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Estancia Vik Jose Ignacio isn’t exactly what you’d expect of a high-end Uruguayan ranch. It’s not in the jet-set capital of Punta del Este, for starters — the hotel is located a mere twenty kilometers away, just outside the laid-back beach community of Jose Ignacio — and the aesthetic is a notable departure from the rustic woodwork and cowhides of a traditional estancia. The contemporary colonial-style mansion, set on a sprawling 4,000-acre near-seaside property, is a showcase for edgy South American artwork and innovative interior design.

Curator Enrique Badaró Nadal oversaw the more than twenty Uruguayan and international artists and architects who contributed works to Estancia Vik. Stand-out pieces include a massive marble sculpture and a lush oil fresco, inspired by maps of Brazil and Uruguay, on the ceiling of the central living room, and a swimming pool with fiber-optic stars mirroring the Southern constellations, and an extraordinary array of engravings, photography, painting, and sculpture are on display throughout the hotel. Public spaces and the twelve guest rooms and suites are as sleek and cool as you’d expect — there’s plenty of cement and glass here, and suites come with extravagant extras like private outdoor rainforest-head showers — but you’ll also find exposed brick, wooden beams, and natural materials to remind you that you’re at an estancia.

Even with so many nods to the avant-garde, this isn’t a cold place. On the contrary, Estancia Vik feels perfectly cozy during the traditional afternoon asado (barbecue), and down-to-earth outdoor activities like horseback riding and bird-watching are major attractions. On top of everything else, the estancia is eco-friendly: the vegetables on your dinner plate come straight from the organic garden, and a windmill and solar panels help to power the mansion. The place is unusual, yes, and breathtaking — merging rural comforts with high design and environmental responsibility, Estancia Vik may well symbolize the thrilling future of South American estancias.

Too often “design” actually seems to mean an absence of design, as though the end goal were to empty the hotel of everything but beds and white walls. You don’t need a designer for that, just some movers. Here, in Dar Darma, is an exception: a riad hotel that’s quite obviously had some designer attention paid to it, and the result is a six-room fantasy that leaves minimalism in the dust.

Instead maximalism is the order of the day. From ornate carved doors to fine woodwork to the lush velvet textures of the furniture, Dar Darma is unflinching in its pursuit of opulence. Public spaces are suitably dramatic and the suites and apartments are unforgettably luxe. This heavy romance is not for everyone, perhaps, but there’s a sizable contingent out there who didn’t travel all the way to Marrakech just for an ordinary hotel that’s vaguely Eastern-looking.

Dar Darma’s good looks, we’re happy to say, are backed up with some fine hospitality. The riad’s cook prepares traditional meals as well as lessons in Moroccan cooking. There’s a cozy little hammam, and the roof terrace is home not just to an impressive view but to a plunge pool as well, the ideal way to beat the daytime heat.

The compromise position between the densely packed medina and the wide-open, suburban Palmeraïe is the Hivernage district; it’s less crowded than the old town, but closer to the center of it all than the sprawling out-of-town resorts. And there are a few very worthy hotel options in the Hivernage, among them the Sofitel Marrakech Lounge & Spa.

You could make a case that if any international chain can get to the essence of Morocco, it would be a French one. If it’s boutique (or riad) intimacy you’re after, this might not be the place — with just this side of 350 rooms and suites, the Sofitel Marrakech Lounge & Spa is not a small hotel. But it’s a five-floor complex, rather than a tower, which means a more human scale, and the pure physical luxuries of the place go a long way towards making any guest feel at times like pretty much the only guest.

Chief among them is the spa, a major piece of the Imperial puzzle, and an area where the Sofitel has an advantage over most of the in-town competition. Add a healthy dose of sophisticated Paris-via-Morocco modern interior design and you’ve got a stylish luxury hotel that’s solid in all areas.

It’s not necessarily high on the list of destinations for foreign visitors to England, but for a weekender from London (or Reading, or Oxford) the Thames Valley town of Goring is a logical stop. Of course you’re unlikely to be passing through on your own — if anything you’ll be here because you’ve been tempted by the Miller of Mansfield.

Which, it turns out, is not an actual miller but a hotel, or more precisely a fine little restaurant with a cozy guesthouse attached. And while from the outside it’s a very traditional 18th-century inn, inside it’s a little more complicated.

The restaurant is swanky and contemporary, with nothing in the way of country-inn kitsch. The rooms, while traditional enough in shape and layout, are eclectic in design, mixing antique furnishings with contemporary pieces, marble in the bathrooms and vibrant patterned wallpaper in the bedrooms. And while the overall package may stop short of white-glove luxury, it’s still quite plush enough to make for a cozy and romantic little escape.

