Best Beds has had a makeover. Frankly, it was overdue.
I’ve slept in hundreds of hotels. Grand palaces, tiny boutiques, architectural showpieces, and a few places where I’d have happily traded the bed for a bench at the airport. I’ve ordered room service at hours I won’t be disclosing and developed strong opinions about everything from thread counts to turndown. Particularly bathtubs. Especially bathtubs.
But for all that travelling, I always found it oddly hard to know whom to trust when choosing a hotel.
Influencers are flown around the world, wined, dined and occasionally paid to gush. Magazines lean on advertisers. There are wonderful travel writers out there, but separating a genuine recommendation from a very well-dressed advertisement is exhausting.
So, in 2022, I launched Best Beds: a personal collection of hotels I’ve actually stayed in, genuinely loved and would happily recommend to a friend.
My philosophy was simple. I sleep around so you don’t have to.
Enthusiast, not critic
This matters. I’m not here to write scathing takedowns of disappointing hotels. Life is too short, and nobody needs 800 words on my miserable night next to the ice machine.
If I don’t like a hotel, it doesn’t make the cut. Simple.
That doesn’t mean every hotel on Best Beds is perfect. But each one has something special that makes me want to tell you about it. And no hotel pays to be listed. Ever. My opinions are entirely my own, for better or worse.
The new look
Four years on, Best Beds has grown up and just got the full head-to-toe treatment (no Botox, just better fonts).
The new site is easier to wander through, with gorgeous photography, a search by destination, and hotels ranging from grand European palaces to intimate boutiques and gloriously remote places in the middle of nowhere.
Reviews cover history, architecture, personality…whatever is interesting plus the practical bits that matter when you’re actually booking: my pick of the suites, the amenities, what’s nearby and, of course, my favourite thing.
Sometimes that’s a jaw-dropping view. Sometimes a bar I’d happily never leave, a spa worth the flight or a breakfast I still think about. Quite often, it’s the bathtub.
And because I’m hopelessly nosy, you’ll get the gossip too: the famous guests, the scandals, the visionary architects, the gloriously eccentric owners. A great hotel is so much more than somewhere to sleep.
The perks of a misspent life
Here’s where all that sleeping around pays off for you.
I’ve been a luxury travel advisor since 2018, and over the years I’ve built relationships with hoteliers all over the world. Through Wells Luxury Travel and my affiliations with Virtuoso and other invitation-only luxury hotel networks, I can often arrange special amenities for my clients: complimentary breakfast, hotel credits, upgrades when available and the occasional extra touch that turns a great stay into a story.
If you fall for a hotel on Best Beds, I can book it for you, help you choose the right room and, where possible, sprinkle in a few lovely extras. Think of me as your hotel wingwoman.
Or you can simply read the reviews and daydream. No judgement. That’s half the fun.
The sheets are turned down
The new Best Beds is live, and I’m thrilled with it. I’ll keep adding hotels as I go: the ones that surprise me, delight me and occasionally make me wonder whether I could quietly move in.
I hope it becomes your go-to whenever you’re planning a trip, hunting for inspiration or indulging in a little hotel voyeurism.
And if you know a fabulous hotel I haven’t discovered yet, tell me. I never need much of an excuse to pack a suitcase.
Welcome to the new Best Beds. I’ve done the sleeping around. Now it’s your turn to enjoy the benefits.
Thank you Julie
I have made a note of “Best Beds” – thank you