Whether you’re a fan of witty topiary, fantastic fountains, charming flowers or meandering trails through a quiet forest glade, garden travel is always in season. There’s no better way to engage your senses, relax your busy mind and revive your spirits than basking in the beauty of nature.
Some of the world’s top hotels are renowned for embracing gardens, weaving blooms and bouquets throughout their decor, serving culinary creations highlighting the garden’s bounty and infused with freshly harvested herbs, or concocting garden-inspired spa treatments with soothing, natural ingredients. Hosting horticulture tours and workshops, festivals, feasts and picnics galore, hotels find all sorts of fragrant, delicious and colorful ways to plant the seeds of a garden-lover’s getaway.
Here’s a bushel of luxe lodgings devoted to celebrating plants and landscapes — from grand to rustic, urban to pastoral — and no green thumbs are required.

Photos Courtesy Of Sofitel Roma Villa Borghese
Italy
The five-star Sofitel Roma Villa Borghese is a French-accented pied-à-terre perched high above the Eternal City. Overlooking the towering umbrella pines and sculpture-studded landscapes of the Villa Medici Gardens and Villa Borghese Gardens, this is an oasis of hilltop tranquility. The 19th-century palazzo was rejuvenated in 2019 by renowned interior designer Jean-Philippe Nuel, who added grace notes of contemporary glamour with a nod to Rome’s historic legacy, including a dreamy ceiling fresco billowing above each bed and a garden-glam rooftop restaurant and outdoor terrace with exquisite views of St. Peter’s Basilica and beyond. If you’re feeling inspired to take some Italian flair back home, the hotel offers a Floral Experience that includes a hands-on flower arranging workshop with Flavia Bruni, Rome’s premier floral designer, plus an optional add-on trip to a local flower market.
For an exclusive look at Rome’s legendary gardens, the hotel partners with Stendhal Tours for a special five-night garden extravaganza guided by experts. Day one ventures into the neighboring Villa Borghese gardens, a vast former vineyard converted into extensive grounds designed in the English landscape style. On day two, guests are whisked by private car to the Vatican Gardens, the behind-the-scenes green space covering over half of Vatican City that has provided a sanctuary for papal meditation since 1279. Then they travel on to the grand Baroque gardens of the aristocratic, 14th-century Palazzo Colonna. The following day, the tour heads to the Latium Coast for a visit and lunch at the Landriana Garden before continuing to the gardens and rose-draped ruins of Ninfa. On day four, it’s off to Castello Ruspoli to enjoy its magnificent Renaissance gardens and then join the castle’s owners for a special lunch. An afternoon change of pace focuses on the spectacular collection of Chinese peonies at the Centro Botanico Moutan. Finally, on day five, guests experience the medieval, fortified Palazzo Parisi, where they’ll have a garden tour and lunch with views of the Sabine Hills before capping off the week with a visit to the Renaissance-era Villa d’Este in Tivoli, a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a stunning garden filled with grottos, nymphs, fountains and even music-playing water features.

Photos Courtesy of The Newt in Somerset
England
If you’ve ever daydreamed of a blissful sojourn on an English country estate, The Newt in Somerset is the place for you. Recently awarded a prestigious three Michelin keys, The Newt offers luxurious guest quarters in the main, 17th-century Georgian limestone (Hadspen) house and an artfully converted Stable Yard, with additional Farmyard rooms in nearby agricultural buildings renovated with vintage charm.
An in-house team of horticulturalists watches over The Newt’s living legacy representing 200 years of garden history, from the Victorian plantings of Margaret Hobhouse to the 1970s-era renewal by garden designer Penelope Hobhouse and subsequent innovations by Nori and Sandra Pope and the architect Patrice Taravella. The estate boasts splendid formal gardens, extensive woodland habitats, a deer park, a cottage garden, a Japanese garden, a produce garden with over 350 varieties of fruits, vegetables and herbs and even a Baroque-style apple tree maze in the walled Parabola garden. The new Four Seasons Garden is a linked quartet of gardens optimized to flourish at varying times of year — from spring-flowering cherry trees to summer-scented lavender and roses, blazing autumn foliage and winter’s sculpted yew topiary — with a newt pond thrown in for good measure.
If you still have any energy left, a lively calendar of garden tours, seasonal events and workshops allows visitors to learn about wild foraging, watercolor painting, growing and pruning roses, traditional hedge laying and a bumper crop of other garden-focused skills. Join a cider tasting or tour, tiptoe into the Beezantium to observe wild bee colonies, return to ancient times on the Roman Villa Experience, step onto The Viper, an aerial walkway through towering ash trees, or enter The Story of Gardening exhibition space where interactive displays take visitors on a time-traveling journey through historic gardens. On-site eateries including the Farmyard Kitchen, headquartered in a refurbished threshing barn, The Botanical Rooms, the Garden Café and the Cyder Bar make tasty use of ingredients foraged and grown on the estate. Want to visit The Newt on your next trip to London? Ride the train from Paddington Station for a day-long Great Garden Escape.

