S5, E29: Why the Best New Hotels of 2026 Aren’t All “New”

What makes a hotel the best? Not just new, not just beautiful, but worthy of a list that thousands of travelers plan their year around? For Afar senior deputy editor Jennifer Flowers, it comes down to a single test: does this hotel have a story? Not a marketing story—a real one, rooted in the place it sits, the community around it, or the history in its bones.

In this episode, Afar editorial director Billie Cohen sits down with Jenn to go behind the scenes of the 2026 Best New Hotels list, one of the biggest the team has ever assembled at 40 properties. Jenn explains how the year-long vetting process actually works (yes, every hotel was personally visited), why she pairs the right writer with the right destination, and what separates a genuine standout from a merely beautiful place to stay.

Along the way, Billie and Jenn travel from a nonprofit lodge reachable only by boat or seaplane at the edge of British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest, to a working dairy farm in Japan’s Tohoku region, to a six-suite, solar-powered lodge on regenerating land in South Africa.

They dig into the year’s biggest themes: the rise of women hoteliers at the founder and CEO level, the surprising number of “new” hotels that are actually painstaking restorations of centuries-old buildings, the reinvention of the all-inclusive, and a growing hunger for ethical access to the world’s wild places.

Transcript

Aislyn Greene: I’m Aislyn Greene and this is Unpacked by Afar. Every year Afar puts out its Best New Hotels list, and every year our senior deputy editor, Jennifer Flowers, has to answer a really important question. Yes. What are the most interesting new hotels in the world? But really, what qualifies a hotel as the best? And what makes a hotel worthy of a place on this list that thousands of travelers plan their year round? This year’s list is one of our biggest ever. There are 40 properties on it. You can find that at And today, editorial director Billie Cohen sits down with Jenn to find out how she decides what makes the cut and why. Some of the best new hotels on this year’s list turned out to be very, very old. That’s after the break.

Billie Cohen: Jenn, the best new hotels list just launched. It looks so great. Congratulations.

Jenn: Oh, thank you so much. And you’ve been so instrumental in helping me put it together. I can finally sleep at night. I am so glad it’s behind me, but also just so thrilled. Like all of the responses coming in have been so wonderful and just heartfelt and sincere. And I just love hotels. I love this industry, I love travel.

Billie: See, that’s, that’s where the best content comes from. Oh gosh, I just sounded like such an editor. But really, listeners, we love what we do. We care a lot about these hotels. So I’m really actually, I’m excited to sit down with you, Jenn, and hear about the behind the scenes of how you put these together and how you think about them. Let’s start way at the beginning. Jennifer Flowers, you’re Afar’s hotel expert, but this is your life. You grew up in hotels like literally your father was the managing director of the Plaza Hotel in New York City, and you grew up there. And then for the past 8 years, you’ve been creating a fast best new hotels list. So with all of that lived experience, real lived experience behind you, how do you decide what makes a hotel the best versus just new and good?

Jenn Flowers: That is such a great question. Yeah. Like just a little bit about my background. I arrived from the hospital and a hotel was indeed my first home in the Philippines. So seeing and recognizing greatness in the hotel world is highly personal to me. This list just launched. I’m still feeling high from it. I, you know, kind of try to slow things down and think back on like what it took to make this list. And it is actually like a year in the making. Like I am now thinking about 2027 and have assigned reviews for 2027. So we are like horses out of the gate. We are on fire for the next year.

In terms of how we look at a great hotel. There are so many hotels out there that are beautifully designed, impeccably run, and they actually don’t make the list. We believe that there are certain table stakes in travel and especially luxury travel. They have to have great service, great design, etc. but the tests I keep coming back to is does this hotel have a story? Not a marketing story, I mean a real one that will truly excite us and our readers. It tends to be a story about the place they’re in, the community around it, the landscape it sits in, or the history behind it. And so that’s why we have a clear “Why we chose it” line for each hotel in our story. If I can’t articulate what a hotel stands for beyond its amenities, it probably doesn’t belong on the list.

Billie: What are some examples of that?

