The world’s best small hotels
Found in every corner of the globe, there is something for every type of trip. Here, our editors list the best small hotels the world has to offer.
With huge appeal for visitors wanting to “live local”, small hotels have become main contenders in the accommodation stakes.
Often found at the beating heart of a community with plush furnishings and designer touches, boutiqueaccommodation have become havens for travellers tired of getting lost in the halls of big hotels.
Due to a change in consumer preferences and a rise in experiential travel a new era of travel has ensued where demand for small stays is stronger than ever.
Found in every corner of the globe, there is something for every type of trip. Read on for the best small hotels the world has to offer, curated by our team of editors at Travel + Luxury.
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Kayumanis Nusa Dua
Bali
There are seven architectural and design themes, including Javanese, Oriental and Dutch colonial, across the petite inventory at this stylish estate near the sands of Nusa Dua, one of four in the locally owned Kayumanis group. It’s not just the sense of sanctuary and personalised attention that appeals but the generosity of inclusions and genuine hospitality. It feels more like a village than a resort, with thatch-roofed, walled and gated villas of one to three bedrooms, all with private pools, set along meandering lanes hemmed with flowering vines. Wander past myriad ponds and over stepping stones. Breathe air scented with cinnamon and cloves. There’s an equation of about 60 per cent green space to 40 per cent built environment so it’s no stretch to say there’s the sense of staying in a mini botanic garden. There are two restaurant pavilions (Indonesian or Italian fare), cooking classes, a sublime spa, and private picnics, by arrangement, in a cabana on the beach.
– Susan Kurosawa
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Otahuna Lodge
South Island, NZ
With a richly romantic past, Otahuna Lodge, near Christchurch in the Canterbury region, has a formal bearing and is listed by the NZ Historic Places Trust. So owners Hall Cannon and Miles Reffo see it as their job to create for guests an informality that gives them the warmth and privacy of their own homes. Built 127 years ago in quirky Queen Anne style, Otahuna, set on 12ha of manicured gardens and rambling semi-woodlands, was a wedding gift from farmer and MP Heaton Rhodes to his beloved Jessie Clark.
It has since belonged to the Christian Brothers and a commune of hippies. Lovingly restored, Otahuna is now a luxury lodge with seven suites, part of the Relais & Chateaux portfolio. The suites are spacious in country-comfortable style, many (including a new loft) with splendid views across the Great Lawn to the Southern Alps. Enjoy evening cocktails and a four-course dinner with the small number of fellow guests or dine intimately in, say, the library. All ours to savour now NZ’s borders have opened.
– Graham Erbacher
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Sowaka, Kyoto
Japan
This enchanting ryokan in the Gion geisha district is built around a century-old townhouse, once a posh restaurant. The old kitchen wells and ovens are evidence of its former life but with the recent addition of a contemporary annex, the labyrinthine 23-room Sowaka is still a food destination as the excellent onsite restaurant is an outpost of Tokyo’s Michelin one-star La Bombance. The inn combines traditional elements such as sliding shoji screens, creaking timber floors and tatami mats with mid-century Scandinavian furniture sourced by a local dealer. In the old wing, several guestrooms overlook a serene courtyard garden, the perfect spot to compose a haiku or two. In the new wing sleek, minimalistic rooms open off timber corridors, but all styles feature a resolutely regional fit-out. Locally made mattresses are stuffed with horse and yak hair, camellia-scented bathroom products presented in little fabric pouches come from the revered Kyoto company Kazurasei, the locally made Bluetooth speakers are fashioned from cedar and shaped like logs.
– Christine McCabe –
Fifteen Keys
Rome
The feel is a bit like a select, adults-only club where the staff are smart and warm and fluent in cocktails, which is an essential skill given the house bar is available 24 hours. Guests are treated to indulgent courtyard breakfasts, afternoon tea service, enthusiastic advice on sightseeing and dining, free bikes and Vespa hire. There’s a generosity of spirit here that’s rare in Rome, where it’s easy to be treated as a tourist but harder to be welcomed as a guest. The 15 light-filled rooms mix heritage features such as oak parquetry with European furnishings and art (including a Rothko print in my toilet). They range from genuinely cosy 20sq m single rooms, some with small balconies and views, to a rooftop suite with its own aperitivo terrace. The ancient Monti neighbourhood is newly fashionable and brilliantly located. The Colosseum and the Forum are a stroll away; Trajan’s Market is just down the lane.
