Amangiri

Character and identity

Amangiri sits on 600 acres in a protected valley of the Colorado Plateau, its sharp-angled concrete forms dyed to match the 165-million-year-old sandstone mesas that surround it. The 34 rooms read as a contemporary take on Native American shelters: cloud-like beds facing panoramic desert windows, deep marble tubs with views, terraces with outdoor fireplaces. The main pool curls around a rock outcrop; the Aman Spa's Water Pavilion adds a heated step pool and candlelit treatment rooms where sessions open with a white sage ritual. Cuisine leans Mexican and Native American, built around blue corn, green chilli and prickly pear. Service is polished and unobtrusive.

Who's it for

Bottom line

What you're paying for is the setting and the seamlessness of the architecture within it: nowhere else delivers this combination of desert silence, dark skies and Navajo-led cultural access at this level of polish. Spend the money if you genuinely want to disconnect for three or four nights minimum. Book a Desert View Suite for the panoramic glass, or a Camp Sarika tented pavilion if you want a private plunge pool.