Jenn: A great example of this would be Fawn Bluff in British Columbia. We chose it because it combines the extraordinary wilderness access to meaningful community impact. So it’s accessible only by boat or seaplane, and it sits on 340 acres at the edge of the Great Bear Rainforest, which, if you haven’t been to it, should be on everyone’s bucket list. It’s a beautiful evergreen, temperate rainforest, which is my favorite habitat. And as a nonprofit, it directs all of its proceeds to programs that are benefiting the Homalco First Nation community. So that’s a hotel that’s really rethinking who benefits from wilderness tourism and how. The other thing about this list is that we have stayed at all of these hotels. Every hotel on this list was personally vetted.

Billie: Yeah, you really do have to be on the ground, right? So what does that look like in practice for the reporters that you’re sending out there? Do you have them going to hotels all year? Do you kind of put together a list and then like deploy all of your reporters out to check them out, and then how do you guide them on what to look for and evaluate?

Jenn: Well, so as we speak, there are people on the road right now vetting hotels for me. I mean, it is a year long process. So we have a network of contributors all over the world, and they often do much longer reviews than what you’ll see on our Best New Hotels reveal package. All the reporters get a checklist and they go through each key part of the experience. So rooms, restaurants, a spa, if they have one, notes on how accessible the hotel is to travelers with mobility issues, and I like to make sure that the right writer visits the right place.

For instance, if someone is an expert in France, I want them to be reviewing our French hotels. We really want reviewers to know what they’re talking about, and we also tell our reviewers to be honest because we are ultimately on the side of the reader here. Let’s be real. There is, even at the most spectacular hotels, there’s no, almost no such thing. I will say as a flawless stay, it’s almost not possible and we expect things to go wrong, even at the best almost impeccable hotel stays. But when those things do go wrong, the way a hotel writes those wrongs can reveal a lot about how great that hotel can be.

Billie: It’s true. And like what you’re saying about connecting the right reporter to the right hotel, that kind of context is really important for gauging how a hotel fits into the landscape of where it’s opened, or how it compares to other hotels, maybe on the same level. And all of that goes into the thinking, right, of how you’re evaluating hotels.

Jenn: Absolutely. And we like to think about hotels as like, who is this hotel right for and who isn’t it right for? And there’s always a clear answer there. Not every traveler will have the same mission on a trip. And not every traveler likes the same thing. So we try to convey, like we welcome personal opinions from our writers in terms of their own personal tastes, but we’re also asking them to help evaluate a hotel and let the reader decide whether it’s right for them based on the evidence that they’re offering in their reviews.

Billie: Some of the examples you mentioned already, like Fawn Bluff, you’re hinting at this idea of how a hotel sort of the role of a hotel these days is not just a bed, right? It is connecting travelers to a whole experience to, to the destination and the community that they’re in. Why is that important to you as you’re evaluating for this list?

Jenn: Well, there is a broader Afar mission that I just want to just take a minute to talk about here. Afar is a purpose-driven media company, and we even became a B Corp this past year, which means we’re being held to verified standards for social and environmental impact. And Billie, I believe you keep your purpose posted on your desktop at all times, which I love, I love, I want, I want to do that as well. I think it’s so important just because I think every when it comes down to it, we’re even just looking at every hotel that we put on this list. We think about our values when we put it on that list.

So just to pull back a little at Afar, we believe in the power of travel to make the world a better place through experiences that enrich the traveler, personally support the communities visited, and are sensitive to the effects on our planet of travel, on our planet. And the mission we give ourselves is to do that through storytelling that inspires, enriches and empowers travelers who care. So something as seemingly simple as reviewing a hotel has that thinking behind it.

Billie: Like said, I keep that, that mission and that purpose on a little sticky note on my computer all the time as we’re thinking about what we’re covering and how we’re covering it, that’s sort of our North Star. We can always go back to that. And it seems so fitting for hotels, which are such a huge part, they’re the anchor of any trip, right? You need a place to stay, and that is an opportunity to add a layer to your experience there and find the places that are doing that really well.

Jenn: Exactly. It’s one of the biggest things you’ll spend your money on and travel outside of your airline ticket, and the way you spend that money will have an impact on that place and the people who live there.

