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The Cosmopolitan is a great place to wine, dine, sleep, and play, but it also emphasizes the importance of the arts. Throughout the property, there are a variety of pieces—the giant shoe on the casino floor is perhaps best known—many of which are in the meeting rooms. In addition to art in public places, The Cosmopolitan houses the P3 Studio, which has rotating exhibits featuring artists working with a variety of designs, styles, and media. For those guests who want to take home a little something commemorating their artistic experience at The Cosmopolitan, stop by one of the Art-O-Mat vending machines in the resort to buy a piece of art for $5.00!

With its palm-lined entrance, oasis-like courtyards, and proximity to the Sky Harbor Airport, the Royal Palms draws both business and leisure travelers, especially business travelers who’ve managed to work a few days of leisure into their schedule. Built in the shadow of Camelback Mountain in 1929 as a Spanish Colonial–style home for Cunard Line executive Delos W. Cooke (who imported 900 palms for the grounds), and opened as a hotel in 1948, the Royal Palms remains popular in part because, with just 119 rooms, it’s one of the smaller and more intimate of Arizona’s luxury resorts. Restoration and refurbishing have kept it up to date without diminishing its original charm.

Leb-i derya is one of those fabulous fancy restaurants perched high above the streets of Beyoğlu with amazing views of the Bosporus, Maiden’s Tower, Asia and old Istanbul’s peninsula. You could walk past the building so many times on its dimly lit street without realizing how magnificent the view from the top is. This light and bright sophisticated rooftop restaurant offers traditional Turkish flavors with a modern twist, as well as gourmet-style international favorites. In summer, management opens the doors to an open-air terrace ideal for sunset cocktails. It really is an iconic city rooftop for special occasions—or for saying good-bye to Istanbul on your last night in the city. Enter off the sloping Kumbaracı Yokuşu (street) which runs off Istiklal street near Tünel. Reservations are advised.

If you’ve been pacing up and down the passages of the Grand Bazaar contemplating that perfect purchase, chances are you’ll need refueling eventually. Hidden on a backstreet just outside gate 16 of the Grand Bazaar is the cozy and charming Keyf-i Mekan Cafe and Restaurant. “Keyfi” means “merriment,” but in Turkey keyfi is also a way of life, one that’s full of pleasure. So expect the small menu featuring delicious Turkish-style home-cooked food to fulfill both these meanings. The food will surely fill the belly and energize you to take those bazaar vendors head on! Choose from the menu of mezes, or meat dishes or peek at the mouthwatering “specials of the day” on the counter. The cafe is open every day, except Sunday when the rest of the bazaar is closed too.

No trip to Belgium is complete without experiencing the Belgian beer culture. The best place in Brussels to take a look at beer history is the Cantillon Brewery. Even as a non beer drinker, it’s a fascinating place to visit. One of the things that makes Cantillon so special, is that it has hardly changed since it opened its doors in 1900, (including the dust and cobweds!) The second unique aspect of Cantillon, is the spontaneous fermentation of its tart Lambic beers. Beer really is in the air around Brussels! Cantillon beers are 100% organic and come in a variety of styles and flavours, from traditional Lambic and Faro beer to the tart cherry beer, Kriek. Tours take place every day in multiple languages and, if you’re lucky, your visit could coincide with brewing or bottling days.

Definitely the coolest restaurant on the block, Model Milk, housed in a former dairy building, does eclectic fine dining in a rustic-hip setting (think exposed brick, and uncovered light bulbs dangling from salvaged wood). There’s nothing stuffy about Chef Justin Leboe’s menu of foie gras with smoked maple, and bacon-like steaks of Broek Acres pig with crushed edamame, apple, fennel, and celery. The best deal is the $35 prix fixe Sunday Supper, a full four-course meal served family style. While the menu varies, it doesn’t stray far from its soul food theme: romaine with chipotle and Stilton cheese, prawn ceviche, braised duck coleslaw, buttermilk fried chicken, plank-grilled mackerel, risotto-like jalapeño-cheddar grits, Mexican green beans, and hot and creamy potatoes. Besides the price tag, the best part is the blueberry shortcake for dessert.

The 60 pairs of iron shoes lined up along the promenade on the Danube River’s east bank are a part of the Shoes on the Promenade Holocaust Monument. Conceived by film director Can Togay and created in period style by sculptor Gyula Pauer, the iron shoe sculptures represent the footwear that fascist Arrow Cross militiamen ordered 3,500 Budapesters, 800 of them Hungarian Jews, to remove and leave behind just before they were executed at the edge of the water in 1944. Today the sculptures serve as a subtle, touching monument that gives new meaning to the saying “put yourself in his shoes.” A long bench runs behind the monument for reflection.

A new Swedish pop music group perhaps? Not quite. On my road trip through Southern Sweden, an architect friend of mine insisted we stop in Malmö to see Santiago Calatrava’s building, the Turning Torso, which was modeled after his own human form sculpture, the Twisting Torso. My friend described the town as “plastic fantastic” because of the vast variation in new architecture styles here, remarking that the Turning Torso is such a notable find within its more sober surroundings. It is, after all, the third tallest residential building in all of Europe. Artsy and industrial, for me, Malmö is reminiscent of something like Dumbo, Brooklyn. Passing through on our road trip, I daydreamed of moving into a loft space in this dynamic city where a majority of the population is under 35.

