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The more I look at luxury travel now, the less interested I am in the places that have become too easy to name. The old favourites still do the rounds, of course, and likely always will. But the destinations that feel truly seductive now are the ones that still seem to sit just outside the obvious frame — a private archipelago in the Bahamas, an Antarctic camp reached by charter, a South Pacific island with only a few dozen villas, a hush-hush Caribbean address where private jets land as quietly as their owners.
Here are six destinations that the rich and famous don’t want you to know about.
There are parts of the Côte d’Azur that long ago surrendered themselves to the masses - but not Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Even now, the peninsula retains that older Riviera language of gardens, sea views, privacy, and inherited ease. It has long been preferred by royalty, celebrities, and wealthy international residents who wanted the glamour of the Riviera without the louder social machinery of nearby hotspots.
This hotel remains the defining address on the peninsula. A century-old palace set across six hectares of gardens above the Mediterranean, it has accommodation stretching from heritage rooms to private pool villas tucked among the pines. The draw is not novelty but continuity: the feeling that one has checked into a part of the Riviera where the old codes still hold. The Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat’s famed Club Dauphin pool alone has welcomed everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Elton John.
This is less a destination in the conventional sense than a private world. Musha Cay sits in the Exumas, but unlike the better-known Bahamian addresses, it trades almost entirely in scale and exclusivity. The island’s owner, David Copperfield, bought it in 2006 and, when he’s not using it himself, it’s rented out to billionaires, including Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey.
Musha Cay describes itself as the only private archipelago of 11 islands available to rent anywhere in the world, spread across 700 acres with more than 40 private beaches. The island is rented exclusively for up to 24 guests, with five guest houses and a level of customisation that makes ordinary resort language feel a bit beside the point.
There are remote destinations, and then there is Antarctica. White Desert has turned that extremity into its own kind of ultra-luxury proposition, flying guests deep into Queen Maud Land for a stay that combines high expedition drama with surprisingly polished comfort. Fewer than 500 people visit the South Pole each year - and that rarity alone explains the destination’s draw. It has also attracted a very particular sort of guest: Prince Harry, Bear Grylls, and Buzz Aldrin have all been cited as past White Desert visitors.
White Desert operates camps, including Whichaway and Echo, both built around heated pods and carefully engineered comfort in Antarctica’s remote interior. Whichaway sits on the Schirmacher Oasis; Echo is the more futuristic-looking of the two and was inspired in part by former White Desert guest Buzz Aldrin. What you get here is not merely a room in a remarkable landscape, but the sort of access that very few people on earth will ever experience.
Laucala has long occupied a certain place in the luxury imagination, and with good reason. It is the sort of island that appears familiar only because it has become shorthand among people who follow this world closely. The official line is all “generosity of space,” “truth of nature” and “freedom of time,” which is polished language for something quite simple: this is a place built to make privacy feel expansive. It has also, unsurprisingly, drawn celebrity guests, including George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey.
The island resort has 25 villas, each with its own horizon and complete privacy. It has made low density feel like a design principle rather than a talking point.
Canouan has become one of those under-the-radar Caribbean addresses that people in the know mention with a certain satisfaction. It has been described as the place where “billionaires go to escape millionaires,” and while that line has been repeated often enough to verge on cliché, the island still feels much quieter than the names it is routinely compared with. Past guests have included Amy Schumer, Robert Downey Jr, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle.
The hotel calls itself an all-suite, all-villa escape on Godahl Beach, with larger Patio Villas for those who want even more residential privacy. It sits within a vast gated estate and is protected by one of the Caribbean’s largest coral reefs. Around half of the hotel’s guests arrive by private jet.
Petit St Vincent is the quieter Grenadines fantasy — less talked about, yet more appealing. The private island spans 115 acres and continues to trade in a very old-fashioned kind of luxury: sea, breeze, white sand, low density, and very little pressure to do anything at all. It tends to attract exactly the sort of clientele one would expect from such a formula — senior executives, privacy-seeking travellers, and the sort of A-list guests who prefer not to have their holidays turned into public content.
The resort offers one- and two-bedroom cottages either high on the bluff or directly on some of the island’s most private beaches. Its own promise is “barefoot luxury, discreet service, and complete privacy,” which is exactly the right note.