Hotels are easy. Private villas, with full staff and no other guests, are the next chapter of the honeymoon.
The honeymoon, as a category, has quietly evolved. The hotel-and-restaurant model — beautiful, considered, but ultimately public — is being supplanted, for an increasing number of our travellers, by the private villa: a single house, a full staff, a private chef, and no other guests within sight.
These are the six villas we are booking most often for honeymoons in 2026.
Soneva Secret, Maldives
Twelve villas on a single island in the Haa Dhaalu Atoll, with a butler model that approaches the absurd. Each villa has its own pool, its own beach, and a hammock suspended above the lagoon. The honeymoon villa to request is the Beachside Reserve with sunset orientation. Seven nights minimum.
Borgo Santo Pietro, Tuscany
A 13th-century villa on 300 acres south of Siena, with a private estate that includes a herd of grazing horses, an organic farm, and a Michelin-starred restaurant on the property. Book the entire estate for a week — it is, perhaps surprisingly, available, and it is the most considered way to experience rural Tuscany without sharing it.
Cliveden House, England
A 376-acre Italianate estate on the Thames, west of London, where the entire house is occasionally available on a private buy-out. For a quieter option, the Spring Cottage in the woods on the property is the most romantic small house in England — two bedrooms, private chef on request, and a path through the woods to the river.
Amangiri, Utah
Not a villa in the conventional sense, but the four-bedroom Mesa Pavilion at Amangiri is, in our view, the most extraordinary private house in the American West. Carved into the desert, it comes with a private pool, a private chef, and access to the resort's helicopter for sunrise flights over the canyons.
The Brando, Tetiaroa, French Polynesia
The most considered private island in the South Pacific, on Marlon Brando's former atoll. The three-bedroom villas with private pools are the only accommodation on the island. There are no day-trippers; the only access is by private flight from Tahiti.
Villa Treville, Positano
A clifftop estate above the town, with a private path down to the sea. Available either as a hotel or, increasingly often, as a full buy-out for a week. The latter is, for the right honeymoon, the single most romantic experience on the Amalfi Coast.
What we ask before recommending
Three questions, always: How many other people, total, do you want to see in a typical day? What is the longest you have spent together with no commitments? And what is the one thing — meal, view, ritual — that you want to remember in twenty years? The villa, almost always, follows from the answer to the third.
Where to stay
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