Beach & Coastal Hotels

A great beach hotel is more than its view. It's the rhythm of the stay — fresh juice at the right moment, a quiet word about the cove that's best at dawn, the staff who remember how you take your coffee. Our editors return to this shortlist each year to assess what earns its place: not the postcard, but the experience of being there.

The edit spans continents and coastlines. Around the Mediterranean it gathers the Cycladic shoreline — Bill & Coo above Megali Ammos on Mykonos, Bellonias Villas on the black sand of Kamari on Santorini — and reaches the Ionian at Delfino Blu, named Europe's Best Beach or Coastal Hotel by the Boutique Hotel Club, on the quiet northwest coast of Corfu. Further afield it runs from the private turquoise cove of Eden Roc at Cap Cana on the Dominican coast to the Raa Atoll waters of Reethi Faru in the Maldives, the secluded northern headland of Qualia on Australia's Hamilton Island, and the barefoot eco-luxury of El Nido Pangulasian in the Philippines.

Whether you want miles of sand, a cliff-top suite, or sunset cocktails you'll still be talking about a year later, you'll find your beach hotel in the edit below.