– Kendall Hill –
Casa Puuc, Merida
Yucatan, Mexico
In Merida’s historic García Gineres neighbourhood, furniture dealer Claudia Fernandez has transformed a 1914 house into an ethereal five-bedroom hotel. Originally built by Paris-trained architect Manuel Amabilis, who also designed the adjacent urban park, Casa Puuc balances the intimacy of a private residence with the stylish luxuries of a boutique hotel. The airy, minimalist bedrooms and baths remind that less truly is more. Windows soar to meet the high ceilings, allowing light and verdant hues from the tropical garden to flood the unadorned spaces. Fanciful Yucatecan cement-tile floors and mid-century modern wood furniture offset muted plaster walls. Common areas invite guests to relax, be it lingering in the sunny breakfast room or sprawling poolside. This discreet oasis is just 2km from Paseo de Montejo, Merida’s famed avenue lined with colonial architecture, chic cafes and restaurants.
– Cindy Fan
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Rosa et Al Townhouse
Porto, Portugal
It’s an uphill walk from the Douro River to our accommodation but I barely notice. After a day exploring Porto, my eyes are firmly on the prize – a slice of the delicious “cake of the day” that I spotted in the terrace’s light-filled dining area this morning. With a modest street frontage that belies its gorgeous interior, the 19th-century Rosa et Al boasts a restaurant renowned among locals for its fabulous fare. But book a stay at this award-winning property and you can also savour the delicious style of its seven suites, each featuring vintage Scandinavian furniture, including pieces by Charles and Ray Eames and Hans Wegner, and beds dressed in beautiful Portuguese-made linens. Our spacious top-floor retreat has a vaulted ceiling, timber floors and the cutest study nook. But its sunny balcony overlooking the terrace garden and the rooftops of Porto’s arts district is my favourite spot and the perfect place to enjoy that cake.
– Libby Moffet –
The River Club
Livingstone, Zambia
Livingstone is the bustling gateway to Mosi-oa-Tunya, better known to tourists as Victoria Falls, and the world’s largest sheet of falling water. After soaking up the spray, mist and rainbows, retreat 18km upstream to The River Club. This 26ha haven overlooks a stretch of the Zambezi where hippos lurk like miniature submarines. Tucked into riverside forest are 11 suites named after notable historic figures such as Henry Morton Stanley, the journalist who went searching for explorer David Livingstone, eventually locating him in what is now Tanzania. Seven split-level River Suites feature balconies and claw-foot tubs positioned to catch sunsets, aquatic animal action, and views of Zimbabwe’s Zambezi National Park. A pair of luxury suites feature private pools; two villas sleep up to four. Relax in the infinity pool, board a sunset cruise and meet fellow guests over convivial communal dining. Late last year, three permanent new guests arrived and these young giraffes will have the run of the place after settling in.
– Katrina Lobley
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Black Barn Retreats
Havelock North, NZ
Black Barn boutique winery, in the North Island’s Hawkes Bay region, applies its ethos of finesse and style to a series of individual self-contained retreats across several locations in the area. Choose from cosy cottages on Waimarama Beach, charming houses within vineyards or glorious lodges on the banks of the Tuki Tuki River. My stay is at one of four fully equipped Riverside Lodges that utilise local stone around sharp appointments and neutral decor contrasted with old leather club chairs and sofa. Large windows bring the river and mountain range, topped by the craggy Te Mata Peak, which strikingly catches the rising sun, right into the house. Start the day in the lap pool or on a riverside walk, and end it with fabulous wine by the fireplace on the covered veranda. The 16 retreats range from two to six bedrooms; two-night minimum stays.
– Jeremy Bourke –
Troutbeck
Hudson Valley, NY
The northeast corner of the US mixes stout, colonial-era history with wild and woodsy outdoorsiness. The two worlds harmonise at Troutbeck, an 18th-century estate turned guesthouse that sits in a grove of ancient sycamores on the edge of the Berkshire mountains and has hosted luminaries including Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and former president Theodore Roosevelt. Its 36 guest suites are spread across three freestanding houses and cottages, each filled with the trappings of a manor house, including brocade sofas and Frette linens. Days are spent doing brisk activities in the fresh air, such as hiking, horseback riding, fishing and skiing in season. Things have changed a fair bit since 1765, however. In 2020, two “wellness barns” were added to introduce modern-era healthful pursuits like yoga, pilates and meditation, and the food is less mutton and mead than oyster chowder, roasted maitake mushrooms and mezcal cocktails.
