Architecture is increasingly shaped by landscape, with terrain, climate, and vegetation informing form, materiality, and spatial experience. Across forests, coastlines, and mountains, context-driven design dissolves the boundary between interior and exterior, creating immersive spaces attuned to light, air, and nature. This approach, seen in the work of studios like Studio MK27 and Javier Senosiain, reflects a shift toward ecological sensitivity, where architecture and landscape operate as a continuous, responsive system.
Creative travel invites a slower, more intentional rhythm where making becomes part of the journey. Around the world, a growing number of retreats combine nature, craft, and culture, offering workshops in ceramics, painting, textiles, and photography. From the Amazon rainforest and Arctic fjords to Japanese mountains and coastal retreats, these hotels encourage guests to disconnect from routine and create with their hands.
Water has long shaped how we move through the world, carving valleys, feeding forests, and creating natural corridors where life gathers. Today, some of the most memorable hotels sit where land meets water, along fjords, lakes, rivers, and lagoons where the landscape feels fluid and ever-changing. From Norway’s glacial fjords and alpine lakes in Europe to jungle rivers and coastal wetlands in the tropics, each setting invites a different rhythm of travel.
Safari is more than wildlife sightings. It is an immersion into landscapes that shape how you move, rest, and connect with nature. Across South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania, safari experiences range from river-fed savannas and semi-arid plains to jungle coastlines and volcanic highlands. Each destination offers distinct wildlife, geography, and style of stay, from intimate, design-led lodges to family-focused reserves and remote wilderness camps. What unites them is proximity to raw nature and a sense of place shaped by climate, terrain, and conservation.
On Canada’s wild west coast, Wickaninnish Inn reflects a deep connection between family legacy, Indigenous culture, and untamed nature. Founded by third-generation local Charles McDiarmid, the Inn is shaped by a childhood spent exploring the shores of Tofino and the landscapes of Clayoquot Sound. Inspired by his father’s role in establishing Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, Charles carries forward a philosophy rooted in stewardship, craft, and respect for place. Through mindful architecture, local artisanship, and collaboration with the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation, the Wickaninnish Inn offers an immersive experience defined by storm watching, wildlife, and sustainable luxury, inviting guests into a living legacy where community, conservation, and the raw beauty of the Pacific converge.
Cacao experiences are increasingly found in hotels and eco lodges across Colombia, Belize, Mexico, Ecuador, and the Caribbean, where guests can engage with cacao through tastings, ceremonies, and farm-to-cup rituals. Naturally rich in antioxidants and mood-supporting minerals, cacao continues to shape wellness-focused hotel stays and nature-based travel rooted in presence, land, and tradition.
There is a growing shift toward intentional travel, where experiences are chosen for depth, presence, and meaning rather than escape. In collaboration with The Botanist Islay Dry Gin, crafted with 22 hand-foraged botanicals at the B Corp certified Bruichladdich Distillery on Islay, Room + Wild presents The All You Need Is Now Guide. Rooted in the philosophy that presence is the ultimate luxury, the guide curates transformative moments across landscapes, from geothermal lagoons and mountain onsens to dark-sky reserves, reforestation projects, and art shaped by place, inviting travelers to engage fully with the world as it is, here and now.
The traditional hotel room is evolving as travelers increasingly seek privacy, space, and a stronger connection to place. A new generation of decentralized landscape hotels is redefining hospitality through private villas, cottages, and cabins dispersed across the land, offering independence alongside thoughtful, unobtrusive service. In these stays, privacy is not a luxury add-on but the foundation of the experience, allowing guests to slow down, live more autonomously, and inhabit their surroundings more fully.
Across the globe, wellness rituals are shaped by landscape, climate, and cultural tradition, making healing inseparable from place. From alpine thermal springs and Nordic saunas to Japanese onsens and tropical pools, the body responds to its surrounding environment. Rooted in centuries of practice, these place-based therapies invite deeper connection to the body through the natural world.
