Eight small hotels in places you have never quite booked. Each chosen as a reason to go in itself.
Sometimes the hotel makes the destination. Eight small properties our editors are quietly evangelistic about - the kind of places where you book the room first and plan the trip around it.
Quinta da Côrte, Douro Valley
A working wine estate above the river near Valença do Douro. Eight rooms in the 18th-century house, terraced vineyards running down to the water, and a chef who builds dinner around the harvest. The owners are a French couple who restored the interiors with António Costa Lima; the result is more village house than design hotel. Mornings on the terrace are silent except for the kestrels above the schist.
Monaci delle Terre Nere, Etna, Sicily
On the volcanic slopes of Etna in an old wine-making complex above Zafferana Etnea. The breakfast room looks straight at the smoking summit, and the produce comes from the estate's biodynamic gardens. Twenty-seven rooms scattered between the main palmento and stone outbuildings, with contemporary Sicilian art on every wall. Hire the resident sommelier for a tasting of nerello mascalese grown a kilometre away.
Sextantio Le Grotte della Civita, Matera
Cave dwellings restored as suites, all in dim candlelight at night - electricity is deliberately minimal. The most atmospheric hotel in southern Italy, set inside the Sassi UNESCO zone with a deconsecrated rock church serving as the breakfast room. The same team runs Sextantio Santo Stefano di Sessanio in Abruzzo if you want a mountain equivalent.
The Wee Hotel, Inishbofin, Ireland
Off the Connemara coast, eight rooms, a single chef, and bicycles to lend. The ferry runs from Cleggan twice a day in summer and once in winter, weather permitting. Days fill themselves: the Westquarter loop walk, lobster off the pier, and a single pub where the trad sessions start when the boats are in.
Hotel Sa Pedrissa, Mallorca
Above Deià, on the north-west coast, in a 17th-century olive press surrounded by its own grove. Infinity pool over the Mediterranean, a five-minute drive to Cala Deià, and the Robert Graves house a short walk down the road. Eight rooms only; book a year ahead for the high terraces in June or September.
Babylonstoren, South Africa
Cape Dutch farm in the Drakenstein valley with one of the best kitchen gardens in the world - eight acres, more than 300 edible plants, and a glasshouse restaurant called Babel that cooks only what was picked that morning. The garden cottages are whitewashed and quiet; the spa borrows from the same harvest. Pair with a few nights in Franschhoek next door.
Khwai River Lodge, Botswana
On the edge of the Moremi reserve in the Okavango Delta. Real bush, real elephants outside the tent at 3 a.m., and a guide team that has been on the concession for two decades. The dry-season game viewing in August and September is as good as anything in southern Africa; combine with a few nights in the deeper delta for the water-based experience.
Soriah Hotel, Cappadocia, Turkey
Cave hotel done with restraint - no faux-Ottoman cushions, no piped music. The roof terrace at dawn during the balloon flight is the photograph everyone takes, but the better hours are after lunch, when the day-trippers leave and Ürgüp returns to its valley. Walk the Red Valley to Çavuşin before dinner.