– Alexandra Carlton
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The Inn at Whitewell
Lancashire, England
The Forest of Bowland, a patchwork of heather moorland, rivers, wooded valleys, hay meadows, dry stone walls and ancient hedgerows, is one of Britain’s 46 Areas of Natural Beauty and a former royal hunting ground. Tucked into this pretty landscape is The Inn at Whitewell, originally a small manor house for keepers of the royal forest until transforming into a travellers’ resting place in the 17th century. In terms of contemporary royal connections, Queen Elizabeth famously enjoyed an 80th birthday lunch here. Two of the 26 guestrooms are in the new stone barn but, for pure atmosphere, choose a heritage option. All vary enormously in size and features, so you might score a 19th-century keyhole bathtub, open fire, four-poster bed, sloping roof, exposed beams or hand-printed wallpaper. The riverside rooms are especially fetching, with postcard views of the Hodder, a waterway that can be fished during the season and crossed via stepping stones.
– Katrina Lobley
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Amanemu
Japan
Designed by the late, great Australian architect Kerry Hill, this ryokan-style property of 24 suites and a clutch of family villas is tucked into a ridge of the Ise-Shima peninsula on the southeast coast of the main island of Honshu. Its scale is modest but the vast green grounds boast pine forests, botanical walks, fruit groves and grassy meadows.
Hill’s architecture and concept pay homage to a traditional farm compound but never were rural houses quite this sumptuous. It’s not showy luxury, however, but a triumph of stripped-back spaces, exquisite timbers, breezeways and oversized guestrooms that rely on flow, not show. There are two mineral-rich onsen pools for restorative soaking, a serene restaurant with views towards Ago Bay, and wellness spa where a shiatsu massage is the stuff of dreams.
– Susan Kurosawa
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One & Only Nyungwe House
Rwanda
Standing among the neon-green leaves of a sprawling tea plantation under a stormy African sky as a smudgy rainbow crests across the top of the main lodge at this exceptional property in southwest Rwanda, is an unforgettable moment. So, too, is an early morning safari into Nyungwe National Park to spot troops of chimpanzees. It’s a fast-paced, rough-and-tumble adventure that involves climbing, clambering and swinging through the jungle as though I, too, am a chimp. Every day of my stay ends with swapping muddy boots for slippers and relaxing with a glass of wine and a chat with my fellow adventurers around the open fire in the intimate lodge, surrounded by local tapestries and wood carvings. And then precious, perfect solitude in one of the lodge’s 22 luxury suites, falling asleep to the sounds of monkeys chatting and clamouring outside giving way to the low hum of insects in the slumbering jungle.
– Alexandra Carlton
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The Villa Bentota
Sri Lanka
Expect idle poolside chatter with fellow guests to centre on revered architect and so-called father of “tropical modernism” Geoffrey Bawa (1919-2003), who designed this beachside boutique hotel on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka in the 1970s. The Villa Bentota is in the classic Bawa template of open spaces with overhanging pitched roofs that allow breezes to flow through and give protection from tropical rain. In the verdant tropical grounds, there’s an abundance of courtyards and reflecting pools. Last year, the property was acquired by KK Collection, and under the expert eye of its British chief executive and interior designer George Cooper, the 14 suites and rooms have been refreshed, each individually styled and featuring subtle pops of colour. Book a spa treatment, sip sundowners at Bawa’s Bar and dine at Inguru restaurant or The Terrace. The retreat is also a well-located base to visit Lununganga, Bawa’s country home and garden estate now managed by a trust and offering a handful of guest suites closely preserved in original style.
– Andrea Black
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The Intrepid Hotel
Wellington, NZ
Step off Guzhnee St in the Kiwi capital’s lively Te Aro district into The Intrepid’s eccentric foyer graced with taxidermied birds overhead and a cabinet of curiosities that acts as a gift shop. But then take the lift to one of only 18 guestrooms across three floors and, while there are theatrical flourishes aplenty, the mood turns to cocoon-like calm. It’s all very sweet and delicious, befitting an early 1900s building that was the headquarters of Cadbury. Industrial-chic painted brick walls are softened by the deep green and gold of carpets, rugs and bed linen. Baked treats and fresh coffee await outside the door in the morning. Proprietors Sean Golding and Alex Cassels wanted to craft a boutique hotel they personally would like to stay at and believe a hospitality business should “reward the intrepid”. Cuba St, abuzz with bookshops, bars and cafes, is around the corner.
– Graham Erbacher