Spa treatments are available in-room, and the baths are downright indulgent. And should you feel the urge to stretch your legs, you could do worse for a venue than Goring — this small town is charming, and it’s situated in the Goring Gap, one of central England’s prettiest regions.

Some country house hotels are almost too genteel, all Palladian pomp and manicured grounds. Calcot Manor, on the outside at least, is something a bit more rustic — this Cotswolds hideaway is made from a 14th-century stone farmhouse and associated buildings, and is both more intimate and more idiosyncratic than the standard country house, with a casual atmosphere that the more formal country houses can’t match.

Once inside you’ll find there’s very little that’s 14th-century about these rooms, aside from the occasional timbered ceiling. The thirty-five rooms and suites have had a pretty thorough look from a contemporary designer, and the result, however crisp and clean, manages to retain plenty of farmhouse atmosphere. Rooms for families are set aside in what was formerly the barn, giving the little ones plenty of room to spread out, while reserving a bit of quiet and privacy for romance-oriented couples.

Calcot Manor is home to two restaurants, one a casual inn-style gastropub, the other a white-tablecloth venue in the old conservatory. A small spa serves hotel guests only, and there are not one but two pools, one indoor and one outdoor. A supervised play program for the kids means a moment alone isn’t out of the question.

How to get there:

Calcot Manor is approximately a 20 minute drive from Kemble Airport. Please contact customerservice@tablethotels.com to arrange airport transfers.

With all the new hotel action in China proper, it’s high time Taipei stepped up its game. There are a couple of absolute gems in the Taiwanese capital, but there’s always room for more: the home-grown Hotel Éclat is a worthy addition to the city’s hotel landscape, a shamelessly luxe and flamboyantly elegant boutique hotel in the upscale Da-An district, a place which proves that it’s not all dull gray sobriety out there: the decadent strain in hotel design is alive and well.

The lobby sets the tone, decked out in marble and velvet, the ceiling hung with chandeliers. Upstairs the rooms are stocked with all the current-standard must-haves, from the Bang & Olufsen sound systems and in-room Nespresso machines to the obligatory 42-inch LCD television sets. The Éclat suite comes decked out in vaguely Deco black-and-white striped wallpaper, while the standard bedrooms are more sedate; hardwood floors and designer furniture are everywhere.

And while the smallish 60-room Hotel Éclat can’t hope to compete with the big chains in terms of sheer quantity of services and amenities, what it does have goes a long way: not one but two restaurants, including a Cantonese and a Mediterranean option, as well as a bar and a lounge serving coffee and pastries.

With all the new hotel action in China proper, it’s high time Taipei stepped up its game. There are a couple of absolute gems in the Taiwanese capital, but there’s always room for more: the home-grown Hotel Éclat is a worthy addition to the city’s hotel landscape, a shamelessly luxe and flamboyantly elegant boutique hotel in the upscale Da-An district, a place which proves that it’s not all dull gray sobriety out there: the decadent strain in hotel design is alive and well.

The lobby sets the tone, decked out in marble and velvet, the ceiling hung with chandeliers. Upstairs the rooms are stocked with all the current-standard must-haves, from the Bang & Olufsen sound systems and in-room Nespresso machines to the obligatory 42-inch LCD television sets. The Éclat suite comes decked out in vaguely Deco black-and-white striped wallpaper, while the standard bedrooms are more sedate; hardwood floors and designer furniture are everywhere.

And while the smallish 60-room Hotel Éclat can’t hope to compete with the big chains in terms of sheer quantity of services and amenities, what it does have goes a long way: not one but two restaurants, including a Cantonese and a Mediterranean option, as well as a bar and a lounge serving coffee and pastries.

If your thought process about Spain consists of simply weighing Barcelona against Madrid, you’re leaving a lot out — namely Valencia. This is Calatrava’s city, for one thing, and its architectural pedigree goes back much farther, including the Westin, which occupies a grand white palace of a building, dating back to the early days of Modernism, when you could still get a bit of classic ornament mixed in with your clean lines.

It’s changed a bit inside since then, of course, but the interiors still bear traces of this history. The décor is a little bit Deco, a little bit Bauhaus, and a little bit contemporary, while the technology is very much up to date. The wellness center includes a gym, a spa and a therapy pool, and the rooms are state-of-the-art as well: Westin have not just their own trademarked beds, but their own trademarked baths as well, plus a full complement of other high-end amenities, both electronic and traditional.