Billie: What I love about the list that you put together is it’s really varied, right? So there are some high end luxury places, maybe in destinations you’d expect, and some in places or in styles that you wouldn’t expect. Is there a hotel on the list that you think will surprise people that they wouldn’t expect to see here?

Jenn: Yeah, actually, there’s one that, you know, we, our list tends to have a lot of great luxury retreats on it. Maybe not always priced for repeat visits, maybe more splurgy. And there was one hotel this past year that kept coming up among our staff. So Danielle, Michelle, our photo director, we had a few people that just really kept saying, you know what, the Prospect Berkshires in the Berkshires is this wonderful, repeatable, affordable, like immersive nature experience with saunas. And it’s just one of those places that’s really near like New York and Boston. Like it’s 3 hours by car from New York, 2 from Boston, and it’s in this really beautiful area. And based on this beautifully simple idea that like lake swims, cedar saunas, and time outdoors are the luxury without the luxury price tag. So it’s one of those places you just want to keep in your back pocket when you need like a nature hit. You live in a city and you’re like, I need to get out and I need to do it quickly. So the Prospect kind of became this sweet little sleeper hit on on the list just because our staff fell in love with it.

Billie: I have not been there yet, and I’m, I’m jealous of everyone who’s gone. I’ll have to add that to my list. Is there a hotel on the list that you haven’t been to yet that you are personally excited to visit?

Jenn: I have a couple.

Billie: Or revisit, I should say, since you’ve probably been to a lot of them.

Jennn: Yeah, I have been to a few and man, it’s been quite a year. Like, I love a hard hat tour and you were with me on this one that I’m thinking of, but the Waldorf Astoria, New York. Oh my goodness. Oh my God.

Billie: I still I still talk about it. My friends are annoyed at me. Right?

Jenn: I know it was like a 3 hour tour, right. And then we were, we’re, you know, we’re turning the corner. And then Pierre-Yves Rochon walks out. He’s this renowned designer, interior designer who did the interiors of the hotel this round. And we are just having this magical moment, thinking about the reinvention of this icon. The Waldorf Astoria and Luigi Romanello, the managing director, actually worked at the Plaza Hotel, where my dad was a managing director in New York City in the 1980s. And so we just had this great connection around like New York landmarks. And Billie, am I getting this correct? Don’t you live near the Waldorf Astoria?

Billie: I do, I do, I live really close. And so and it’s often, you know, on my way to other places. So whenever I can, I make a point where instead of just because it’s a full block like the, the hotel takes up a full block. So instead of walking on the street, I walk right through and you can walk from Lexington Avenue to Park Avenue to straight, straight through as my corridor. And the staff is always so nice. They’re like, Oh, are you checking in? Can we help you? Nope. I’m just a neighbor. I’m coming in and they’re just as happy to see me. And you can walk by that, you know, the beautiful landmark, the clock that’s in the center of Peacock Alley. And you can see everyone who’s so excited to be there, the Cole Porter piano. It’s just, I don’t know, it’s a part of New York. And so I, I kind of use it like, like my personal, my personal path through the city and living room. It’s just one of those places that feels like the city in such a big part of it. And it’s just great that it’s open to all of us.

Jenn: I love that, I just love that they did such a great job. And we were talking about billions of dollars. They really did it.

Billie: A long wait. It was close for a while because of the pandemic.

Jenn: Yeah, it was a long time coming, and New York feels so good right now. And it has this amazing restored icon. So I just it’s just such a great year for New York and also for just timing for that hotel to open.

Billie: So true, so true. Were there any other hotels that you visited? You know, from the list that had something that stood out to you as really special or different?

Jenn: Well, I was recently just literally just a few weeks ago at The Cooper Hotel in Charleston. And this hotel is truly a game changer for Charleston. It feels like an urban resort in the city, which I’ve toured all, gosh, I want to say like 8 hotels when I was in Charleston. And this feels different. It feels like it’s bringing a more waterfront perspective to the city. A lot of the hotels in the city focus on the rich history and the French Quarter and kind of, the kind of interior and land. But this hotel is all about the water. They even have a Hinckley yacht. They have it on a dock that the public can access. So it’s very much a place where people can kind of pass through and they’re going to get a burger place soon. So get a burger, pass through, check out the yacht, just kind of take pictures by the water. So I love the accessibility of it. And then this Hinckley boat, I went on a ride on it in the afternoon and hung out with a few of the, you know, the captain and his first mate and a young woman who just graduated from college. And we had such a great time.