Wellness in the wild is shaped by landscape as much as ritual. Forests support immunity and lower stress through natural phytoncides, oceans uplift mood and breathing with negative ions, lagoons calm the nervous system, and mountains sharpen focus through clean air and altitude. When retreats align yoga, meditation, and sensory practices with their natural surroundings, the body responds at a physiological level. Wellness becomes an ecology, inviting a slower pace, deeper presence, and a restored connection between body, mind, and place.
2026, the Year of the Horse, carries the energy of movement, change, and bold action. This editorial invites you to say yes to journeys long imagined and experiences waiting to be lived. Featuring 26 Room + Wild destination hotels, each rooted in its geography and culture, the guide explores places that offer more than escape. These hotels open doors to new landscapes, ways of living, and perspectives, reminding us that intentional travel has the power to reshape how we see the world and how we move through it.
Discover remote hotels shaped by the world’s most extreme landscapes, where the journey itself becomes part of the experience. Reached by long, uncertain roads, these places reward patience with profound stillness and connection. From Arctic coastlines and high mountains to deserts and isolated islands, these hotels are defined by their surroundings, with architecture responding carefully to light, climate, and terrain.
Dark sky hotels offer a rare escape into the cosmos, where minimal light pollution reveals constellations, meteor showers, and the quiet vastness of the night sky. These remote stays are often set within protected dark sky regions, designed to honour natural rhythms and preserve celestial visibility.
Mountains change the way we see and feel the world, offering elevation that quiets the mind and sharpens the senses. As the land rises, valleys open, light shifts across granite, and time slows to the steady rhythm of stone and sky. The clarity found at altitude creates a natural reset, where silence feels textured and every breath feels intentional. This is the essence of Room and Sky, a space shaped by height, light, and elemental calm.
South America is a continent of shape-shifting extremes, where the Amazon’s dense, river-laced rainforest, the Atacama’s lunar deserts, and Patagonia’s glacier-carved wilderness form one of the most diverse natural mosaics on Earth. From jaguars and pink dolphins to flamingos and condors, wildlife moves through ecosystems that feel both ancient and immediate. Coastlines range from Brazil’s palm-lined bays to Chile’s raw Pacific edge, while mountains, lagoons, dunes, and waterfalls link these worlds in dramatic succession. Room + Wild opens a doorway into these landscapes, placing you within the terrain to experience South America in its most elemental, authentic form.
Connection is at the heart of meaningful travel, sparked by shared sensory experiences that awaken the senses and bring people closer. Adults-only landscape hotels amplify this connection, offering coastal cliffs, rainforest retreats, and mountain sanctuaries where architecture, design, and service honor the natural surroundings.
David Leventhal, co-founder of Regenerative Travel and creator of Playa Viva on Mexico’s Pacific coast, is redefining what it means to travel consciously. With roots in conservation and community empowerment, his work turns tourism into a living system of reciprocity and renewal.
Norway’s landscape hotels bring travelers closer to the country’s raw, untamed beauty. From glacial fjords and snow-capped peaks to deep forests and Arctic shores, Norway is a land shaped by water, light, and time. Here, architecture meets wilderness: minimalist cabins, glass lodges, and treetop retreats designed to immerse guests in nature’s rhythm.
Jungles are Earth’s densest ecosystems — tropical forests where heat, rain, and life intertwine. From the Amazon to Southeast Asia, they act as the planet’s lungs, sustaining over half of all known species. Bathed in endless shades of green — a color proven to calm the mind and restore balance — these landscapes offer both visual and emotional renewal. Hotels invite guests into this living pulse, where architecture yields to nature, air feels richer, and every moment hums with rain, birdsong, and rebirth.
Land, Water, Sky: A Taste of Place with The Botanist Gin explores how landscapes shape our emotions, movements, and sense of belonging. Through Room + Wild’s elemental pillars—land, water, and sky—we discover how place grounds, renews, and inspires us. In collaboration with The Botanist Gin, crafted at B Corp certified Bruichladdich Distillery on Islay, we’ve created cocktails and pairings that capture the spirit of these elements. Infused with 22 hand-foraged botanicals, The Botanist reflects a shared commitment to sustainability, stewardship, and celebrating the beauty of nature through taste and experience.