And though it’s no boutique, neither is it a faceless business hotel. The Westin is, in its slightly conservative way, the standard by which the rest of Valencia’s hotels are judged, for better and for worse — the exception being the high-end suites, which in their lavishness are without parallel anywhere in town.

You can tell from a quarter-mile away that the Gallery Hotel is meant to stand out. Its modernist facade, standing over Singapore’s redeveloped Robertson Quay, is plainly an homage to Mondrian (the artist, not the hotel), with its irregular primary-color rectangular accents. You could be forgiven for imagining that the inside will be chock full of 20th-century modernist artworks; but its not exactly that kind of Gallery.

Here the artworks are the rooms themselves, and the exterior’s optimistic color scheme is very much in evidence inside. Some rooms are understated, with occasional bold accents against a backdrop of neutrals and natural woods. The boldest and brightest, though, are the 19 “CYX Boutique” rooms and suites, the result of a competition featuring young Singaporean artists and designers. And if you’d rather look out than in, book one of the Glazzhaus rooms, with their floor-to-ceiling glass, or the Observatory suite, which comes equipped with a telescope and a view of the Singapore river.

Other highlights include the cantilevered pool, the spa and fitness center, and the Gallery’s restaurant and lounge — and countless other eateries and nightclubs lie just outside the hotel’s doors. This stretch of the waterfront is among Singapore’s nightlife and dining hotspots, and there’s more (including shopping) at Orchard Road, just blocks away.

There’s more to choose from in the South of France than just the beach towns and the farmhouse inns. The charming Roman-era town of Aix-en-Provence is a perennial favorite, and it’s not hard to see why — it’s a picturesque city, with fine Mediterranean weather, a bit of culture, and a refreshing absence of the kind of ostentatious glamour that you’ll find further south. And in the middle of it all is a very fine boutique hotel, the remarkably urbane Hotel Cezanne.

Just as Cezanne, in his day, laid some of the foundations for modernist painting, the hotel that bears his name is traditional, but with a modern tendency. The colors and textures of Provence are present throughout, but given a contemporary twist by the designer, Charles Montemarco. It’s a look that’s equally far from style-obsessed design hotels as it is from antique-obsessed traditional hotels.

Though it’s bigger than a bed-and-breakfast the Cezanne is minimal in terms of services. There’s a very fine buffet breakfast and the bar is open all day but there’s no lunch or dinner — this is the classic French way, which takes advantage of the fact that you’re never more than thirty seconds from at least one excellent restaurant.

There’s more to choose from in the South of France than just the beach towns and the farmhouse inns. The charming Roman-era town of Aix-en-Provence is a perennial favorite, and it’s not hard to see why — it’s a picturesque city, with fine Mediterranean weather, a bit of culture, and a refreshing absence of the kind of ostentatious glamour that you’ll find further south. And in the middle of it all is a very fine boutique hotel, the remarkably urbane Hotel Cezanne.

Just as Cezanne, in his day, laid some of the foundations for modernist painting, the hotel that bears his name is traditional, but with a modern tendency. The colors and textures of Provence are present throughout, but given a contemporary twist by the designer, Charles Montemarco. It’s a look that’s equally far from style-obsessed design hotels as it is from antique-obsessed traditional hotels.

Though it’s bigger than a bed-and-breakfast the Cezanne is minimal in terms of services. There’s a very fine buffet breakfast and the bar is open all day but there’s no lunch or dinner — this is the classic French way, which takes advantage of the fact that you’re never more than thirty seconds from at least one excellent restaurant.

When it comes to successful and stylish high-end resorts across Asia and the far East there are a few different names we could mention. Ask around, though, and you’ll find consistent high marks awarded to the Alila group. They’re not the most decadent resorts in the world, but their sophisticated semi-urban design sense and their relentlessly friendly staff have helped them build a reputation for accessible luxury — though they’re unmistakably high-end they’re never aloof or intimidating, whether in Thailand, Laos, the Maldives, or around Indonesia, where they’ve just put the finishing touches to the Alila Villas Uluwatu, on the south coast of the Bukit Peninsula.

From inside any of the 65 villas you’d be hard pressed to place them in the island-villa genre at all — there’s so little tropical kitsch and so much sophisticated apartment-life functionality. Still, there’s no mistaking the setting, visible through glass walls, of which you’ve got at least one, if not two or three. An infinity-edge pool and a fitness center are absolute musts in this segment of the market, and a pair of restaurants see to it that you don’t have to leave the grounds. If you’re flush, you can splash out for the two-bedroom or the three-bedroom cliffside villas, both with private pools — and if you’re really doing well, they’re available for sale.