The Most Romantic Places to Stay: Overwater Villas, Caldera Suites and Jungle Retreats

Lists of the most romantic hotels tend to be lists of the most expensive ones. The setting matters more than the name on the gate, and each of the classic romantic settings has a range of prices once you know where to look. This guide is organized by setting: what makes each one work for couples, what it costs, and where the better-value version is.

Overwater villas in the Maldives

A villa on stilts over a lagoon, with steps into the water and nothing but sea in front of you, is the honeymoon image for good reason: total privacy, a private deck, and the sense of being somewhere unreachable. Soneva Fushi in Baa Atoll helped define the barefoot-luxury version of this; dozens of resorts across the Malé, Ari and Baa atolls now offer it at every level from comfortable to extravagant.

What it costs: $700 to $1,200 a night for a well-reviewed four- or five-star overwater villa in shoulder season, $1,500 to $4,000 and above at the top resorts in peak season. The better-value version: a beach villa at the same resort is typically 30 to 50% cheaper, with sand instead of stilts and the same lagoon a few steps away. Many couples book two nights over water and three on the beach.

Cave suites on the Santorini caldera

Whitewashed rooms carved into the cliff, a private terrace or plunge pool, and the volcano and sunset in front of you. Imerovigli has the quietest version; Oia the most famous; Firostefani and Akrotiri the better-priced ones. The experience is about the terrace and the evening light more than the room, which in traditional cave suites is small and dim.

What it costs: $300 to $600 a night in May, June, September and October; $700 to $1,800 in July and August. The better-value version: stay in Firostefani or Akrotiri rather than Oia, or book a caldera-view room without a private pool and use the hotel's shared infinity pool, which is usually where the photographs were taken anyway.

River-valley resorts around Ubud, Bali

Bali's romantic setting is not the beach but the jungle: resorts built down the slopes of the Ayung River valley, with private pool villas facing nothing but palms and rice terraces, open-air bathrooms and spa pavilions above the water. Days are slow by design; evenings are candlelit dinners on a terrace with the sound of the river.

What it costs: $250 to $500 a night for a private-pool villa at a well-reviewed resort in the dry season; $600 to $1,200 at the most celebrated ones. The better-value version: smaller boutique resorts in the villages around Ubud (Penestanan, Sayan, Tegallalang) offer rice-terrace views and private pools from $120 to $200, often with breakfast and transfers included.

Townhouse hotels in Paris

Romance in a city is about the neighborhood as much as the room. A small hotel in a 17th- or 18th-century building in the Marais or Saint-Germain, with a courtyard, a dozen rooms and a bakery on the corner, delivers it better than most palaces. The grand hotels of the 8th, Le Bristol Paris among them, are the splurge version, with gardens and rooftop pools behind very discreet doors.

What it costs: $250 to $450 a night for a good boutique hotel in the 4th or 6th; $1,200 and above for the palaces. The better-value version: the same style of hotel in the 9th or 11th arrondissement, from $160 to $250, ten minutes by Metro from the center.

Rooftop pools and river views in Bangkok

Bangkok is one of the best cities in the world for a luxurious room at a modest price. Riverside hotels along the Chao Phraya have long been the classic choice, the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok foremost among them, with boat shuttles, river-facing terraces and some of the best hotel restaurants in Asia. Elsewhere in the city, rooftop pools with skyline views come as standard even at mid-range hotels.

What it costs: $300 to $700 a night for the grand riverside hotels; $90 to $180 for a stylish mid-range hotel with a rooftop pool in Sukhumvit, Silom or Riverside. The better-value version: that mid-range hotel. Few cities offer this much comfort for the price.

Clifftop and desert: Uluwatu and the Dubai desert

Two less obvious settings. The limestone cliffs at Bali's southern tip have a new generation of cliff-edge resorts and villas with pools that appear to drop into the Indian Ocean; sunsets here rival Santorini's. Outside Dubai, desert resorts an hour from the city offer tented suites with private pools, falconry and silence, a striking contrast to the towers.

What it costs: Uluwatu cliff resorts $300 to $800 a night; Dubai desert resorts $500 to $1,200. The better-value version: a villa a few streets back from the Uluwatu cliffs from $150, or a single night in the desert combined with a cheaper city hotel.

Booking tips for couples

Tell the hotel. A honeymoon, anniversary or proposal noted at booking and again before arrival often produces a better room, a bottle of something or a dessert. It costs the hotel little and they like doing it.

Go shoulder season. The Maldives from May to October, Santorini in May and October, Bali in May, June and September: the same rooms at 30 to 50% less, with weather most people find perfectly good.

Compare carefully. Resort pricing varies more between booking sites than city-hotel pricing, especially where Agoda or Expedia hold wholesale inventory. In our comparisons the gap on the same villa can reach several hundred dollars over a stay. Check whether meals and transfers are included on each site before deciding.

Book the setting, not the brand. A beach villa at a resort you can afford for five nights is a better honeymoon than two nights over water followed by a budget guesthouse.

Below are the hotels from our comparison that fit the settings in this guide, one for each setting where we list one, with indicative prices from up to four booking sites. They are the splurge versions in most cases; the better-value alternatives described above are worth a look on the booking sites too.