus giving guests the opportunity to learn more about the country. Continue reading “Insolito Boutique Hotel Opens New Restaurant and Parilla” »

Urban design quietly nestled among an oasis of natural serenity, Casa de La Flora sits in Khao Lak, on the shore of the Andaman Sea. The brainchild of businessman Sompong Dowpiset, this 36-villa resort is an ode to the angular geometries of Brutalist architecture, while simultaneously paying tribute to the surrounding environment. Applying a distinct sensitivity to the adjacent landscape and achieving harmony with the local flora, the hotel by VaSLab Architecture is Khao Lak’s only resort offering contemporary architecture and design. Guests are invited to experience this exceptional retreat in the midst of pioneering interiors, personalised services and discreet, yet sincere eco-credentials. Continue reading “Introducing Casa de La Flora” »

Always nice to show up somewhere and find it to be even more than you expected — which is just what happened to me along the hip strip of towns along 30A in northwest Florida: Grayton Beach, Watercolor, Seaside, Alys Beach and Rosemary Beach.

They all have white sand beaches, cool new urbanist architecture and some nice places to eat, but only Rosemary Beach has Tommy Crow Studios.

His space is spare and sits along the town’s busy Main Street amongst stylish boutiques, home furnishings stores and restaurants. These individually owned businesses (no chain stores allowed) are not the usual resort town fare, making Rosemary Beach a truly great place to not only sun, but shop. Continue reading “Tommy Crow Studios” »

A few months ago, I traveled to Lake Charles in Southwest Louisiana for Mardi Gras. My days and nights were full of parades, parties, balls, floats, drinking, eating, celebrating. One afternoon, I  took a break in search of some solitude, spending a few hours exploring the soulful Creole Nature Trail. While we only had time to travel part of it, this designated All-American Road runs for 180 miles through a diverse area known as Louisiana’s Outback. Continue reading “A New Way To See The Louisiana Outback” »

For the first time ever, the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions (NBTC) and KLM have created a 10 City Bike Tour of Holland using KLM’s iconic ceramic blue houses as inspiration for the trail! And now they’re on the search for two incredible folks to bike their way through Holland, serving as travel hosts and sharing their experiences online with our readers across the globe!

We want to know if TWO of our readers have what it takes to bike through Holland’s towns and countryside? We’re looking for entries that showcase engaging on-air personalities, prove the team’s adept biking ability, and of course, demonstrate a passion for Holland! Audition videos can be uploaded and entered via Holland or KLM’s Facebook pages starting today through May 1.

If you have what it takes, enter this contest and upload a audition video. It’s that simple! Good luck.

St. Tropez has seen it all. At the heart of the French Riviera, the beautiful town has come to be known for the row of private yachts lining the quai and the stream of movie stars and personalities that file through in peak season. It is the region’s natural beauty that attracts them, of course. But the modish lifestyle doesn’t hurt much either. It is here, in St. Tropez, that we encounter Shahe Kalaidjian and Christophe Pillet’s beautiful second collaboration. With their first joint endeavor, Hotel Sezz in Paris’ 16th Arrondissement, they developed a language of their own. In St. Tropez, they translate it from an urban lexicon into one that describes the ultimate in luxury vacation.

Situated on the town’s Route des Salins, guests can smell and feel salt water and warm breezes from their beds and baths. With 37 guestrooms engulfed by a lush wooded park and a swimming pool at its hub, Sezz St. Tropez is as warm and inviting as it is fresh and full of vision. The Personal Assistant Programme devised at Sezz Paris has been carried over to St. Tropez, but its new collaborations – the Dom Pérignon bar, the restaurant led by world-renowned chef Pierre Gagnaire, and the spa developed in partnership with Payot – are unique to Sezz St. Tropez. Each of the hotel’s guestrooms, suites and villas is individualized and has its own private balcony that leads out to the central pool or into a private garden.