Photos Courtesy of Airelles Chateau de Versailles, Le Grand Controle
France
For a royal garden getaway, it’s hard to top Airelles Château de Versailles, Le Grand Contrôle for fantasy-come-true adventure. Lucky hotel guests enjoy the rare opportunity to stay on the grounds and dance through the spectacular gardens of King Louis XIV, with direct access to lavish landscapes where history comes to life.
Le Grand Contrôle is a reimagining of the former residence of the palace’s finance controller — commissioned by the Sun King himself, designed by his favorite architect, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, and built in 1681. Now completely restored, with 13 rooms and suites, every detail is exquisite. The magnificent interiors feature authentic antique furniture and decor, plus fabrics meticulously recreated by Pierre Frey and modern lighting that captures the effect of candlelight. When you’re hungry, there’s an Alain Ducasse restaurant, and if you need assistance, just call your personal butler. Private, after-hours tours of the Château de Versailles and Domaine de Trianon are also offered exclusively for hotel guests.
When you’re ready to play outside, the heavenly gardens of Versailles are yours to enjoy. Commissioned in 1661 by Louis XIV and designed by André le Nôtre, the scale is staggering: 30 lakes, 50 fountains, 300 statues and 200,000 trees grace the vast landscape. The hotel overlooks the Orangerie’s rose bushes, lemon, orange and pomegranate trees; and guests can stroll or drive a golf cart beside the Grand Canal, jump into a boat and glide or settle in for a gourmet picnic with champagne on the lawn. They can also join a tour of the Potager du Roi (Kitchen Garden of the King) with head gardeners who explain the historic roots of its plant varieties. Fancy riding a horse along the royal hunting lanes? That can be arranged. How about an expert-led agility training session for your dog on the grounds of the château? Of course, that’s available too.

Photos by Andrew Montgomery
Morocco
Tangier’s Villa Mabrouka, the exquisite former home of Yves Saint Laurent and his business partner Pierre Bergé, was recently transformed into a luxurious, 12-room hotel by its current owner, the celebrated British designer Jasper Conran.
Immersed in a lush garden setting with pools, pavilions and views spanning the Strait of Gibraltar, the new hotel pays tribute to the original home, and Conran’s renovations respect the character of the historically significant estate. “My aim at all times has been to protect the magic of both the house and its ravishing gardens,” Conran says. “One step through Villa Mabrouka’s heavy carved wooden doors and into the gardens, you are immediately transported to the feeling of being in paradise.”
Indeed, “Mabrouka” translates to “blessed” in Arabic, and the gardens certainly have an Edenic quality, with palm and banana trees providing shade in the courtyard, emerald lawns, two swimming pools and gardens overlooking the sea, planted with citrus trees, bougainvillea, hollyhocks, roses, agapanthus, jasmine and nasturtiums. The original gardens were designed in the 1990s by Madison Cox, and Conran’s sensitive alterations include planting over 6,500 additional trees, plants and shrubs. Guest rooms and suites are offered in both the main residence and in a series of private cottages with terraces nestled into the gardens.
Villa Mabrouka is intended to be reminiscent of the South of France in the 1940s, with a Mediterranean-Moroccan charm and a dash of English country house eccentricity. The airy and cool interior spaces provide a contrast to the intense sun and colorful gardens, with whitewashed walls and high ceilings. Conran preserved the villa’s original crenelated archways, beamed ceilings, marble floors and Murano chandeliers while adding custom-designed tableware, lighting, furniture, linens and Moroccan-made furniture. Designed to feel more like an elegant private home than a traditional hotel, the cumulative effect is soothing, quiet and secluded: a true retreat, surrounded by glorious gardens.