Filed under
Travel / Pools / Best Of
Published
August 11, 2026
Best by Lauren may earn a commission when you shop through certain links. Every product here was bought with my own money or tested for at least six weeks. No brand has paid to be included, and nothing is ranked higher because it pays more.
I choose hotels by the gym and I remember them by the pool. These are the ones I still think about.
A thing I have learned: the pool in the photograph and the pool at two in the afternoon with forty people in it are different places. Every one of these is judged on the empty version, which usually means before eight in the morning or after dark.
The palace pool, lit at night
Floodlit stone, blue water, and nobody else in it. It is the most theatrical swim I have ever had and it cost nothing extra — the pool was open, the light was on, and everybody else had gone to dinner.
The jungle plunge
Small enough that two people fill it, which is exactly the point. Green on all sides, warm rain most afternoons, and no view of anything but leaves.
The rooftop sky pool
The cliché that earns it. Swimming at the edge of a city at dusk is worth the room rate on its own, and it is the one thing a rooftop bar cannot give you.
The one in the dunes
Set into sand with nothing around it, which makes it feel less like a hotel facility and more like something you found. It is the pool I would go back for first.