View more images after the jump Continue reading “Hotel Sezz Saint-Tropez” »

When guests arrive at Eccleston Square Hotel, an historic townhouse on an award- winning garden square in Pimlico, Central London, they might think they’re about to step into an old-fashioned city residence. But instead they will be entering a timeless modern lobby, which dazzles with a black, crystal chandelier and herring bone pattern floor tiles.

After a £6.5m renovation, this Georgian town house has emerged as an ultra-high-tech urban cocoon, where guests are comforted and soothed by luxurious products and swathes of futuristic gadgets. In all 39 rooms there are blue tooth iPod connections, VoIP phones and programmable ‘wake up and sleep’ experience that takes control of the curtains, heating and lighting. The 46-inch 3D TVs with 3D Blu-Ray players and hand-made, electronically adjustable Hästens beds are standard in all rooms.

Good sleep and well-being are central to the design concept devised by Olivia Byrne, who recently completed a four-and-a-half-year course at Ecole Hotelière de Lausanne in Switzerland. “The ethos of the Eccleston Square Hotel is quite simple,” she said. “We want our clients to leave the hotel feeling better than they did when they arrived.”

View more images after the jump Continue reading “Eccleston Square Hotel Opens In June 2011” »

The Alila Villas Uluwatu is a cluster of buildings, terraces, pools and gardens located 100 metres above the Indian Ocean on a limestone cliff on Bali’s Bukit Peninsula. Bukit’s dramatic, savannah landscape is the inspiration for the resort’s design and accordingly, the Alila Villas Uluwatu achieves a harmony with nature palpable to all who stay there.

Resort accommodations consist of 52 one-bedroom villas (291 sqm), 2 two-bedroom villas (582sqm), 25 private villas (2000-3000 sqm) and five cliffside villas with pool (also 2,000-3,000 sqm). Should guests ever want to emerge from these blissful sanctuaries, the facilities available to them include a palm-fringed, 50-metre pool, a fully-equipped fitness centre, an extensive resort library, a cigar bar, an event centre and a wedding pavilion and lawn. Continue reading “Alila Villas Uluwatu: Bali, Indonesia” »

Sobriety and elegance may sound old-fashioned, but as design principles they help provide a distinctly modern version of luxury at Bilbao’s Miróhotel. Fashion designer Antonio Miró has brought the spare sensibility that makes him a favorite on international runways to the hotels’ interiors, to stunning effect.

Located between Bilbao’s Museum of Fine Arts and Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao, the hotel’s façade makes a simple but strong statement, a grid of large windows atop six white columns, creating a light-box effect at night. An in-house collection of art and photography juxtaposes old and new works, as do wengé-finished tables and Flexform chairs in the bar. Guestrooms feature the luxury of soothing color palettes and textures, continuing the beige-and-black scheme of the hotel’s public areas. Curtains, rather than walls, separate work and living areas, creating a fluid, multifunctional space. And the hotel’s Miró bar features long, low-slung lines that suggest a sleek version of modernity while providing Bilbao with a truly chic watering hole.

View more images after the jump Continue reading “Hotel Miró: Bilbao, Spain” »

Situated just off Berlin’s grand boulevard Kurfürstendamm, Hotel Q!’s avant-garde aesthetic combines futuristic forms with simple elegance. Owner and visionary Wolfgang Loock developed Q!’s distinct design together with the renowned architecture studio Graft, perhaps most famous for creating Brad Pitt’s Hollywood studio.

With its focus on fluid lines and undulating spaces, Q! does not have any right angles. The hotel’s shimmery red lobby and lounge, earthy spa and “sand room” were designed to create a continuous flow in both form and space. The 77 guestrooms, including four studios and one penthouse, feature dramatic bed frames that wrap around the bathtub and sink, forming a sculptural statement as the room’s centerpiece. Noticeably minimal, the chosen color scheme of primarily neutral tones, whites and dark oak, with the occasional deep red accent, keeps attention on the rooms’ rounded edges and rich textures, like (artificial) ostrich leather and soothing slate. Continue reading “Hotel Q!: Berlin, Germany” »