Portland, on the United States’ Pacific Northwest coast, is shaping up as the new Seattle/Melbourne, with its passion for indie music, coffee and cycling. Oregon’s low-rise, river-bestriding capital has long taken a creative approach to city planning, ensuring its heritage architecture remains pristine and independent stores, arts spaces, bars and cafés flourish. For a stylish getaway, visit Mr & Mrs Smith’s collection of boutique hotels and holiday houses. Book through Smith for exclusive extras at all stays, including a bottle of prosecco and free parking at Jupiter Hotel. You won’t regret staying in one of these super cool hotels.

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Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to sleep under a bridge like a homeless person? Perhaps you should consider booking a room at the Fakktum Hotel. Thanks to Swedish agency Forsman and Bodenfors, you can book a space that might otherwise be occupied by a street dweller. It’s similar to booking a hotel really.

You pay money for your reservation like any other place, except the money goes to support the charity rather than run a hotel. You’re welcome to actually stay in the damp, open aired space you’ve reserved, but most often “guests” opt to not actually sleep on the streets. Although, I’m sure staying overnight in your reserved “room” would make a huge impact on you or the friend you buy the space for.

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Designed by Singapore’s architectural darlings WOHA, the Parkroyal on Pickering hotel in Singapore packs a maddening 15,000 square metres of gardens, waterfalls and vertical green walls into its premises. Seems legit, then, that it is hailed as a ‘hotel in a garden’. The endless cascading tiers are inspired by Bali’s rice terraces, while, within the hotel’s eco-luxe confines, everything adds up to form a rather impressive sum of the total: marble walls that appear to flow like water, plucky birdcage-shaped cabanas that overlook the infinity pool and playful shadows cast by trees silhouetted against mood lights at night.

Let’s not forget the green measures in place too — that includes harvesting rain, harnessing solar power and making good use of sensors to conserve both energy and water.

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Singapore has a growing boutique hotel scene, and the 29-room Wanderlust, which it describes on its site as a “left-field and totally experimental boutique hotel set to draw madcap voyagers and curious travellers”, is pretty cool. It is designed by three design firms and one architectural firm, meaning every one of its four floors basks in a totally different designer palette from the next one.  

The base level by Asylum, where the hotel lobby and a French restaurant is, goes for industrial glam with lots of oxidised steel and wood surfaces, while :phunk Studio’s rooms on level 2 (my favourite) soak up Pantone colours — even the in-room neon signs light up appropriately-hued song titles like ‘Purple Haze’ and ‘Red Light’. On the third floor, DP Architects’ black and white rooms are classy monotone works, while fFurious’ fantastical universe of giant typewriters, trees, monsters and space shuttles stake out the rooms on the top floor.

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So, forget about these love hotels. The Divorce Hotel, based in the Netherlands, is a smart business that checks couples into a high boutique hotel on Friday for a weekend of consultation with lawyers and mediators, then checks these newly divorced singles out on Sunday. Neat.

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Designed by Shahe Kalaidjian and Christophe Pillet, Hotel Sezz in St Tropez, is all your sleek modernist dreams come true. Each of the 35 rooms has been individually designed. Oh, and there is a Dom Pérignon bar and spa developed in partnership with Payot. What more could you want?

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Last weekend I stayed at The Establishment Hotel, Sydney, courtesy of the boutique and luxury hotel specialists Mr & Mrs Smith. This elegant hotel is housed within the same building as The Establishment bar, the three hatted est. restaurant, Hemmesphere cocktail lounge and sushi restaurant Sushi e. With this array of evening activity, coupled with the oversized room and tempting marble and limestone bathroom, it’s no surprise we didn’t venture far after checking in.

The hotel interior is chic, with an incense-infused lobby offering a choice of two room colour schemes: black floorboards and strong colour, or a softer, more tranquil style. We opted for the latter; and it worked its magic. Emerging chilled and refreshed, we stopped in for a refreshing gin cocktail at Hemmesphere before savouring some of Sydney’s best sashimi at Sushi e restaurant. The walk through the humming Establishment bar back to our room reminded us that this is also a hotel for night-life lovers.

The Establishment Hotel, Sydney is for the discerning visitor to Sydney who’s looking for the best in accommodation, nightlife and food to complete the journey.

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Hotels these days are like works of art. Unlike the hotel experiences I had when I was a teenager — where everything in the hotel seemed beige — the hotel industry of today is a totally different world. Beige is dead, and the visionary company changing the landscape of this traditionally boring world is the Design Hotels group.

Design Hotels represents and markets the 190 plus hotels from around the world that have managed to meld architecture, design, service and gastronomy to create the ultimate home-away-from-home experience. Having a designer chair in a hotel lobby will not give you entry to this select group. Design Hotels are more about setting your imagination on fire.