Well, first of all, I want to say just the staff was so informed. I mean, Charleston has a very rich and complex history and not all rosy either. And they were so sensitive in helping me to understand the beauty and the harder parts of Charleston’s past on the water, including the slave trade. I mean, there’s so much history in that one harbor, and they did a great job of that. And they were just fun. Like, I have a boat here in the Pacific Northwest. I live in the San Juan Islands, and we were just swapping stories about boats and talking about crabbing and like it was just really low key and fun and down to earth. And I just think that hotel is such a rich addition to that city, and I can’t wait to return.

Billie: That sounds great. I love Charleston, it would be great to check that out. We talked a bit about US places. Are there any from overseas?

Jenn: Oh, I have some on my list that I can’t wait to get to. One is Shakti Prana Lodge. So I have this kind of personal connection with Himalayan Buddhism. Since this life-changing trip I took to Nepal when I was 17, that just kind of taught me that to be the traveler I am today. And Shakti Prana Lodge is in a part of India, in the Kumaon Himalayas that has that very similar culture. And it’s a trek that takes you to this incredible luxury retreat in the mountains. And I love earning my luxury by trekking. It’s a thing for me. I love getting my fingernails and hands dirty and like my hair dirty and just arriving in luxury. And this sounds like an amazing place Shakti has been around for, I think about two decades now doing just sort of like village stays and now lodges. And this is truly a new way to see this region. And I, it is high on my list to get to.

Billie: And how cool that a hotel becomes part of the active experience, right? You’re it’s part of the trek, right? It is not just the. It’s not just the destination. It is a whole part of, of the connection.

Jenn: Yeah, it’s part of the trek and it’s also part of the community. Like the people who are hosting you are from those places. So they’re empowered to tell you their stories about like what those places mean to them and like what their perspective is on tourism. And so I think what Shakti is doing is really groundbreaking. And they’re offering a tourism product that truly showcases cultures and the cultures of the ones who are telling the stories, which is pretty great.

Billie: Yeah, that sounds very special. So let’s talk about the bigger picture and some trends that are emerging from the hotels that made the list this year. First, are there any that were run by interesting people, or are you seeing a change in management or the way that owners are thinking about their hotels?

Jenn: That’s a great question. As you know, we’re very interested in looking at the evolution of hoteliers from the women’s perspective. And this year we have some incredible women hoteliers that I want to talk about.

One is Sara Dusek, who opened Few and Far Luvhondo in South Africa. So you may have heard her name. She’s actually the founder of Under Canvas, the glamping company that has more than a dozen camps now across the US. Wonderful, wonderful company. I just stayed at their Under Canvas Grand Staircase property in Utah. She sold that. And now she’s gone on to open this gorgeous lodge a few and Far Luvhondo in South Africa in this area that they’re trying to regenerate. So it’s 200,000 acres of degraded land in the Soutpansberg, I probably am saying that incorrectly, but it’s the Soutpansberg Mountains and Luvhondo is only six suites, it’s solar powered, and they have all these great hands on conservation activities like snare removals. Poachers leave snares for wild animals, and the wild animals get caught in the crossfire, which is awful, and so guests can actually go and take those out of the landscape with experts, or with conservationists. And which is, I think, a great way to understand the bigger picture when you’re looking at safari and ecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa.

Billie: Yeah, it’s so cool and such a different side of the safari experience that people probably never even think about. Another trend I wanted to talk about was something you’ve kind of talked about a bit already. Is this idea of hotels being like, inseparable from the places where they exist? Are there any entries on the list that you feel really exemplify that?

