(Bloomberg) -- As Bloomberg Pursuits’s roving travel reporter, I’ll have spent a tidy 200 nights on the road this year by Christmas. The lion’s share has been dedicated to researching Two-Night Minimum, the city guide series that’s been my obsession ever since it began 18 months ago.
Imagine you could send your best friend to a destination you’re planning to visit and have them scope out all the actual best things to do there. No Instagram filters, no sponsored posts, no marketing gimmicks and no overrated tourist traps. That’s Two-Night Minimum.
And because hotels are what likely takes the biggest bite out of your travel budget, it’s where I spend an outsize chunk of my reporting time, whether I’m visiting a city to write a guide or on some other kind of secret mission. Everywhere I go, I stay in as many as possible, and I tour far more—sussing out not just the top hotels in each destination but also the best specific rooms in each house.
In fact, I’m writing this from a hotel: the Four Seasons Osaka, one of several new luxury hotels opening in anticipation of Expo 2025. Osaka is a captivating destination, especially if you love to eat. And with Kyoto becoming increasingly expensive and saturated with tourists, I’m exploring the merits of staying here and commuting to the historical capital to see its wonders; the ride is just 30 minutes by train, making it almost like staying in Brooklyn when you have dinner reservation in Manhattan. Bonus: Rates at the Four Seasons Osaka are often half those of a room at the Four Seasons Kyoto.
But value is just one piece of the puzzle. While hotel marketing teams love to go on about brand-name bathrobes, locally sourced minibar snacks and the design inspiration of the elevator bank, I’m more interested in the things that matter—like soundproofing, water pressure, wear and tear and how likely you are to find an old French fry left by the previous guest in your $1,000-a-night room (true story; recently happened).
Visiting some 500 hotels in a year isn’t always pretty—but it sure is a dream job with plenty of wow moments. Here are the standouts from my year on the road.
Best Service
Formerly a dilapidated hospital, the Rosewood São Paulo is a sprawling resort in the heart of one of the world’s biggest cities, with bold, maximalist decor that makes you feel like you’re floating through a Brazilian ayahuasca fever dream. And when it comes to service, this hotel is truly in a league of its own.
Personalization has become the byword at luxury properties. A nice, but common, approach is framing a photo from a guest’s Instagram and putting it by their bedside. Instead, Rosewood São Paulo hung a pressed butler’s uniform in my closet as a wink to the other series I write at Bloomberg, At Your Service, in which I take on hospitality jobs and spill their secrets. (Yes, I’ve been a butler—twice!)
They nailed the basics, too—at breakfast, a phalanx of servers refilled coffees and turned tables for caffeine-starved guests. And concierges nimbly helped nab concert tickets, which can be tricky to score without a Brazilian social security number. The staff here never missed a beat.
Best Attention to Detail
Every evening before getting into bed at a new hotel I begin my turn-off-the-lights dance, prancing around my suite trying to figure out why there are 37 switches on the wall, but only eight bulbs. Or why I can’t plug my phone in next to the bed. Or why there’s no room on the vanity for the contents of my Dopp kit—even though the sink is the size of a kiddy pool. Or why the red glare of the smoke detector shines right into my eyes when I’m lying in bed. (Pro tip: Stash some black duct tape in your luggage to cover it up.)
The Broadwick Soho, in London, has none of these issues. The shower door doesn’t swish away the bathmat when you open it, the lighting in the bathroom is flattering, windows are maximally glazed to prevent noise from the bustling Soho streets below and the soaps are of genuinely good quality (Ortigia Sicilia). The wallpaper is seamless and the grout is perfectly poured around the tiles, too, making this the rare luxury hotel to be as functional and well-made as a Chanel bag.
And yes, if this were purely a design award, the Broadwick Soho would win that, too, turning an incredibly tight space in the heart of London into a real-life Baz Luhrmann flick. (It’s all the work of Martin Brudnizki.) Oh, and did I mention that Taylor Swift stayed here during her Eras tour?
