Minos Beach Art Hotel isn’t the biggest, the flashiest, or the most expensive hotel on this stretch of Cretan coastline, heading north out of the town of Agios Nikolaos all the way up to Elounda, but it still manages to stand out. It’s long been a low-key favorite for high-profile guests who love its sense of seclusion — though not hard to reach, it’s set on its own little peninsula and feels as private as can be.

Kura owners Martin and Alejandra, an architect and a biologist, sought to bring to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica a level of boutique-hotel style and tropical-minimalist luxury that hadn’t been seen here before. This is a glamorous hotel, with serious modern design and locally sourced materials from gray slate to teak wood. And it’s adults only, befitting the seriously seductive edge of the jungle suites.

Not many resorts can boast of such a dramatic arrival. You’re flown to Koh Kood island by Soneva’s private plane, taken to the resort via speedboat, then driven to your bungalow in an eco-buggy. Those bungalows, with personal infinity pools and open air bathrooms, create an effortless and organic type of luxury that seems to just grow up out of the ground, while aiming to keep environmental impact at a minimum.

Kizikula is surprisingly cosmopolitan for its location on Zanzibar’s south coast. The architecture is both inventive and site-specific, the buildings’ distinctive forms constructed from locally sourced coral limestone, which, in combination with expanses of raw concrete, creates an extraordinary richness of texture. It’s complemented by wooden furniture and local textiles, resulting in a visual simplicity and a tactile warmth.

Alexander Vik’s sense of drama is evident at Vik Chile, a 29-suite hotel and winery perched on a hilltop in one of Chile’s famed wine-growing regions and surrounded by vineyards. All guest suites feature floor-to-ceiling windows that provide unobstructed views over the pristine surroundings — some overlook the vineyards and the Colchagua Valley beyond, while others face the snow-capped Andes.

Community underpins everything at Hotel Aguas Claras, a labor of love established by an artist from San José and her daughter. Each space at the hotel is uniquely curated with works from local artists, and there’s a sense of winking playfulness that can be found in the design of everything from the suites, lit up with bright colors and eye-catching modern furniture, to the five-bedroom Casa Floralia.

Six Senses Ibiza is set at the end of a peninsula in the far north of the island, a setting which maximizes its private-island atmosphere. It’s as luxurious as you’d rightly expect, and extraordinarily green as well, the first BREEAM-certified resort in the region — meaning not only that its construction and operation are low-impact, but that it works with local agencies to constantly improve its environment and surrounding communities.

Wild Coast Tented Lodge engaged a group of architects, whose creations — called “cocoons” and “urchins,” the latter for kids — feel futuristic, or maybe retro-futuristic, right down to the copper basins and bathtubs. Sandwiched between a gorgeous beach and the utterly wild Yala National Park — home to elephants, leopards, monkeys, and more — you’ll feel like an adventurer here, albeit one for whom no comfort is too plush.

Hotel categories aren’t as rigid as they sometimes seem. Where, after all, is the line between a boutique hotel and a luxury resort? Better to follow Keemala’s lead, and call them what they call themselves: an “all pool villa wonderland.” It certainly gets the point across; the point being that every villa here, on the edge of Phuket’s coastal rainforest — perched just above the coastal town of Kamala — comes with its own pool.

If you want to stay at a resort with three infinity pools and five restaurants, go to Barbados or Anguilla. If you want to hike through the rainforest and meditate at dawn on a treetop platform and sleep in a clifftop villa sustainably built with native tropical wood, you go to Dominica, nicknamed “Nature Island,” and check into Secret Bay. The hotel has just 12 villas, one more lavish than the next.

We’ve written extensively about the lengths to which Arnaud Zannier goes to ensure his hotels are fully immersive experiences, venues for creating the kinds of unforgettable memories that travel, at its best, is all about. Zannier Hotels Bãi San Hô is another extraordinary addition to the family, set on 240 acres alongside a powder-white beach on a secluded peninsula in Vietnam’s seaside province of Phu Yen.