About Luxury Vacations
We publish long-form guides to the places where the difference between a good trip and a great one is a handful of specific decisions.
Most luxury travel writing is a list of hotels with adjectives attached. We think the useful information sits elsewhere: which month the sea is warm enough and the crowds have not arrived, which side of the island to sleep on, what a week genuinely costs once transfers and tasting menus are counted, and which two or three bookings have to be made a year in advance or not at all.
So our guides are built around those decisions. Every one carries a seasonal breakdown, a comparison table with real rates, a cost breakdown, at least one worked itinerary, and the booking mechanics — when reservations drop, what the minimum stay is, where the tax lands, what the dress code actually means.
Luxury is not defined by price. It is defined by access, and by knowing which details are worth paying for.
How we research a guide
Guides are written by curators who have stayed in the rooms, sat at the tables and made the bookings, and they are revisited each season rather than published once and left. Rates move, chefs leave, stars are gained and lost, and a guide that is not maintained is worse than none.
Where we quote a price, it is the lead-in rate for a stated season and category, and we say which. Where we describe a property we have not returned to recently, we say that too. We would rather be narrow and current than broad and stale.
How we make money
Two ways, and both are worth stating plainly. Properties and operators pay us commission when readers book through our VIP Concierge, at the rates you would have paid anyway. And some outbound links earn a referral fee.
Neither buys a place in a guide. Nothing on this site is a paid listing, no property has been given approval over what we write about it, and a commission relationship has never been the reason a hotel appears — or the reason one is left out.
What we cover
Right now: 8 destinations and 10 published guides across seven collections, from private villas and medical wellness retreats to ski weeks and small-ship cruising. The list grows every month, and the fastest way to hear about a new one is the journal.
Who writes here
Stefan Werner is LuxuryVacations.net's resident luxury-travel adviser and concierge. With two decades of experience designing bespoke itineraries for UHNW clients, he pairs a formal background in hotel management with a global network of private-jet operators, Michelin-starred chefs, and boutique hoteliers.
ILIsabella Lombardi is the bespoke-itinerary mastermind at LuxuryVacations.net. Born in Florence and fluent in four languages, she blends insider connections with an art-historian's eye for culture and detail.
HRHelena is the discerning eye and storytelling voice behind LuxuryVacations.net. With a background in boutique-hotel consulting and a passport stamped on six continents, she curates insider guides to the world's most coveted destinations.
Reading is the easy part. We will handle the booking.
The curators who wrote these guides plan the same trips for readers, end to end.
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