Picture it: After years of fantasizing and months of planning, you finally arrive at the destination you've always dreamed about. Except, it's just not how you pictured it.
09.10.2023 - 10:09 / forbes.com
My first experience sleeping in a cave hotel was many years ago in Santorini, in one of those typical whitewashed hotels dug into the volcanic rock. Once used as inexpensive dwellings, the island's volcanic terrain allowed the inhabitants to carve rooms into the earth without foundations, with vaulted ceilings and narrow entries enforced with limestone. They were also warm in the winter and cool in the summer and provided high resistance to earthquakes.
In Cappadocia, Turkey, the stunning underground cities were built by early Christians during the Byzantine era who were persecuted for their faith. The city's inhabitants used the network of caves to protect themselves during the Arab-Byzantine Wars. Now, the area is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, with countless cave hotels available.
My fascination with underground dwellings and unique hotel rooms continues with this second guide to the world's incredible cave hotels. Ranging from budget to pure luxury, these are the best cave options available at hotels and private rentals for travelers searching for Instagram-worthy digs.
This award-winning resort was created from a reconstructed 19th-century fortress and has an enviable position on a cliff overlooking the Bay of Palma. The hotel offers two pools and restaurants and a beautiful spa originally designed for defense carved out of its sandstone walls. Architect Antonio Obrador converted the rambling military fort into a decadent retreat with wide subterranean winding paths.
There are 26 suites and two rooms from former military installations. The spectacular Sentinels Cave Suites are three extraordinary suites once used as surveillance points carved into the rock face of the private peninsula on which Cap Rocat stands. These private suites have uninterrupted views of the sea from private terraces with plunge pools.
This abandoned Victorian slate mine is part of an adventure camp located 1,375 vertical feet below the mountains of Snowdonia in Northwestern Wales. Deep Sleep offers four private twin-bed cabins within a large cave, each with a double bed. The experience is only available one Saturday night a week starting in the Spring.
A 45-minute steep walk into the mountains takes you to a small cottage where you get outfitted with a helmet, harness, and headlights before the voyage underground. The route is via ancient miners' stairways and decaying bridges, and an hour later, you reach large steel doors where your accommodations are. Food and drinks are served in a communal area. Your guide and staff remain the night in their cabins to help calm nerves.
One of my favorite resorts on the Greek island of Paros is the beautiful Mythic Paros. With an enormous double infinity pool
Picture it: After years of fantasizing and months of planning, you finally arrive at the destination you've always dreamed about. Except, it's just not how you pictured it.
There are plenty of dazzling luxury resorts in the Caribbean, but people who like to fly private often like to stay private on vacation. One of those dreamy, secluded getaways is Villa Papillon in Antigua. Listed for $9.5 million, the 9,700-square-foot villa is located at the tip of Reed’s point, overlooking the water. For $8,000 to $12,000 a night (depending on the week), the villa can accommodate up to 12 people—but expect to spend your time on the vast terrace (on a clear day, you can see to Nevis and St. Kitts) or in the infinity pool.
After a battering during the pandemic, hotels and tourist accommodation have finally found guest numbers and income are taking an upward turn.
Solo travel is on the rise as travellers seek greater freedom and independence.
It’s tough to fathom, but the last day of fall is still a long ways away. (For the record, it’s December 21.) Meaning: you have plenty of weeks to plan a well-deserved escape before the holiday season descends upon us. While flying overseas during this highly emotive time in the world isn’t in the cards for many of us, do you know what is? A weekend in Montreal.
To celebrate their 20th anniversary this year, Atlanta residents Jessica and David Goldberg booked an Oceania Cruise. The voyage started in Greece and dropped them off in Israel on October 4, where they planned to spend the next week exploring.
It’s one thing to love a hotel room with a balcony, quite another to stay in one that’s built into the side of a mountain. But for longtime Forbes travel writer Jim Dobson—who first slept in a cave hotel many years ago in Santorini, Greece—the experience provides a neo-ancient twist on a room with a view. From Mallorca and Puglia to Turkey and Texas, here are some of the most amazing hotel suites built into caves.
UNESCO has added 42 World Heritage Sites to its list of the planet’s natural and cultural sights worth special protection — the biggest group of new entries in more than two decades. The European listings alone span the mighty and the minute, from a gorge-carved landscape in Greece to a charmingly vintage planetarium in the Netherlands.
My husband and I got married this summer and we put most of our wedding expenses on reward credit cards, earning enough points to cover fights and hotels for our Greek honeymoon.
Several blocks away from The Dolli in Athens’ central Plaka, visitors encounter the ruins of Hadrian’s Library and the Roman Agora before climbing the hill up to the Acropolis. Guests of The Dolli, though, have an easier time if they want a glimpse of the Parthenon’s splendor: they can take a table at the rooftop restaurant or sit in or by the infinity pool, both with straight on views of this iconic temple. It’s one reason to stay at this new boutique hotel, a part of Grecotel Hotels & Resorts, which opened officially in January and one reason owner Mari Daskalantonaki selected this site. But it’s not the only advantage of being in residence here.
The World's 50 Best Bars have just been announced—and you can consider this your official bucket list of exceptional drinking dens around the world.
Several blocks away from The Dolli in Athens’ central Plaka, visitors encounter the ruins of Hadrian’s Library and the Roman Agora before climbing the hill up to the Acropolis. Guests of The Dolli, though, have an easier time if they want a glimpse of the Parthenon’s splendor: they can take a table at the rooftop restaurant or sit in or by the infinity pool, both with straight on views of this iconic temple. It’s one reason to stay at this new boutique hotel, a part of Grecotel Hotels & Resorts, which opened officially in January and one reason owner Mari Daskalantonaki selected this site. But it’s not the only advantage of being in residence here.