What Spirit of Son Fuster Where Mallorca The lowdown It appears that exclusive use properties often follow one of two paths for their website: 1) They enlist their cousin to design it, or 2) They believe no one can truly grasp their unique vision, leading them to create something that is as esoteric as it is nuts. Spirit of Son Fuster seems to have merged these two approaches, crafting a website that only the criminally insane would look at and say out loud, “I want to go there!”. Instead, allow me to explain what is going on here. Tucked into a valley at the foot of the Tramuntana mountains ..read more

Sigh, another London hotel opening, another must-stay for me.  I’ll need to indulge in all their amenities, devour their cuisine and try and fit all their towels in my suitcase – all in the name of a thorough review.  Won’t someone please think of the hardships this imposes on my children? Unlike recent openings, including their neighbour, The Peninsula, there’s no big talk about the boatloads of cash spent here. I bet they spent only hundreds of millions on it, the peasants. Does this count as budget travel? The Emory consists of only 60 rooms, but does that really excuse them from ..read more

It’s not every day that I get to write about a private island located in the middle of a landlocked country. Yet, here we are with Sitatunga Private Island—accessible only by boat or helicopter. Sitatunga is the latest addition to the Great Plains portfolio, having made its debut in 2023 within the lush expanse of Botswana’s Okavango Delta. This private island, stretching approximately 3km in length and 2km in width, is completely encircled by water. There’s something inherently wonderful about being near water. We humans are drawn to it, willing to pay a premium to be close, whether it’s a p ..read more

This weekend, after our stay at the newly opened The Emory, we will be heading to St Barths and Anguilla. Taking full advantage of the complimentary airport transfers offered by The Emory, the driver will be delighted to pick us up at 4 AM as we depart from Heathrow to St Martin via Paris. Then, in a bid to avoid small planes and keep Lucie happy, we’ve chartered a boat to take us to St Barths, even though I hate being on boats. Such are the sacrifices we make for marriage. We’re visiting what are apparently the crème de la crème of resorts, with higher category suites at Eden Rock St Barths ..read more

Last year, I attended a Cheval Blanc networking event and chatted with the General Manager of one of their properties.  He proudly told me no one ever complained about their hotel.  I then said, “Yeah, except me,” and gave him a list of issues.  I wish I had recorded it, as the person standing next to me at the time literally spat their coffee out.  Getting a real-life coffee spit is up there with probably the proudest moments of my life.  And I’ve been to Las Vegas twice and returned disease-free. Some hotels think they’re perfect, but anyone who has read this blog kn ..read more

Four Seasons Tamarindo was 15 years in the making.  That’s not nearly as impressive as the 65 million it took to make Jurassic Park, but it’s definitely a considerable amount of time when I think that 15 years ago, I was barely out of nappies.  I was 22 years old. Don’t judge me.  And you can see why it took an eternity to dream up and build this place. Nestled in a sprawling 3,000-acre private nature reserve, Tamarindo is so vast that the trek from the gate to the resort is nearly a 15-minute saga.  Which is about the same amount of time dinosaurs appear on screen in Jura ..read more

Once our Artificial Intelligence overlords take over, I hope they’re kind enough to enslave me and force me to work in a safari camp. A dream come true, just as long as it’s in one of the exclusive use camps that I’m so fond of.  Just imagine, a future where I don’t need to write this blog and you don’t have to pretend to read it.  Just hours of watching wildlife in its rawest form, with the occasional fight to the death.  Admittedly, it would then mean tolerating customers like me, but by then maybe my kinda people would all be robot fodder.  Anyway, I digress. My point i ..read more

If there’s one thing that defines me, it’s my passion for rustic, back-to-basics luxury resorts.  And Great Plains is to rustic what Twitter is to bigotry – they just go hand in hand.  So you may think that returning to Great Plains after a seven-year hiatus, I would come to Duba Plains – straight after a stay at the luxurious Mombo – and tell you how awful it is.  And you would be right if the focus was only on the lodge.  Yet, you see, when you’ve been on as many safaris as I have, you start to realise that not everything is about how much golf leaf is in your food or th ..read more

This blog was initially a hobby and is now that terrible thing: a business.  I used to write every month or so, now it’s once a week, sometimes twice a week, and god forbid, even three times a week.  Don’t believe the press; there is a considerate bone in my body.  As a result, I do not want your inboxes endlessly filled with my writing – it might summon some evil spirits. Going forward, the Dorsia Newsletter will be sent out once a week instead. It will contain a list of all the articles from the previous seven days. Consider it my love letter to your spam filter.  And you ..read more

As part of my recent transformation from boutique hotel evangelism to chain whore, and also my journey to entirely losing my mind, may I present you to a Marriott.  Well, it was one before Rosewood took over, closed it down for a few years and gave it a major refurb.  Rosewood Schloss Fuschl is now set to open on July 1st. Nestled on the scenic shores of Lake Fuschl, Rosewood Schloss Fuschl is set within a 15th-century castle.  Originally serving as a grand hunting lodge and summer residence for the Archbishop of Salzburg, the alpine retreat was transformed into a hotel in the ..read more