Africa and Middle East's 25 Best Hotels

Bob Harris


The Forbes Traveler 400 experts pick the top hotels

Size matters—whether you're in a resort looking at elephants, or simply looking for an elephantine resort. That's the takeaway from this year's list of Africa and the Middle East's 25 Best Hotels, as chosen by the Forbes Traveler 400 board of experts.

These luxury-travel gurus judged nearly 800 top-notch hotels on the quality of their rooms, service, decor, cuisine, public areas, recreational options and location. What did they tell us? That, at least in Africa and the Middle East, there's a clear preference for behemoths—whether it's the wildlife in Africa or the wild larger-than-life structures of Arabia.

Nearly half of this year's entries are remote lodges located in various parks, game preserves and wilderness areas in southern and eastern Africa; several distinguish themselves with luxurious service in remote locations.

At the Savute Elephant Camp inside Botswana's Chobe National Park, for example, guests can enjoy complimentary laptops and fully stocked mini-bars while viewing the elephants and lions. One Forbes Traveler 400 board member praised the "amazing, warm, even loving" staff, while another called it their "top elephant experience."

The Royal Malewane, located in South Africa's Kruger Park, aims even higher, offering helicopters and executive jets to allow for incognito arrivals and departures while viewing the Big Five game. "Exceptional in every imaginable way," said one Forbes Traveler expert of the experience.

Three more top selections are groups of lodges within the Sabi Sands private game reserve inside Kruger. Guests at the Ulusaba Safari Lodge ("interesting, unique touches") can choose a secluded treehouse on stilts and enjoy the sight of bathing hippopotamuses in complete privacy; at Singita Boulders Safari Lodge ("one of the very best"), guests are pampered with spa treatments; and the Varty camp of the ("wonderful hosts" at Londolozi Game Preserve provide Internet access and a stocked wine cellar.

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Two East African selections on this year's list might fit nicely into your plans next time you climb Mt. Kilimanjaro or follow the Serengeti migration. Tortilis Camp, located in Kenya's Amboseli National Park, offers luxury tent accommodations where views of the mountain and the abundant wildlife are simply "gorgeous," according to the Forbes Traveler board, while the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge sits at the eastern edge of the Serengeti plain, offering an excellent base for safaris and game drives.


Leviathans of a different kind are found in the booming United Arab Emirates, the relatively small but very wealthy federation of Middle Eastern states on the Persian Gulf. In Dubai, the sail-shaped Burj Al-Arab is large enough that the entire Statue of Liberty could fit inside the atrium—with plenty of room to spare.

(No wonder, then, that the smallest guest rooms are two-story suites.) Called "a new standard in the hotel world" by one Forbes Traveler 400 expert—and self-described as the world's only seven-star hotel—the Burj Al-Arab is fast becoming that city's most iconic hotel property.


Also in Dubai, the wave-shaped Jumeirah Beach Hotel ("another masterpiece") is a family-friendly facility where guests receive free admission to the adjacent Wild Wadi water park, while the vast Madinat Jumeirah is a neighborhood-sized complex that includes upscale restaurants, a mammoth shopping souk modeled on Dubai's historic Gold Souk and villas connected by a series of magnificently landscaped inland canals.


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Perhaps the biggest of the big, however, is the Emirates Palace of Abu Dhabi, 60 miles southwest of Dubai, where the triumphal entrance gate itself is larger than many fine hotels. Boasting nearly one mile of private beach on the Persian Gulf, the Emirates Palace covers over 250 acres—that's the building, mind you, not the grounds.

The Palace frequently holds outdoor concerts with the likes of Elton John and Christina Aguilera, and welcomes so many heads of state that there's a special floor assigned simply to their reception. If it looks like gold here, rest assured it is—and almost everything looks like gold.

That's not to say that the Forbes Traveler board of experts snubbed the smaller, more conventional hotels.

The "beautifully thought out" Saxon is a tranquil boutique hotel in the Johannesburg suburb of Sandhurst, South Africa, which offers executives a gentle retreat of quiet gardens and world class spa facilities. And Cape Town's Ellerman House is a gorgeous 11-suite Cape Edwardian mansion with placid views of Bantry Bay that's "perfect for any discerning traveler."

After all, once you've gawked at elephants, chased zebras, craned your neck at the Burj and shielded your eyes from the Emirates Palace, a quiet garden or a nap by the ocean might be the best holiday you can imagine.

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