Romance isn’t dead. If anything, it’s having a moment.
Not the rose petals on the bed kind. Not the complimentary prosecco in a lukewarm flute kind. The real kind. The Lost in Translation kind. That energy is everywhere right now. Classic romance is back - in the films people are rewatching, the archival fashion they're referencing, the shows that trade plot for mood and longing. The temperature has shifted. We are back in our feelings.
This newsletter has always been about that. Not romance in the saccharine sense, but romance as a lifestyle. A slightly delusional commitment to living beautifully. I’ve spent years nudging friends toward places that feel cinematic. Hotels and hideaways that hum with something.That air of romance, of sexiness if we're being honest, isn't optional. It's essential.
So what actually makes a hotel romantic? It's low lighting only. A walk-in shower for two, or a bathtub where nobody's knees are in their chest. A corner banquette that turns a quick drink into three hours. Blackout blinds heavy enough to make 11am feel like 2am. Coffee in a beautiful cup while you're still in bed. Sheets too good to rush out of, I still daydream about the cloud like dreamy heavy Cultiver linen at the Vipp Tunnel. A scent that stays with you. His & Hers sinks. Hotel stationery the Sunset Tower in West Hollywood has notepaper that makes you want to write something worth keeping. A plush robe in your actual size. Pre-made cocktails you can't wait to drink. A fireplace. Late checkout. Turndown done properly — the kind that makes you excited to get back to your room. And design with a point of view — an actual opinion, not "nice interiors." Hôtel du Couvent has a resident herbalist. They bake madeleines in the lobby so the scent hits you the moment you walk in. That level of intention.
Below are the stays I can confirm deliver all over the world – or that are on my wishlist – and look impeccable.
Bangkok is having a moment. I am desperate to go for a city jaunt and then head off to this dreamy stay just two hours north. Twenty-two rooms in the misty highlands of Khao Yai, on an estate that was once a mango and lychee orchard.
The result is full Wes Anderson: a pristine white manor surrounded by gardens that hide secret paths, gemstone-coloured enclosures, and a working kitchen garden. Rooms are themed universes — preserved butterflies under glass domes, velvet teal walls, celestial motifs, four-poster beds. A library that turns into a jazz bar after dark. A hidden whisky salon that’s invitation only. Still in soft opening, which means you get to be smug about finding it first.
Following Al Moudira, this is an other opulent hotel in Egypt. Eleven suites, adults only, on a stretch of beach in El Gouna. Started as a guest house for friends designed by an antiques collector and an architect and was never supposed to become a hotel. That foundational accident is the whole point. Every suite is individually furnished with antiques from across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East. A French chef named Vincent cooks whatever he's feeling and plates it on a terrace above the Red Sea while the desert mountains go pink.
There are places the world forgot about, and places that chose to forget the world. eriro is the latter. Nine suites, cable car access only, 1,550 metres up in the Tyrolean Alps. Three local couples built it from their own timber and local stone the smallest, most personal alpine hideaway in existence.
No WiFi unless you beg for it. No televisions. Your phone goes into what they call a "cell phone coffin." What you get instead: bathtubs carved from tree trunks, floor-to-ceiling windows that pull the mountains into the room, and sheep's wool socks gifted on arrival as an invitation to stay a while.
I mean if its good enough for RHW.
Seductive is overused in hotels. This one earns it. A 16th-century monastery in the Tramuntana mountains, resuscitated by Kate Bellm, (a British fashion photographer I have loved forever) and her husband Edgar Lopez, who stopped the restoration when they got to the 1970s.
There's a certain aura when you arrive - The staff don't perform hospitality, they just are it. Breezy, warm, completely unforced. The restaurant run by the gorgeous Eliza Parchanska is so fun.. I still dream about her beautiful plates of food, eaten slowly on the terrace as the mountain light went gold. The interiors are incredible and the setting feels very hidden and quiet.
The Balearics have always drawn romantics, rebels, and visionaries. This feels like the hotel they were waiting for.
On the south-central coast of Vietnam, on a 240-acre estate of jungle, rice paddies, and a private beach. We stayed in Pool Villa 425 and wrote about it as the perfect romantic escape, though the service didn't always match the setting.
The views are the best on the property, the interiors are beautiful, there's an outdoor shower that faces the ocean, and the sunsets from up there are something else entirely. The turndown was sexy. Coming back at dusk to a darkened room, the bed pulled down, a herbal tea and local pandan coconut dessert waiting. The point isn't the tea. It's the feeling that someone was thinking about your evening before you were.
Read our full review here.
Paris has some seriously moody hotels right now (hello Le Grand Mazarin, Château Voltaire, Chateau des Fleurs) . This is the one. Fifty-eight rooms on the site of Balzac's last home, who made it feel like a 1930s Parisian apartment you'll never be able to afford. Solid oak, velvet, marble mosaics, low lighting that shifts through the day. Read my Paris download here.
Today we are 28 Rising in Travel! Thank you beautiful people!
Coming next.. a sexy cultured 24 hours in Istanbul + our Honeymoon in Palau.
For more SexyStays around the world, consider some of our latest finds:
Les Roches Rouges – Nice, France
How to Unlock the Old World - Budapest, Hungary
Edinburgh Hotels - Edinburgh, Scotland
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