Jenn: Off the top of my head is Azuma Farm Koiwai in the Tohoku region of Japan. So first of all, I love this hotel because it’s getting us out of the circuit, the sort of Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka circuit, which I love. I absolutely love that circuit. And there are so many more places in Japan to visit and Tohoku being one of them. And so Azuma Farm Koiwai is actually located on a working dairy farm that is probably one of the most famous dairy farms in Japan. So it’s just a household name. And now they have this very sustainable, very food focused experience where you can, and also culturally focused experience where you can go on excursions that take you to local ironware makers and textile artisans. Travelers couldn’t do them on their own. It’s really hard to arrange these trips to kind of visit ironware makers that are centuries old. It’s just kind of harder with language barriers and just building those relationships. And this hotel helps people do that. And I think that’s pretty incredible.

Another great one that really is inseparable from its place is Sibbjans on the Swedish island of Gotland, which is all about stewardship. The farm supplies a restaurant and there are water recycling showers, so the whole property operates as one coherent closed loop, so you understand the land better for having stayed there.

Billie: That sounds so cool. And there is one on the list that really caught my eye in Malaysia, in Georgetown?

Jenn: Yes, we love Malaysia and Georgetown, especially Penang. The Soori Penang is one of the most personal versions of this idea. The architect Sue K Chan grew up in Georgetown in Malaysia, and his own memory and connection to the city is literally embedded into the design. So things like kind of hearing the rain in atriums, like you can see that replicated through like pools in the hotel, like it’s so personal and just talk about seeing something from an insider’s perspective. I couldn’t think of something more wonderful and kind of perspective opening than that. And then it extends beyond the hotel itself through partnerships with local artisans, performers, and food vendors. So they really get guests out into the living culture of the city. It’s a portal into Penang. It really is.

Billie: I know I love a hotel that connects me to a place in a new way, and there’s one that really blew me away, and it was in a place I never would have expected. And I’m going to tell you all about it after the break.

We’re back and I’m ready to share my hotel surprise! So one of the hotels on our list this year is the Vineta Hotel in Palm Beach. And I spend a lot of time in Florida and Palm Beach, you know, it’s one of the wealthiest enclaves in the country. It is like where the American resort landscape began. There was a railroad developer in like the 1800s who built a couple of huge hotels, one of which is still standing, The Breakers. But and then it’s where all these millionaires have their mansions.

And so for forever, it’s been this place that is very glamorous and glitzy, but it’s, you know, it’s beautiful and sunny. It’s in Florida. And so like into this island, the Vineta arrives and it’s small. It’s this like intimate 41-room hotel in a 1926 building where other hotels had been. But it is on this intimate scale compared to some of the others. And the design just, it’s just so Palm Beach, right? Like it has such a sense of place. It surprised me because of that. It’s all pastels and light and layered textures and beautiful shapes of things. There’s grasscloth wallpaper and wicker and this beautiful light wood plank flooring, lots of mosaic tile floors everywhere you look. So like every attention to detail, even the pool, like instead of lap lines, there are like these beautiful wavy lap lines. It’s really pretty and everything is, even the staff is wearing coral and light blue and ivy green waistcoats. I don’t know, the whole effect of it is like they created this vibe that is so it’s so warm and it’s so lived in and it’s so beachy, but it’s effortless, right? So it has this kind of laid back luxury that it builds up through these little details.

Like when you arrive, they give you a welcome glass of champagne and they deliver the room keys on a gold platter, you know, with these cute leather fobs that are in the shape of the ibis, which is the logo of the hotel, and then also take steps to connect you to the place. So, right, there’s all kinds of private experiences you can have there, conservation minded as well, as you said, that’s important to us. They work with an organization that works on sea turtle conservation, which is a big thing in that part of Florida. And it is it is Palm Beach. So you could do a private shopping tour. I arranged a private tour of the area to like, see where all the famous and rich people live with a woman named Leslie Diver. So like, even in a place that you might not think of as far flung as a Malaysia or as, you know, the Himalayas, the hotels that we’re visiting were looking for that connection to a place through design, through experiences, through the service. I was surprised and I really enjoyed that that stay.

