Destinations taken over by their landscape promise nature-bathing at its zenith. Which is why, these luxury resorts and hotels immersed in nature are perfect for your 2025 spiritual reboot.
While the gentle hum of a city at night can be comforting, there is nothing quite as wonderful as waking to the sound of birdsong, leaves gently rustling in the wind or the sea lapping at the shore. From treehouse retreats to remote desert tents, these hotels offer an off-the-beaten-track experience, to connect with nature, and to watch nature. These are places that offer a gateway to the wilder side of life and the chance, just for a short while to enjoy the sound of silence.
Al Maha Desert Resort
An hour southeast of Dubai Airport, the Al Maha Desert Resort sits in the protected Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve. Luxury tented villas (amongst Dubai's most expensive suites and decorated with carved wooden chairs and Arabian antiques) feature plunge pools and terraces from which one can spend hours watching grazing Arabian oryx and gazelles that roam free in the reserve. If the natural surroundings inspire you, then each of the tents has a supply of art materials for immortalising the dunes on canvas.
Naviva, Four Seasons
Amongst hotels immersed in nature, how about one surrounded with 48 acres of jungle? With just 15 tented pavilions right on the Pacific beachfront, Naviva offers a total forest immersion, but also an intimate experience of local Mexican traditions. There is a custom-designed temazcal to challenge mind and body in the House of Heat as well as shamanic sound baths, and classes in Mexican boxing. Each of the pavilions has an open-air living room, an outdoor shower, a plunge pool, and a fire pit, and they are decorated with Mexican furnishings and textiles.
11 Most Secluded Homes in the World
Lolebezi
Tucked into a remote area in Lower Zambezi National Park, this eight-suite lodge has been designed to capture every view and every chance to see the wildlife that is literally on your doorstep. Each of the standalone lodges is clad in glass, and the design firm Fox Browne has incorporated design details like bronze seed pod sculptures and patterned rugs made by local South Luangwa artisans. The Circle of Light, a suspended wooden walkway built around a giant winter thorn tree, offers the best views of roaming monkeys and half-submerged hippos.
Inis Meain
For those wishing to truly brave the elements on the wild Irish Aran Islands, these two converted houses are available for private rental. Designed by Dublin-based architects, De Blacam and Meagher, the houses have been designed to mirror the horizontal stone and terraced limestone that make up much of the island. Interiors reflect natural elements with a muted colour palette, lime-plastered walls, and furnishings made of mushroom greys and browns.
Treehotel
In the Swedish Harads forest, husband and wife Kent and Britta Lindvall have fully embraced the idea of a hotel immersed in nature and created an eight-room Treehotel that is suspended beneath a canopy of Swedish firs. The latest room, called the Biosphere, features 350 birdhouses decorating the outside. Other rooms include Mirrorcube, which is almost entirely camouflaged among the trees and The Cabin, perched on wooden stilts. In Winter months, there are snowmobile safaris and sleigh rides with local Lemmel coffee to warm you up afterwards.
Bocas Bali
This Balinese-inspired hotel, designed by architect Andres Brenes, has 16 villas built on a private island on the Panama Caribbean Coast. Villas are built overhanging the sea, with natural grass roofs and saltwater swimming pools, while the treehouse, built entirely from wood, offers extraordinary views. There are over 200 small mangrove islands to explore with the Hotel boat.
Octola Private Wilderness
This 5-star sustainable resort in the northernmost part of Finland, with perhaps the first private spa in the Arctic, is the passion project of Janne Honkanen, the CEO and founder of Luxury Action. As a passionate believer in the physical and spiritual healing power of nature, Octola has a ten-bedroom private lodge inspired by local Lapp ‘laavu’ buildings, which nomadic people of the region once widely used.
Aire de Bardenas
In between Madrid and Barcelona, at the entrance of the Bardenas Reales Natural Park in Spain (the largest desert in Europe), the Hotel Aire de Bardenas was designed by Barcelona-based architects Emiliano Lopez and Monica Rivera. There are 22 rooms (in modern cube-style boxes), as well as 10 ‘bubbles’, transparent inflatable structures made from aluminium and plastic that offer an uninterrupted view of the sky. airebardenas.com
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Qasr Al Sarab
On the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, the world's largest desert, the Empty Quarter, is home to Qasr Al Sarab by Anantara. Surrounded by towering red and orange dunes and with extraordinary views over an ever-changing sandy landscape, this resort, designed to look like a Bedouin village, has 140 rooms, 14 suites and 52 pool villas. There are plenty of adventure activities, and Al Falaj is a desert camp where you can dine under the stars.
Keemala
This rainforest retreat with jungle walkways has seven treehouses that seem suspended from the canopy, a Clay Cottage inspired by the ‘Pa-ta-pea’ clan and a Birds Nest Pool Villa with streams and waterfalls running through it. Keemala’s tucked-away location amongst the treetops overlooking Kamala Village also fosters a strong sense of community-based activities as well as a deep-rooted respect for the surrounding rainforest.
Villa Nai 3.3
‘Born in Nature. Made in Nature.’ is the ethos behind Villa Nai 3.3. Located on the Croatian island of Dugi Otok and situated in a 100-year-old olive grove, surrounded by Aleppo pine and oak forests with the greatest sunsets on the Adriatic, Villa Nai 3.3 was designed by Croatian architect Nikola Basic. With walls made from excavated stone and bedrock gardens that blend seamlessly with the environment, as well as an incredible restaurant serving vegetables grown in the garden, Villa Nai can be hired privately or on a room-by-room basis.
