BonjourParis

Secret Hotels

You can't get a room during peak season at a resort for $1,500 a night --- the rich took them all long ago.

So what can you get for less than $250 a night?

You'd be surprised.

The editors of Budget Travel challenged themselves to find resort hotels “that don't show up on big online booking engines or get written about in fussy travel magazines.”

They discovered an interesting, unreported truth: Not everyone who goes to live in a beautiful place is filthy rich. Some bliss-seekers have just enough capital to get themselves there and make the down payment on a property. A season of sweat equity later, and they're the proprietors of a small hotel --- a human-scaled retreat, “run by real people for real people, and run with love.”

This book features picture-and-text profiles of eight destinations: Provence, Bali, Cornwall, Costa Rica, Tuscany, the Caribbean, the French Riviera and Tahiti. I've spent a fair amount of time in Provence, Costa Rica and the Caribbean, so those are the sections I read most closely.

Provence: I expected to find all the recommended hotels far from the madding crowd, tucked away on rocky hillsides in the Luberon. Well, the Mas du Loriot (the book says it's $63 to $157 a night --- but that was before the Euro began to stomp the dollar) is in those hills, but that's a good thing: Each room has a private terrace overlooking lavender fields. If you're off to see the Pont du Gard, La Begude Saint-Pierre ($88 to $251) is nearby; with welcome candor, the text alerts you that a few of its 23 rooms are right near the road. There's an urban hotel in Arles, a 12-room inn just five miles north of St.-Remy, a 23-room charmer five minutes from Avignon, and, to round it off, an auberge in a 12th century building in the Luberon. A nice selection, all with contact information that includes web sites.

Costa Rica: We were there as eco-tourism was just revving up. But we never got to the Ylang Ylang Beach Resort (from $120, including breakfast and dinner), reachable by a 15-minute beach walk. Might have been worth it just for the swimming pool that has its own waterfall. We also missed the more developed Pacific coast, though the Amor de Mar (from $55) seems absolutely bucolic. Also on the Pacific side is the dramatic Moana Lodge (from $60), where surfers chill under Zulu shields. From the photographs, I could easily develop a soft spot for the 8-room, Swiss-owned hotel called The Place, and I am a fool for any hotel that's named after Milarepa, the Tibetan Buddhist saint. The rest of the hotels are all on the Pacific, which made me wonder: nothing in the rain forest or the Ossa Peninsula?

Tuscany: It's the Provence of France. And so my initial thought was: Why not Umbria, just as nice and delightfully overlooked? Then I looked at La Rignana ($133 to $177), in the vineyards of Chianti, and Podere Torrena ($240, including breakfast and dinner) in nearby Radda. Ancient houses, carved furniture, family-style dinners --- what's not to like? I was particularly struck by the variety in this section. On one hand, there's a fairly-tale village on a hilltop that's home to Castello di Gargonza; on the other, there's a restored 17th century farmhouse at the end of a two-mile dirt road.

The thing about secrets, of course, is that no one keeps them --- especially the editors of Budget Travel. Is it possible that you'll go to one of their suggested hotels and find it booked solid with people just like you? Oh, yes. So it's always best to consult TripAdvisor.com and compare notes with veteran travelers. And if the parade's moved on, don't tell anyone where the smart money is vacationing --- except, maybe, me.

--- Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler.com

To buy “Secret Hotels” from Amazon.com, click here.

Copyright 2007 by Head Butler Inc.