Best Luxury Travel Destinations: Premium Picks

The Picks, Deepened: Why Go, When, and What It Really Costs

These are the destinations worth stretching your budget for, with the specifics that actually change your trip.

• Maldives (overwater villas): Go for the barefoot-luxury reef life and total privacy. Best season: the dry northeast monsoon, December to April, though shoulder months May to July and September to November cut rates hard. Cost: mid-tier overwater villas run roughly $800 to $1,500 a night; ultra-luxury like Soneva Jani starts around $2,500 and climbs past $5,000 in high season. Insider tip: pick a resort within speedboat range of Male (20 to 45 minutes) rather than a distant seaplane atoll to save $500 to $900 per person on transfers.
• Bora Bora, French Polynesia: Go for the turquoise lagoon and Mount Otemanu views. Best season: the dry May to October window. Cost: Four Seasons overwater bungalows list from about $1,800 to $3,500 a night. Insider tip: book a mountain-view bungalow, not lagoon-view; the volcano silhouette at sunrise beats the water, for less.
• Okavango Delta, Botswana: Go for water-based safari by mokoro canoe. Best season: the dry winter, June to October. Cost: luxury lodges run $1,000 to $2,500 per person per night, all-inclusive. Insider tip: shoulder months April to May drop rates to $800 to $1,200 with the floodwaters still high.

How to Choose Between Them: Match the Destination to Your Trip

Each of these delivers luxury, but they reward completely different travelers. Choose by what you actually want out of the week.

• Want pure relaxation and reef snorkeling from your doorstep? The Maldives wins. You barely leave the villa, and everything comes to you. It’s also the most all-inclusive-friendly, which caps the surprise spending.
• Want that one iconic, photograph-every-angle backdrop? Bora Bora is unmatched, with the lagoon and Mount Otemanu. It’s the priciest to reach from the US but delivers a landscape the Maldives can’t.
• Want adventure and wildlife, not a beach? The Okavango Delta is a once-in-a-lifetime safari, all-inclusive of game drives, mokoro rides, and bush-plane hops between camps.
• Want culture and food with your luxury? Skip the islands entirely. The Amalfi Coast (Le Sirenuse in Positano, from roughly $833 rising to $3,000-plus in peak) pairs a Michelin-starred table with cliffside villages, best in May or September when crowds thin.

My rule: islands for switching off, Botswana for a story you’ll tell for years, Amalfi if you’d get restless lying still.

Getting There: The Logistics That Make or Break the Trip

The remote luxury of these places is exactly what makes arrival the trickiest part. Plan the last leg first.

• Maldives: Fly into Male (MLE), then transfer to your resort. Seaplanes are scenic but daylight-only, roughly 6 AM to 4 PM, so if your international flight lands after 3 PM you’ll likely need an airport hotel ($80 to $150) and fly out the next morning. Seaplane returns run about $400 to $900 per person; speedboats are cheaper and run at night. Book flights to land mid-morning.
• Bora Bora: There are no direct flights. From Los Angeles (LAX), Air Tahiti Nui flies about 8 to 8.5 hours to Papeete (PPT); after clearing customs, a 50-minute Air Tahiti hop reaches Bora Bora. Total door-to-door is roughly 10.5 hours plus the layover. A resort boat then meets you at the airport motu.
• Okavango Delta: Fly into Maun (MUB), then take a light bush-plane charter into your camp’s airstrip; most luxury lodges bundle these transfers into the nightly rate, so factor the strict small-plane luggage limits (soft bags only, often capped near 20 kg) into your packing.

Frequently Asked Questions