Canyon Point, southern Utah, USA
Amangiri
The most beautiful hotel in America, and I'd still think twice. At $5,000 a night the service is unpolished, dinner is forgettable and almost every outing is charged on top, and the price has doubled while the hotel has stayed the same. Go for two nights, once, for the building and the desert, and expect nothing more.
Service
There's no front desk to queue at. You're met at the door with a cold glass of sage lemonade, your bags disappear, and somebody walks you to your suite. The staff are young, mostly local, and warm in an easy, unstuffy way, and there's a small gift at turndown each night.
The best of them are the guides. The people who take you up the via ferrata or out on the morning walk to Broken Arrow Cave know the rock, the plants and the history, and they're the staff I remember afterwards.
Service is where it falls down. It's well meant but unpolished, and a long way from what the Amans in Asia are known for. You have to ask for drinks at the pool, and dinner can drag. The planning before you arrive is slow too. I'd pin down every outing and spa booking by phone well ahead, and check it all again when you check in.
Rooms
There are only 34 suites, in two wings either side of the pool, and even the entry ones are around 1,000 square feet. You walk in through a private courtyard to pale concrete, white stone floors that are warm underfoot in winter, a deep soaking tub and twin rain showers. One whole wall is glass, and from the bed you look straight out at empty desert. Outside there's a terrace with a fireplace. It's spare. I love it, but some people find it severe, and the only thing between you and the toilet is a sliding door.
Don't assume your suite has a pool. Only some do, and the entry Desert View and Mesa View suites don't. At that level, ask for one at the far, upper end of the wing, because the first few have a dune in front that takes some of the view. If the budget stretches, the Desert Pool Suite is the one I'd book: a private plunge pool, heated in the cooler months, and a roof terrace with a daybed for the stars. The Girijaala and Amangiri suites have full lap pools, at a price to match.
Camp Sarika is the sister camp, five minutes away: ten tented pavilions with one or two bedrooms, each with its own heated plunge pool, fire pit and a golf cart for getting about. They're big, solid and air-conditioned. It's more private, and where I'd put a family. For a couple on a first visit I'd still choose the main building, for the pool and the wider view.
Food and drink
All three meals are included, which matters, because the nearest town is 25 minutes away. The dining room is open to a wood-fired oven on one side and the desert on the other, and the cooking leans on the Southwest: elk, bison, Colorado River trout. Breakfast is the best meal. I'd order the cast iron pancake, thick and crisp at the edges. At lunch I'd have a pizza from the oven, or the lobster roll by the pool.
Dinner is where it falls short. It's decent resort cooking, not the meal this rate promises, and it varies from night to night. The same steak can be right one evening and overdone the next, and the coffee is poor. Go across to Camp Sarika for one dinner, where the set menu changes daily. Book a table at both. Turn up late without one and you can be asked to wait.
Drinks are not included. Cocktails run to about $30 and the wine list is marked up hard. There's no real bar either. What I'd do instead is take a drink to the fire pit after dinner, where they set out s'mores under more stars than you've probably ever seen.
Setting
The setting is the whole reason to come. The resort sits alone in a valley on about 900 acres of its own, with flat-topped mesas in every direction and not another building in sight. The swimming pool curls around a huge outcrop of sandstone, it's heated and open all night, and floating in it at dusk while the rock turns pink is what I'd come back for. The spa is very good.
The via ferrata is the adventure to book: steel cables and rungs bolted up the mesa behind the hotel, with a suspended stairway 400 feet above the desert floor. You don't need to be a climber, only steady with heights. Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Lake Powell are all within about half an hour. Zion, Bryce and Monument Valley are two hours or more each way, and I think they're better as separate stops.
It's remote. Page has a small airport 25 minutes away, with flights from Phoenix and a free transfer, and otherwise it's a drive of about four and a half hours from Las Vegas or Phoenix. July and August are fiercely hot, often over 100 degrees, and you'll spend the middle of the day indoors, so April, May, October and November are the months I'd pick. And it's famous. You'll see people staging photographs at the pool, though with so few suites it never feels crowded.
Value
It's one of the most expensive hotels in America, and the price has roughly doubled in a few years while the hotel has stayed the same. Entry suites start at around $4,500 a night in the quiet months and are $5,000 to $6,000 in spring and autumn. Camp Sarika starts at about $6,500.
That covers the suite, three meals a day for two, soft drinks, the transfer from Page, a daily wellness class and two guided group hikes a day. It doesn't cover alcohol, the spa, or the things you've seen in the photographs. The via ferrata, the slot canyons, horses, off-road tours and boat days are priced per outing, from roughly $900 to $2,000, so it's easy to add several thousand dollars to a short stay. The via ferrata is worth it. For Antelope Canyon and off-road tours, local operators charge far less for much the same trip.
For two or three nights, once, for the building and the landscape, I think it's worth it. If great service and food are what you pay for, it isn't. An advisor helps a little: the meals are already in the rate, so the extras are a hotel credit, an upgrade when one is available, and sometimes a fourth night free. One-night stays are refused for much of the year, so ask us to check.
Who it suits
This is for design lovers, couples marking something big, and anyone who wants real silence with some adventure attached, as long as they're paying for the place and not the pampering. If food matters most, I'd choose Twin Farms in Vermont or Blackberry Mountain in Tennessee. For riding and fishing included in the rate, look at the Lodge at Blue Sky near Park City or Dunton Hot Springs in Colorado. For desert at a gentler price, try Castle Hot Springs in Arizona, and if it's the red rock you want and not the hotel, ULUM Moab gets you a very good tent for a fraction of the cost.
More on the area: Utah and Arizona Canyon Country guide.