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Next time you feel like you need to get away from it all, disappear into Sweden’s new Tree Hotel. That’s right, literally disappear, into an invisible mirror cube hung from a tree trunk that only birds can see. The quirky eco-hotel launched this month with six rooms designed by five different architects, transforming the idea of a Tree House into a unique traveling experience. Each room has taken incredible measures not to impact the surrounding environment, with the mirror room being coated in an infrared film visible only to birds — to stop them from crashing into it.

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If we believe the seedy world of Kings Cross as presented on current Australian TV hit Underbelly, you’d run a mile before considering laying your head to rest (unless six feet under by mafia lords) in the area. But the infamous nightlife strip has really cleaned up its act. In fact, as an ex-Sydney-sider who hasn’t revisited the locale in almost a decade, it’s almost unrecognisable. Enter the Diamant Hotel, perched side by side with the landmark neon Coca-Cola sign.

Here is the perfect demonstration of what the area now has to offer — an urban-cool oasis in the heart of the reborn hotspot. A dark and sexy mood still pervades, as you wander almost pitch black corridors lit by strategically placed down lights to guide you to your room number. Arrive at your suite to be greeted by a sleek all black, white and chocolate interior scheme. Simple, luxe and unpretentious.

Our favourite features? All rooms come with an in-built ipod dock and giant plasma screens with a mini keyboard to access the Internet in full screen splendour. In the lobby, an artful installation of light bulbs hangs above a massive six disk Bose sound-dock streaming laidback ambient tunes 24-7. Boutique hotel hunters Mr & Mrs Smith represent the hotel — you know if the hotel has made their selective list it’s going to be a super special experience. And the Diamant most definitely is.

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Designed by Starck protégé Christophe Pillet, the stunning Hotel Sezz in the 16th arrondissement of Paris is modern luxury decked out in classic attire. The interior is bright and airy, with hints of 21st Century futurism scattered amongst the more ornate finishings. The rooms are spacious and wickedly tempting, the overszied spa bath distracting mercilessly from the beautiful surrounds of the neighborhood, which happens to include a certain ubiquitous structure that’s just a hop, skip, and short dash away. This boutique hotel is boudoir chic, elegant and welcoming. Much like the rest of Paris, in fact. [photos by Alison Zavos]

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Condesa DF is an uber-hip, boutique hotel in the heart of Mexico City’s stylish, tree-lined neighborhood of the same name. Housed in an architectural landmark building dating from 1928, the hotel and its restaurant exude style, energy, and creativity. Occupying the ground floor of an airy, high-ceiling open atrium is the buzzing restaurant and bar, where splashes of bright turquoise cut through minimalistic white, black, and brown tones.

Dining at Condesa DF isn’t as consistently breathtaking as the hotel, but its fusion cuisine, heavenly influenced by Pan-Asian flavors, still holds its own against the fashionable backdrop. The rock shrimp tempura with spicy mayonnaise pops in your mouth and ends with a much-welcomed fiery kick.

Fish and chips – truffled, of course – and sweet sea bass with caramelized tequila, are also tasty options. To wash it down, go for one of Condesa DF’s infamous Jamaica margheritas made with hibiscus, or better yet, their own private label tequila and mezcal.

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Located on the beautiful Gulf of Mexico Drive, in the stunning surrounds of Sarasota, Florida, the Longboat Key Club and Resort is just about the most relaxing place on earth. Seriously. With a bountiful Florida sun beating down, it’s too easy to zone out beside the pool, drinking cocktails, reading sporadically, and imagining that this is how life should always be lived. Only it isn’t. Well, for most of us anyway. Paris Hilton, really! What are you doing wasting time in LA?

Situated on the edge of the Gulf, with a vast expanse of pristine white sand beckoning ever onwards, the Longboat Key Club and Resort is a total escape from the bustle of inner-city living. The rooms are modern and comfortable, and they come with private balconies, many of which overlook the crisp blue ocean. Last year, whilst there, we saw dolphins swimming along the shore line. Cliched, yes, but pretty spectacular all the same. But it’s symbolic of this area, which is unhurried in a way that the urban chaos of my daily surrounds of Brooklyn, New York, most certainly is not.

Longboat Key Club & Resort
301 Gulf of Mexico Dr
Longboat Key, FL 34228-4034
(941) 387-1621

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Whilst in Austin the other weekend, I spent a couple of nights at a beautifully designed hotel called the Kimber Modern, which is located in the happening SOCO area, just a short hop, skip and sideways roll to the bustling hive of restaurants and cafes along South Congress. The Kimber Modern is a hotel with a twist. First up, the architecture is stunning, this elegant and contemporary building with subtle splashes of color to break up the overall white-walled minimalism. And then there are the clever design touches, such as communal hammocks made from car belts, and a giant tank churning liters of water in a calming, almost Zen-like manner. [photos by Alison Zavos]

The other quirky but practical touch at the Kimber Modern is that there are no door keys. Woah! That’s right, no clunky door keys. Instead, guests choose a four digit password when making their booking and this gives them access to both the main building and the door to their room. As long as your memory is half-decent and hasn’t been clouded by the Sangria on tap at the local Tex Mex, this is a surprisingly efficient system. In the rooms themselves, cheerful colors mesh with the classic minimalism, while fun and vibrant artwork sits above the beds, acting as a gentle reminder that you really are deep amongst this cultural fermentation that is Austin, Texas.