Jenn: I love your take on it, Billie, because I know I remember at first we were like, not quite sure. We were like thinking about really looking at the hotel. It is Oetker Collection, which is based in Europe. And we were like, oh, that’s an interesting choice for Oetker’s first US hotel. And, you know, is it going to be a place that resonates with our readers? You go to Florida a lot. You’re kind of understand the the beauty of it and the side of it. That’s also like, you know, you just understand Florida so well. And I loved that you saw this hotel as a place that is just Palm Beach, like just sincerely Palm Beach and a place that a reader who might not have thought about going to Palm Beach might now consider because of this hotel’s perspective on the place, the smaller, more intimate setting, the conservation minded activities. I love the feeling like a VIP, but just no pressure. You just do you and we’re going to help you do that. And how can we showcase this place a little bit better to you? I mean, I thought that was such a rich entry because it was so unexpected.

Billie: Speaking of unexpected. I wanted to ask you about what we call the list, right. We call it Best New Hotels, but there are also a lot of renovations and restorations on this list this year. So what does it say that so many of the quote unquote new hotels are actually old hotels?

Jenn: Yeah. Isn’t that funny? Right. Like when you think of new, you’re thinking about something that is absolutely new. But it’s I mean, it’s not a coincidence. Old buildings carry stories that new construction simply can’t manufacture. Auberge Collegio alla Corte, which is in a 16th-century Florentine school. The Waldorf Astoria. We’ve been talking about the Four Seasons Hotel Cartagena, which is centuries old and was 18 years in the making. I mean, that history is irreplaceable, and travelers feel at the moment they walk in. So we do tend to see a lot of grand dames or former buildings turned into hospitality experiences. And they’re by their nature, very Afar-ish, because there’s this sort of repurposing aspect and just think about the craft involved in doing these restorations. It’s just extraordinary.

Some of the most technically ambitious work that we’ve seen in hotels right now is in these grand dames. So the hotel del Coronado outside of San Diego, it took 7 years and $550 million and back to the Waldorf. That was billions. And they took the room count down from 1,400 to 375, sparing no expense to get it right. So these are just the buildings with extraordinary bones that have now have something genuinely fresh to say. And that combination of history and renovation is actually one of the hardest things to pull off in hospitality in a way that works. I’ve seen projects that didn’t pan out, where they’ve tried to restore an icon back to its original glory and bring guests back in as a hotel, and it doesn’t always pan out. It does not always work. So to see them work, we want to honor those properties on an Afar’s Best New Hotels list.

Billie: Is there a thread between like among the ones that you see that work that they’re doing, right?

Jenn: I do think it’s all about thinking about what the guest needs today, like what the traveler is looking for today. And I think that’s kind of evolved over the years. I think we’ve always wanted beautiful places to say, but I think more than ever, like one of the things that we talk about a lot internally on staff is vibe and atmosphere. A hotel that has a great atmosphere when you walk in, that’s magic to me, let’s say like a grand dame, like, I don’t know, back to the Waldorf Astoria like, or any kind of old hotel. Like if you can make it feel relevant for a contemporary traveler or a traveler who you know, is like a new guest to that kind of luxury to make it feel accessible in some way, whether it’s like through F&B, food and beverage spaces that are really exciting, or an urban spa that’s spectacular. Like that is I think where like keep the preservation, but just think about the future, like having that balance is really important. And those hotels that are thinking about future guests, and especially the next generation, they’re thinking about like, like those kids who are going to grow up looking up to these hotels and saying, that’s where I want to stay when it’s time for me to make the travel decisions. And by the way, kids are making the travel decisions. Another trend. So capture the young, the next generation, and I think you’ll do just fine.

Billie: Are there any regions that surprised you or any areas of the world that you weren’t expecting?

Jenn: You know, I love when a hotel puts a destination on a map for a traveler who might not have thought about it before. I mean, all destinations are on the map. They’ve never not been on the map. But I think for an international traveler, when a hotel, a big splashy hotel that’s really done well comes into a new or a destination that people don’t normally go to, it can excite a traveler to to get there. One example is Corinthia Grand Hotel du Boulevard in Bucharest, and our very own Danielle, senior editor, stayed there. It’s a city that serious travelers are starting to discover, beyond the sort of general Europe circuit and hospitality is finally catching up.