Best Food
Jade Mountain, on the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, could be the winner of several categories here, best views and best architecture being the most obvious, with its perch overlooking the idyllic Piton mountains and its iconic open-to-nature suites hemmed by gushing infinity pools. But for me, it’s the food that earns the biggest wows—with ingredients either fished fresh from the seas all around or grown on the hotel’s organic farm, then artfully served without an air of pretension.
In-room breakfast leverages the surrounding bounty with a rainbow’s worth of tropical fruit and a giant carafe of shade-grown coffee. Sunset dinners usually take place on the roof at the Celestial Terrace where a shortlist of specials changes every day, but there’s always a local riff on your favorite dish: Think pasta with local citrus and langoustine or fresh fish burgers with crispy plantain chips. And meals always end with an indulgent chocolate dessert using cacao harvested right on property.
Best Location
Vacation days are precious—we shouldn’t spend half our paid time off in traffic to and from our hotel. The freshly minted StandardX, Melbourne easily snags the prize for best located hotel, in the heart of the city’s (and quite possibly the world’s) coolest neighborhood, Fitzroy. Incredible cafes, vintage boutiques, artist markets, even an inviting urban spa are only steps away. And you’re a quick cab or tram ride from the Central Business District if you’re in town for work.
The promising first outpost of the Standard’s baby-brother “X” brand is a more accessibly priced version of the beloved international hospitality heavyweight, with rooms starting at around $150 per night (similar to the other midrange stays around town.) Rooms are spunky but trim, with blue-and-white-striped carpeting and subtly industrial accents. And the lobby is a social scene, filled with moody lighting, potted plants and plenty of artsy types clicking away on their laptops between sips of flat white.
Best Wellness
I appreciate the irony that the world’s most relaxing hotel sits at the mouth of a gurgling volcano, but the Retreat at Blue Lagoon in Grindavík, Iceland is the pinnacle of geothermal bliss. Think of it like the VIP section of the popular attraction with a cache of dimly lit, womb-like rooms and a strict capacity limit that lets you feel like you have the turquoise waters all to yourself.
But what I like most about the property is that their unspoken credo is “wellness on your own terms,” meaning there’s no gimmick—no “blend your own massage oils according to your astrological sign” and no hollow performance of wellness either, like having a receptionist waft incense in your face as you sign indemnity papers protecting the hotel against loss or damage. Here, you can toggle your health journey in a variety of directions, from a therapist-led Watsu session to self-applying the property’s signature algae and silica scrubs or simply staring out at the lunar landscapes in a bathrobe as staff dote on you with herbal teas.
Best On a Budget
It’s a tie! And both options are in Tokyo. Even with the phenomenally weak yen, you won’t find a luxury hotel room here for under $800—which is why it feels impossible to choose between these two excellent choices.
First up is the OMO5 Gotanda, which opened in April near the trendy Meguro area. Its modern, brightly colored rooms have Japanese nods like tatami flooring, and they’re all lofted at the top of an office building. That means they have the best feature of any high-end hotel in Tokyo—sweeping views of the city’s twinkling skyline—but at a quarter of the price. (We found prices from around $180 per night.) Staff were perennially friendly and helpful, and with the self-serve coffee station at breakfast, I never once waited in desperation for my caffeine fix. They even have laundry machines—because who wants to pay $15 to have housekeeping wash a T-shirt?
Then there’s the Yuen Shinjuku, where digs can be found for a miraculous-feeling $130. Yes, they’re teensy (around 12 square meters, or 130 square feet), but they feel chic and distinctly Japanese with a dash of Scandinavian minimalism. If you want to sprawl out, you can double your budget and double your room size. The best part? A guests-only onsen in the basement that pipes in real hot spring water from Hakone, more than 50 miles away. It’s the best way to slough off the jet lag.
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