Welcome to 2026: The Year of Intention

We started this blog because friends kept asking us the same two questions after every trip: where did you stay, and how did you pull that off. This year we are answering both in the open, one hotel at a time.

Intention is the word we keep coming back to, and we mean it in a practical way: booking on purpose, through the channel that actually pays you back, and being honest about whether the stay was worth it once the folio arrived.

What this blog actually is

Every review here is a real stay we paid for. We tell you the property, and then we tell you the part most travel writing skips: how it was booked. Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts, a hotel loyalty program, a Four Seasons Preferred Partner, direct with the right email to the right person. The booking method is where the value lives, so it is the spine of every post, not a footnote.

We also quote the real number. The all-in cost from the statement is what goes in the post, because the gap between that and the brochure rate is the whole point. A room that lists at one price and lands at another after a credit, an upgrade, and a late checkout is a different room, and we would rather show you that math than a filtered photo of the bathtub.

We write the misses too

One of us is vegetarian and one of us eats everything, so we test every hotel from both ends of the table, and we say when a kitchen only half delivers. When a stay runs two nights too long, we say that. When the pool is closed the whole time, or the headline restaurant is booked out to August, that goes in the post. A review that only glows is an advertisement, and you can already find plenty of those.

What we are doing this year

More reviews, more often, and the back catalog brought up to this standard. Each one carries the same three things: how we booked it, what it actually cost, and the honest verdict on whether we would do it again. That is the whole plan. We book with intention, and we hand you the notes.

Thanks for being here for it. If you want us to book a stay like the ones we write about, credit and upgrade and all, start here.