This California Luxurious Resort Is One of many Greatest Resorts within the World — With Sweeping Ocean Views, Unbelievable Stargazing, and Redwood Forest Glamping

There’s serenity, after which there’s Massive Sur. The Central California enclave has lengthy been luring these searching for the kind of reset that may solely be achieved up within the clouds between rugged shoreline and misty redwood forest. Nonetheless, when Hyatt took over Ventana Massive Sur (as soon as the 1975-built Ventana Inn) in 2021 and, with a multimillion-dollar renovation, turned it into Alila Ventana Massive Sur, a brand new stage of West Coast–type rejuvenation was unlocked.

The very best factor a resort nestled on this magical, 90-mile stretch of Freeway 1 can do is let its environment take the lead, and Alila did simply that. Ventana’s reopening marked the Asia-based model’s entry into the U.S., and for a hospitality model targeted on tapping into the therapeutic properties of nature, there might have been no higher place to begin.

“It is simple to discover a quiet room with an important view in a spot like this,” Mark Ley, director of gross sales and advertising and marketing at Alila Ventana Massive Sur, advised Journey + Leisure. “We need to assist our friends have a keep that creates lifelong recollections by way of guaranteeing we additionally add to their private well-being.”

Visitors’ well-being is actively tended to by way of programming that features meditation, Vinyasa yoga, guided hikes, and spa remedies — seemingly one of many causes Alila Ventana was voted probably the greatest resorts in California within the 2022 World’s Greatest Awards and made the most recent T+L 500 finest accommodations of the yr listing.

However leisure can be inherent on this area: rooms, suites, and villas are tucked inside unassuming constructions product of weathered cedar that mix into the panorama. With non-public patios, fireplaces, and soaking tubs, they provide a quiet type of luxurious that encourages getting out into nature — or not less than right into a nature-view hammock or Jacuzzi.

Really, the one dramatic factor right here is the view. When you’ve got 160 acres to play with and simply 59 rooms, it is simple to thoughts your individual enterprise. On any given day, you may resolve that “enterprise” goes for a swim — there are two swimming pools, considered one of them clothing-optional, plus communal Japanese baths, open all night time and superb for stargazing — or sipping native wines by a fireplace pit earlier than heading to the ‘60s lodge-style Library & Music Room to toss something on the document participant.

Even reserving logistics match into the stress-free expertise: all meals and signature actions are included within the charge, and since this can be a World of Hyatt property, rewards members can use factors as a substitute of money.

The Sur Home restaurant is perched on a panoramic patio, the place essentially the most coveted tables are alongside the cliff’s ocean-view edge by day and beside the toasty hearth by night time. I am admittedly not an enormous fan of eating out solo, however on my go to, the exceptional setting and scorching bowl of campanelle pasta with Massive Sur-foraged mushrooms had been firm sufficient.

“All meals and beverage experiences at Alila are rooted in wellness and discovery, using recent and seasonal elements grown domestically, sustainably, and in lots of circumstances, in Alila’s personal natural gardens,” Crystal Vinisse Thomas, vp and world model chief, life-style and luxurious manufacturers at Hyatt, advised T+L.

Natural, native, and foraged elements could be discovered on the Sur Home breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus, and as an add-on to the inclusive meals, Central Coast–crafted wines, beers, and cocktails are served.

Glamping can be an possibility at Alila Ventana Massive Sur, and one I immediately added to my to-do listing whereas wandering by way of the resort’s 20-acre forest. Canvas, safari-style tents beneath the redwood canopies embrace premium linens on custom-designed mattresses and decks with hearth pits and Adirondack chairs.

Though I really like an out of doors exercise on trip, I am usually simply as excited to finish the day inside, submerged in a heat bathtub or wrapped in blankets in a comfy mattress, removed from any bugs or inclement climate. In order I felt myself drawn to spending an evening within the depths of the forest, I spotted Massive Sur had left its mark on me, too. As Ley so eloquently put it: “Massive Sur and Alila Ventana are a spot the place you may see the world, and even your self, somewhat bit in a different way.”