Hotel of the week: The Residence Zanzibar, Kizimkazi, Zanzibar

last updated 8 January 2015

This new luxury resort may over-coddle visitors, but it’s also “objectively beautiful,” said Maria Shollenbarger in the Financial Times. Guests stay in 66 villas furnished with large canopied beds, sea-grass rugs, and bathtubs that “sit next to ocean-facing glass walls for optimal appreciation” of the “mesmerizing white beaches.” The sea retreats roughly half a mile at low tide, bringing out locals who harvest the seaweed and octopuses left behind. Every detail that the hotel can control is “executed with cadet-corps seamlessness” and an admirably creative touch. theresidence.com/zanzibar; villas from $690