The latest thing in luxury travel: hotels that have real soul
Today's travelers will not settle for anything less than total immersion in culture, food, and adventure. These new hotels offer all that with added luxury.
With more millionaires on earth than ever before-something near sixty million, or 1.5 per cent of the population, per the 2024 Global Wealth Report-luxury travel is booming. To many who have seen The White Lotus, the word "luxury" conjures a vision of grand new hotels like the forthcoming Amanvari in Mexico, the Six Senses and Waldorf Astoria in London, and Vineta in Palm Beach. Others, especially members of Gen Z, will go more for soulful hotels-ones embedded in their local environment in which guests can get themselves into the foreign landscape and taste other foods and traditions and art.
Here are my picks of six of the most exciting soulful openings of 2026, giving visitors a chance to immerse themselves in lives and cultures of other people in a different part of the world-but in considerable comfort.
Zannier Île de Bendor, France
When Paul Ricard, a French industrialist who marketed Pastis, purchased an island off the French Riviera in 1950, there was one, and only one, resident there—a sheep. But in the years since, his family have developed it into a haven where people such as Salvador Dalí and Josephine Baker came just to play. Now, after a five-year renovation, on May 1, French hotelier Arnaud Zannier will unveil, along with Marc de Jouffroy, great-grandson of Ricard, his new concept for the 700m x 240m island, turning it into an 93-room haven for hospitality and art. In addition to his vision for a 1960s glamour Riviera hotel, complete with 49 rooms, 1,200 sqm spa, he's developed new concept accommodations within former fishermen's cottages, pools, tennis courts, padel courts, a beach club, diving center, and eight dining options.
“The Ricard family’s desire is for this to be a celebration of French art, music, and culture,” so all of the artworks that will be seen in the rooms will be for sale from local up-and-coming artists. In addition, there will be Provençal craft workshops set up in the village square where guests can buy and watch as the crafts
Hope, Scotland
In May, a new lodge, aptly named Hope, is set to be opened by Scotland's most private landowners, billionaires Anders and Ann Holch Povlsen, who have invested a significant portion of their wealth in creating this, currently, largest rewilded area in Europe. This hipped-hunting lodge, together with its adjoining small cottage, originally constructed in the 1870s for Duke of Sutherland, is set to be converted into a seven-bedroomed eco-hotel, together with a two-bedroomed family bolt hole, creatively decorated by Cecile & Boyd, renowned design company that specializes in nature-driven safari lodges in Africa.
While the attention is on the welcoming wooden interiors of the lodge itself, where a mix of vintage Georgian and Jacobean furniture is blended with tweed, flax, and oilskin textiles, it’s the dramatic environment that can be experienced on this massive estate, covering 100,000 acres, that really steals the show.
