Private island or wilderness lodge? What your luxury holiday says about you

Never has the definition of exclusive travel meant more things to more people – plus the celebrity hotels worth booking

After more than 25 years of writing about luxury travel, I can’t help feeling relieved that the definition of “luxury” is changing, or at least expanding, to mean more than just types of travel that are showily expensive (it’s not the 1980s anymore, people). 
Now it can mean a whole, well, wealth of things. Yes, for some it’s private jets and plunge pools – but for others it might be going into the African bush on foot to track rhino, or spending a weekend shadowing a botanist around an award-winning Cornish garden, or finally carving out the time to escape to a remote cottage in Wales with your favourite people. Now that’s a real luxury. So what are the most common types of luxury travel today, to whom do they appeal, and where can we go to experience them?
The most obvious of the luxuries, this appeals to all but the most socially principled to at least some degree. While it may feel absurd and out of touch given the state of the world, who wouldn’t say “oh go on, then” if presented with a key to a room with a fancy four-poster bed, a champagne-stuffed mini-bar and a terrace with a double daybed and a hot tub? Which is why television comedy-dramas such as The White Lotus and Succession, both of which superbly satirise rich white people on holiday, have led to a frenzy of bookings at all the conspicuously luxurious hotels featured in them.
Where: You don’t get much more conspicuously luxurious than Atlantis The Royal (atlantis.com; Seascape Kings from £370) in Dubai – a dizzyingly sparkly luxury resort with 43 floors, suites with private pools suspended in mid-air and eight restaurants by celebrity chefs.
Who goes: Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Kendall Jenner, Liam Payne.
What you’ll find there: A branch of Louis Vuitton, the biggest buffet breakfast you’ve ever seen, a water fountain that breathes fire every 15 minutes.
Do you like understated, elegant things but not shouting about them? Welcome to the world of quiet luxury, or stealth wealth, where people have money but like to avoid splashy displays of it, especially on holiday. They tend to prefer staying in one-of-a-kind privately owned hotels and villas, rather than big corporate chains. They don’t go to places to “see-and-be-seen”, but rather for wonderful, personalised service and experiences, all served up in a supremely comfortable setting, where guests are treated like valued old friends.
Where: Reschio, Umbria, Italy (reschio.com; rooms in the hotel from €920/£777 per night) – a sprawling ancient estate with a rustic-chic hotel hewn from a crumbling castle and villas from re-imagined farm buildings, owned and run by Count Benedikt Bolza, his wife Donna Nencia and their family.
Who goes: Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Liv Tyler and – no really, it’s true – the Beckhams.
What you’ll find there: Pure-bred Andalusian horses, leather-bound sketch pads for holiday doodling, homemade Reschio gin. 
This luxury can veer into conspicuous territory because, frankly, who’s going to tell Claridge’s in London or Raffles in Singapore they can’t have all those gilt-edged mirrors, marble pillars and twinkly crystal chandeliers? But what sets a classic hotel apart is its storied past, the warm welcome you get from the doorman in the bowler hat and the general sense of regal splendour that permeates every space within. In really good classic hotels, they remember your name and how you like your martini mixed.
Where: Ballyfin, County Laois, Ireland (ballyfin.com; B&B from €890/£752) – a 200-year-old Regency pile with beautiful gardens that’s now one of the country’s finest hotels (and which you whizz around in complimentary bikes and golf carts).
Who goes: The Clooneys – they booked the whole thing out for a family reunion – and Kim Kardashian, who has stayed twice.
What you’ll find there: Ballyfin bath bombs, a horse and carriage to trot round the ancient parkland, a mosaic floor imported from Pompeii.
This one’s all about hiding away from everything and everyone (except the people you want to be with, of course), somewhere a bit off the beaten track – or even in the middle of nowhere, where you’ll have few interruptions. It could be a cave or a castle; you might be left to your own devices (“we’ll air drop your next food parcel this time next week”) or waited on hand and foot, with sandwiches, soufflés and sommeliers on tap. 
Where: The car-free private island of Eilean Shona (eileanshona.com; Timber Cottage from £1,100 per week for two), across a briny loch on the west coast of Scotland. Owned and run by Richard Branson’s sister Vanessa and her children, there’s a main house sleeping 18 and 10 smaller cottages.