I mean, this hotel is exquisite. It is one of the restoration projects. I mean, this city now has a grand dame that is worthy of its history, and it’s just a really wonderful addition and a reason to build a trip around Bucharest. I think that this is a place that people should be putting on their radars for 2026 and beyond. And then Rwanda and Uganda together, they make a case for East Africa beyond the traditional sort of Kenya and Tanzania safari circuit. Kigali is one of my favorite cities in East Africa or just sub-Saharan Africa. It is a destination in its own right, and a lot of people go to Kigali and then they go straight into the Gorilla Trekking and Volcanoes National Park. But Kigali is a city with up and coming talent of like entrepreneurs, designers, now this incredible hotel, the Pinnacle Kigali, which was created by a Rwandan, through a Rwandan lens is one of the greatest places to stay in the city right now.

Billie: That’s so exciting. We’ve covered that hotel a bit. We’re, as a team, we’ve all been pretty excited about that hotel and any other trends.

Jenn: You know, all inclusive used to be a bad word. And every year, uh, that we do these lists, I see more all inclusive concepts and exclusive use concepts that are which are a little bit different. I can explain. I actually was in New York recently and, and listened in on a CEO panel, and the consensus was that the next generation, again, going back to the youths, the next generation of travelers loves an all inclusive. There are more all inclusive, people buying into all-inclusives than ever before. It is not a bad word that kind of connotes mediocrity and food and beverage and sort of catch all like here, here’s a mediocre room, etc. Now all inclusive is becoming sexy again, which is great.

Quercus in Georgia, Fawn Bluff in British Columbia, Tierra Atacama in Chile, Shakti Prana. These are all all-inclusives, for lack of a better word. They help you have an amazing experience. They’re not your parents all inclusive resorts. They’re becoming a marker of genuine immersion because they remove that friction between you and a place because everything is taken care of. Your job is just to be fully present.

Billie: We need a new name for it, right? Not all inclusive. It’s something like, you know.

Jenn: Just make it sexy again.

Billie: Right? Right. These places where you just don’t have to think about you don’t have to think about anything.

Jenn: And I will add another trend, just as a nature and wildlife lover, like the kind of resident like wildlife nerd, there are a few of us on staff, and I’m one of them. And I’m just thrilled to see a growing hunger for wilderness. Like, travelers want access to wild places more than ever. And what excited me about this is how many hotels are making that genuinely easier. So not glamorizing it from a distance, but actually getting you into the thick of things, which as you know, I love whether it’s gorilla trekking in Uganda, hiking the Himalayas, or spotting orcas from a seaplane in British Columbia. And they’re all approaching wildlife encounters in an ethical way, which is especially important to us at Afar. And the hotels that do that well are doing something really important.

Billie: And it’s great that we’re calling those out, right? So you spend the whole year evaluating hotels. You’re going to a million of them. You’re looking at how they connect to a place and whether they’re going to fit into next year’s list or any of the other stories that we’re doing. How has making the list changed how you travel personally? What do you notice? What do you look for?

Jenn: So the great hotels teach you something about where you are, whether that’s through architecture, food, the people around it, the landscape. I pay a lot of attention to who created the hotel and why. I think this is one of the most important questions you can ask when you’re looking at a hotel. So the founder’s story often tells you more about a place than anything else. So examples. Sibbjans in Sweden, which we’ve talked about, Susanna and Pontus, they’re are a couple. She’s into sustainable design and he’s all about environmentally friendly infrastructure. So together they’re this like this Voltron team of amazingness. Like they create this product that is so thoughtfully designed from the design perspective. And also like Pontus, my understanding is that he’s in there trying to solve for environmental footprint. Like he’s trying to lower that impact as much as possible. So when guests can feel really good about staying there, and they can also feel like they’re part of something bigger when they’re there, I don’t know, like you can get a window into like how Pontus is doing things or how Susanna’s designed a room and really just feel like you’re part of this like bigger ethos of the island, which I think is really cool.

Billie: That is really cool.