Kimber Modern Bed and Breakfast
110 The Circle
Austin, TX 78704
Ph: (512) 912-1046

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The beautiful, minimalist and slightly irreverent design aesthetic that Barcelona’s Chic & Basic Born Hotel sets up with its stunning interior layout is carried through perfectly into its product packaging, which features cheeky, bold messaging in large, unadorned fonts.

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There’s something to be said for staying in a hotel room that’s bigger than your Brooklyn apartment. Yup, it happens so rarely that when you come across it, you kinda want to hang inside, bask in the space, and imagine that this really is your life. 365 days a year. Ah ha, then you wake up. Anyway, I stayed recently at the beautifully designed Hotel Omm in the Eixample district of Barcelona, surrounded by the glitzy, sparkling shops that dot the landscape and by the disarmingly original Gaudi buildings that tower spectacularly above the skyline. It’s quite a sight. [photo by Alison Zavos]

The Omm is classified a luxury boutique hotel, and as such, comes loaded with all the extras you’d expect. But with a twist: it’s interior design is stunning. Much like Barcelona itself, the Hotel Omm, projects an image of refined chic, elegance and urban cool, the muted colours offsetting its vibrant location, where French designers share street space with edgy clothing and product stores and a small cafe across the road which serves the tastiest damn desserts in the city. Or so my taste-buds say, anyway.

Part of the Mr and Mrs Smith worldwide collection of boutique accommodations, the Hotel Omm features its own spa and rooftop terrace, which overlooks Barcelona’s trendy Passeig de Gracia, and has a rooftop swimming pool, a spa, a Michelin rated restaurant (Moo) and a nightclub which was packed with Barcelona’s ultra-fashionable types when we eventually staggered in there after a few hours wandering the city’s streets.

Hotel Omm
C/ Rosselló 265
08008 Barcelona, Spain
+34 934 454 000

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My wife and I have just returned from a week lapping up the culture and exploring the long winding alleyways that run off the main streets in the center of Barcelona. What a magnificent city! The seamless blend of old and new in the architecture, food, and sounds, which float out of the bars and cafes, combine with a very distinct design aesthetic, which permeates the stores and hotels to create a thriving modern city with one eye firmly on the future and the other on the artifacts of its past. While in Barcelona, we spent a few nights staying at the sublime Chic and Basic Hotel [photographed above and below], located in the Born area. This hotel symbolized so much of what we considered Barcelona to be about.

Housed in a century-old building, with twenty-two foot high ceilings, a crystal shower at the center of each room, and a fun lighting system with which to change the appearance of your room depending on your mood, the Chic and Basic Hotel is beautifully designed: the interior is functional but adventurous, so that wandering down the corridors to get to our room became a sensory experience in itself. The rooms were ultra-modern and uniquely styled, with a shimmering wall of beads acting as a visual divider against its stark white walls. Those same beads dripped mischeviously from the roof in the hallways, adding a sparkle to the common space. Designed by architect and designer Xavier Claramunt, the Chic and Basic Born Hotel is also situated in an ideal spot from which to wander the many intriguing streets of the city. [photos by Alison Zavos]

Chic and Basic Born Hotel
C/ Princesa 50
08003 Barcelona, Spain
+34 932 954 652
You can make a booking via their website

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While I’m definitely not into the whole Lord of the Rings thing, I’m convinced Tolkien stole his inspiration from Göreme, in Turkey’s central Cappadocia region. After a mammoth volcanic eruption around 2,000 years ago, the landscape eroded to form a series of valleys, filled with peculiar, phallic-shaped tufts that the locals call ‘fairy chimneys’. Early Christians hollowed out the tufts and turned them into houses, churches and monasteries. These days, most of them are still in use and a few have been converted into cute hotels and hostels. If you’re not too claustrophobic, I’d highly recommend doing the hobbit thing and spending a night in one.

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This remarkable construction is located in the Swedish village of Jukkasjärvi and is built entirely from scratch every year. It features 10,000 tonnes of ice from the nearby Torne River, and 30,000 tonnes of snow, covering more than 30,000 square feet in total. Oh, it even has its own ice chapel. But be sure to bring your winter woollens. It could get a little, errr, chilly at night.

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State-controlled news outlet Xinhua reports that a new ‘adult hotel‘ is opening in Nanning, the capital of Guangxi Province in southern China. Apparently state censors think homosexuals and tattoo parlors sully their nation’s image, but not establishments aimed at facilitating heterosexual unions. The owner is apparently worried his business will be perceived as a brothel. Hmmm. In any case, the photos of a staff member demonstrating the, uh, equipment is caption-worthy for sure.

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