Who goes: Kate Winslet, Kate Moss, Anthony Horowitz.
What you’ll spot there: Seals sunbathing on the rocks, steaming bowls of island-foraged mussels, peaty, tea-coloured water in your free-standing tub.
While the health benefits of walking barefoot are many, particularly on the beach, which provides the ultimate workout for your ankles, arches and leg muscles, it also just feels nice – and like you’re finally on holiday – to kick off your shoes and feel the sand between your toes. At Baba Ecolodge, a wonderful, back-to-basics island resort off the west coast of Thailand, reached by simple motorboat, there’s no jetty, so the only way to shore is to wade to the shore. Now that’s real barefoot luxury.
Where: At the top end of the scale, Soneva Fushi in the Maldives (soneva.com; one-bedroom villas from about £2,500 per night) is the world’s original high-end, no-news-no-shoes resort, where they recommend you remove your footwear during the short boat transfer from Malé and forget about them for the duration of the holiday.
Who goes: Salma Hayek, Millie Bobby Brown, Madonna.
What you’ll find there: Lemongrass-scented towels, a kitchen garden where you can pick your own leaves, cutting-edge medical treatments at the spa.
Most people would rather try to protect the planet than trash it, especially if they are given the option to do so by choosing a hotel or resort that is doing its best to function with a lighter carbon footprint and to the benefit of the local community. Given “luxury” and “sustainability” are not obvious bedfellows, a lot of hotels are claiming to be eco-friendly when they’re not doing anything meaningful. So those that genuinely are should be applauded, even if it’s with baby steps, such as cutting out single-use plastics. Those catering to the top end of the market have less excuse not to do the right thing and, fair play to them, some are rising admirably to the challenge.
Where: The Brando in French Polynesia (thebrando.com; one-bedroom villas from around €4,500/£3,800), a chic, eco-conscious resort that was the first in the world to obtain LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) Platinum Certification, the US Green Building Council’s highest accolade, and operates exclusively using renewable, non-fossil energy. 
Who goes: Leonardo DiCaprio, Johnny Depp, Pippa Middleton, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé (who celebrated her 42nd birthday there last year). 
What you’ll find there: Cashmere-soft sand, hermit crabs, hammocks. 
No, I don’t mean hedonistic holidays, I mean the luxury of experiencing nature on holiday, in whatever form that might take. So whether that’s hiking in the Scottish Highlands to spot wildcats, or sailing off in an expedition ship to watch whales and polar bears in the Arctic. And, of course, nothing beats a good old African safari for wow-factor wildlife interaction.
Where: Wilderness Bisate, Rwanda (wildernessdestinations.com; from $2,430/£1,847 per person per night in low season), a conservation-minded safari outfit on the edge of Volcanoes National Park, one of the finest places in Africa to see mountain gorillas. You can stay in the bird’s-nest-like, six-villa Wilderness Bisate Lodge or the brand-new, even more otherworldly Wilderness Bisate Reserve. 
Who goes: Idris Elba, Portia de Rossi and Ellen DeGeneres, Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart are all fans of Wilderness Bisate Lodge.
What you’ll find there (besides mountain gorillas): Emerald-green, recycled-glass chandeliers, steamy hot tubs, goliath herons.
What’s affordable for one person is not necessarily affordable for another. But personally, I would define affordable luxury as somewhere offering their guests an exceptional experience for less than the rest. Forget bidets and butlers, I don’t care about those, I want a warm welcome, a simple, chic room with a quality bed and a restaurant serving fabulous food. Oh, and an outdoor pool and views that make you go “oh my God”, if you can swing it. In short, I want Anemomilos.
Where: The white-washed, family-run Anemomilos, on the under-the-radar Cycladian island of Folegandros, Greece (anemomiloshotel.com), is pretty close to perfection, offering all of the above and more, from around €180 (£152) a night in May, including breakfast.
Who goes: Margot Robbie and friends were spotted there right after Barbie hit our screens last summer.
What you’ll spot there: Chic canvas beach bags on your bed on arrival, astonishing views of the Church of Panagia, heavenly day beds by the pool.