Jenn: I’d really like to go there. I was in Gotland as a kid and haven’t been back since, and it really is a magical place. And this, this really does put it on the map for international travelers. And then back to Sheila Kirishima of The Pinnacle Kigali. She’s creating a hospitality experience that is through a Rwandan lens. Again, mentioned two women hoteliers here noticing a theme. I mean, I love hearing more women hoteliers entering the mix, especially at the founder and CEO level. This is an incredible year for that and there’s a lot of those examples on our list.

Billie: What do you think the list says about what travelers want right now, broadly speaking?

Jenn: Well, travelers still want those, that great comfort, inspiring design, excellent service. Those things haven’t gone away. But increasingly they also want meaning. I mean, I think we hear that a lot these days, but I think it truly is going to be the differentiator for hotels moving forward. People want hotels that feel inseparable from the people and places around them, and the stories those people and places reveal.

Billie: Well, talking about humans makes me think of AI, right? There’s a value to this list that has become sharper and more important. It’s so humanly created and curated and vetted and edited. We all went there. We all discussed whether it should be on there. We had personal experiences there. Why do you think that that matters now more than ever?

Jenn: That is such an important question to ask right now, and I know we talk a lot about it internally. And I think one of the greatest things that have come out of AI is that it’s reminded us how travel is ultimately a human experience. There’s no AI revolution that’s going to change that. AI can summarize thousands of reviews and tell you, here’s where to go on this itinerary. But what it can’t do is tell you what a hotel feels like right now, what the atmosphere is like right now, or how it’s evolving. Again, like I always like to say that these hotels are living, breathing things. They change, leadership changes, the crowd changes, the energy changes. I do think what travelers are really looking for is a trusted perspective. So before I spend thousands of dollars on a trip, I want a well-traveled, trusted source to say, here is how this place felt when I was there recently, and here’s who this hotel is perfect for and who it isn’t for. And that’s what a list like this is trying to provide.

Billie: And like you’re saying about the experience changes all the time. It changes for the traveler too, you know, depending on where you are in your life, what your mood is that day. That’s why I love that you have some places on this list that are repeat places like the Prospect Berkshires, because you can have different experiences every time you go, and a deeper experience each time. I love that idea. I think, I don’t know, as travelers, we kind of tend to think if we’ve been to one place, we don’t need to go back. But the way that, that you’re saying that hotels are these sort of living, breathing, changing storytelling tools for travelers, right? You should go back.

Jenn: This is one of my travel philosophies. And maybe it’s just because I’m getting older, but the repeat visit is one of the most underrated things, like especially to a hotel where they know your name, they know your preferences, you know what room you like. It’s just one of those things. And they’re like, oh, something, something nearby, like in Florence or Rome changed around the corner. So I’m going to go check it out. Just that rapport that you create with a hotel as this living, breathing, breathing organism. I mean, that sounds a little weird, but I’m gonna stick with this analogy. Um, it is what makes travel so great is those human connections. So like repeat visits. Billie, I love that. I love that you’re talking about repeat visits because I do think they are what makes great travel.

Billie: And we hope people take many, many trips to, to all the places that are on their list, as well as many that they’re not even didn’t even know that they would be interested in, so that’s what’s so great about the list. So thank you for putting it together and all your work. It really, you know, turns people on to places that they might not have been thinking of or places that they are familiar with, but shines a new perspective, um, gives them a new perspective on it. So, and you can use this as a jumping off point for planning your 2027 and beyond.

Jenn: Yes. And Billie, thank you for taking this ride alongside me. I know you’re a hotel obsessive too. Thanks so much for being one of my intrepid, you know, reviewers.

Billie: Takes a village, takes a whole hotel’s worth of people on the team to to make these things happen. So a total of far effort. Everybody check it out.

Aislyn: This is Aislyn again. Thank you Billie, and thank you Jenn. And yes, check out the list. It is gorgeous. It is full of inspiration. And you can find your new favorite hotel at https://www.afar.com/hotels/the-best-new-hotels-of-2026. That link again is in the show notes, as well as links to Billie and Jenn’s social media handles. We’ll see you all next week.

If you’re ready for more travel inspiration and intel like this, visit Afar.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We are at @AfarMedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great stories and interviews. Subscribing always makes that easy, and be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform. It helps other travelers find it.

This has been Unpacked, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to their other fine shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers podcast.