For visitors, Carytown, located near the downtown hotels and the Museum District, is the preferred place to shop. This several-block stretch of West Cary Street is full of independently owned shops and restaurants, as well as the historic Byrd Theatre, a 1920s movie palace showing recent and classic films at bargain prices. A few notable shops are Mongrel, an all-occasion gift shop with a great selection of Richmond- and Virginia-themed items, World of Mirth, a colorful, kitschy toy store that’s fun for all ages, and Eurotrash, featuring fashion-forward European women’s clothing for all styles and budgets.

Most people have heard of the Kuekenhof tulip gardens of the Netherlands, but few know about the even larger Arcen Gardens in the south of the country, near Venlo. This massive, 42 hectare, garden complex is on the grounds of the 17th century Arcen Castle. The gardens begin in a traditional formal style, with roses, hedges and statuary. But it doesn’t end there. As you wander through, you encounter gardens designed to resemble Japan, Italy, Thailand and more. There are woodland gardens and tropical gardens (inside an enormous greenhouse). There is a small on-site zoo featuring ring-tailed lemurs, plenty of children’s activities, mini-golf and a large cafeteria. In fact, you could easily spend an entire day and still not see everything. Arcen opens for the 2013 season on April 26th.

We had been to Gollem for a drink and a snack (note: the meat platter is hearty) the evening before, but when we found ourselves on Overtoom after visiting Vondelpark, with Gollem just opening for lunch, we went for it again. After all, it was our last day in Amsterdam and there was beer to be drunk. The servers are very knowledgeable and helpful, and will guide you to specific styles or rhapsodize over undiscovered breweries. Fries, fried in beef tallow, were wonderful. Sweetbread croquettes tasted mostly like any other croquette, with perhaps a whiff of sweetbreadiness. The ham and Chimay cheese sandwich was good. It was all fresh, and all went very well with the wide selection of Belgian beers they offer. And for dessert? Gueuze.

Award-winning chef Nobu Matsuhisa spent most of the 1990s and 2000s growing an empire of Japanese restaurants around the world. These days he’s expanding his global portfolio of hotels, too. This ultra-luxurious property, which occupies a separate tower inside Caesars Palace, was the first Nobu Hotel in the world when it debuted in 2013. It set the tone for the hotel group’s signature Japanese-inspired aesthetic that feels simultaneously traditional and modern. Refreshed in 2022, the 182 guest rooms draw design inspiration from kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold epoxy. Corridors feature carpets with patterns inspired by suminagashi —the Japanese art of paper marbling. For those who favor smaller-scale boutique hotels, this hotel-within-a-hotel concept here makes the place feel intimate—not unlike a Japanese ryokan.


The over-the-top design experience begins at check-in, which happens in a diminutive stand-alone lobby decorated with hand-hewn wood blocks. Elevators automatically read your floor with a scan of a room key, a nice touch that surprisingly hasn’t caught on elsewhere around this hospitality-minded town. Of course, adjacent to the lobby, there’s also a Nobu restaurant—the largest in the world. The restaurant offers teppanyaki-style dining where chefs prepare every course right in front of you, along with classic Nobu dishes such as miso black cod and yellowtail jalapeno sashimi.


Related: 7 Hotels to Book for “Non-Vegas” People

Opened in 1915 as Tent City—a string of luxury canvas tents along Lac Beauvert, with vistas of Whistlers Peak and Pyramid Mountain—the iconic Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge was possibly North America’s first “glamping” site. The destination proved wildly popular, and in 1922 a main lodge was opened, as well as a series of luxury log cabins spread across 700 acres in the heart of Jasper National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Bristling with Douglas firs and pine trees, the property sees herds of elk nibbling the grass, chipmunks scurrying through the trees, and even the occasional bear. The 442 rooming options—all of which were renovated between 2015 and 2017—include cozy spots in the main building, fireplace-equipped Junior Suites, and bring-the-whole-family Signature Cabins, all with views across the lake or the forest and mountains. The newly introduced Estate Cabins, located near the golf course, feature a private gated entrance for a more residential feel. Classic lodge-style interior design is the order of the day in the cabins, with wood beams and a combination of earthy and granite tones, while rooms and suites are clean-lined and decked out in fresh white bedding and light wood accents.

Previously the home of Peruvian sculptor Victor Delfin, who still keeps a studio and gallery on-site, Second Home Peru is the guesthouse everyone would want to know about (but doesn’t). The beautifully maintained Tudor mansion is one of the first boutique hotels to open in Lima, though being hidden away in a residential section of the Barranco arts district, few realize it is there. Its neighborhood location is ideal—a few blocks from the lively plaza and from a cobblestone walkway down to the beach, the Bajada de los Baños, that is lined with restaurants. The highlight, however, is the ocean view, as the house is set near the edge of Lima’s coastal cliffs, and several rooms have balconies that look right over the water. The vistas are better from here than from the often-gray skies of the more posh hotels in Miraflores up the coast, and guests can enjoy them from the small outdoor pool, gardens, and shared terraces as well. The eclectic décor includes wood floors, Louis XV–style claw-footed bathtubs, and a small contemporary art collection that lines the halls and stairways. The family-run property isn’t flashy or ultra modern by any means, though flat-screen TVs and Wi-Fi come standard.

Originally opened in 1946 as a luxury hideaway for the rich and famous, the Hotel Bel-Air’s brilliance as a Hollywood icon has, if anything, increased since its renovation, finished in 2011, by the renowned design teams at Alexandra Champalimaud and the Rockwell Group. Surrounded by 12 acres of fragrant, exotic gardens, the decadent rooms have housed everyone from Grace Kelly to Oprah, from Richard Nixon to the Prince of Wales, all of whom sought serene privacy—and the staff’s renowned discretion.