Thailand

Northern Thailand is where we went for something different from the islands everyone talks about. Dhara Dhevi, outside Chiang Mai, is built as a near-replica of Lanna Kingdom architecture — walking the grounds felt less like a hotel stay than a walk through the region’s history. At the Golden Triangle, Four Seasons Tented Camp let us do the one thing that had been on a personal bucket list for years: walk trunk-in-hand with an elephant in its natural habitat.

In Phuket, Keemala is only ten minutes from the crowds of Patong but built to feel like its own fantastical world in the rainforest, designed around a fictional story dreamed up by the architects themselves. In Bangkok, the Tower Club at Lebua has the view the city is known for from film — its rooftop bar appeared in The Hangover Part II — and Nahm earned its reputation strictly, dress code and all, without needing a rooftop to do it. For something less touristy than the guidebook route, a canal tour through Thonburi with Asian Trails got us past the Grand Palace circuit and into where people actually live.