From Rhode Island to the Maldives, here are the places we’re escaping to at the first sight of the sun.

We have nearly arrived at the most wonderful time of year, that time when the sun shines and we start to think about how and where and when we will escape from the office. The world is our oyster and to help you shuck the juicy bit from the shell, we asked the MR PORTER staff to tell us where they are going on their next trip.

Some three decades ago, the Aman hotel group came into being on a small Thai peninsula and I, for one, couldn’t be more pleased. From Venice to Tokyo, there are now 34 of them dotted around the world, each wholly different in style and design and location but united in one simple way: they are the best. Top of the Aman pops for me will always be Amanpuri, the first and flagship, which sits like a glistening siren on the beaches of Phuket. It has everything you could ever want and expect and has just now got a new wellness centre, which offers lots of health-giving medical services that range from IV drips to cryotherapy, so I intend to leave with a tan and a god-like feeling of wellbeing, too.

aman.com

Heaven is a place in Andalusia called Finca Cortesín. It is like an émigré from the English countryside from the outside – albeit with three swimming pools – though inside is a fantasy land version of the Alhambra, thanks to the skilled hand of Portuguese designer Mr Duarte Pinto. The light is divine and the restaurants are impressive (Kabuti Raw boasts a Michelin star). There is a 2,200sq m spa and the hotel even runs a shuttle service to its beach club 1km away, which is, predictably enough, heartbreakingly beautiful. Oh, and now you can rent a fully serviced five-bedroom villa in the grounds, too – each like the hotel in miniature. ¡Viva Finca Cortesín!

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With not so much as a single coy glance and batted lash from spring, all of the East Coast goes collectively mad for nautical Americana. And nowhere is the grandeur of that spirit and pageantry more vivid than in coastal Rhode Island, where the Gilded Age robber barons built their monumental redoubts, where Ms Jackie Onassis and Princess Lee Radziwiłł grew up, and where Ms Taylor Swift now has her beach parties. For the rest of us, the grand, 1868-built Ocean House hotel, in the seaside village of Watch Hill, is a portal into our own personal preppy Shangri-La – one of only 13 triple-five-star hotels in the world, I’ll have you know (or at least Forbes, who rated it, will) – complete with a food-foraging guide and all the seaside activities you can dream of. Not that I plan on straying too far from the spa or the celebrated “wine activities” put on by the in house sommelier. Gatsby could never.

oceanhouseri.com

For my first weekend break of 2019, I’m heading to Adare Manor, a 19th-century gothic revival estate in the southwest of Ireland (beautifully refurbished in late 2017), which was named the best hotel in the world at the end of last year. Of course, this is likely to completely outshine and spoil all ensuing weekend breaks for the rest of 2019, and, perhaps, my life, but I don’t care. Not only does the property offer sumptuous fine dining, relaxing spa experiences and a range of suitably rural activities – including, but not limited to golf, bike rides, fishing and woodland walks – it’s an architectural marvel, conceived in the 1830s by Mr Windham Henry Quin, the 2nd Earl of Dunraven, to distract him from a terrible attack of gout, no less. I’m very much looking forward stalking around the manor reciting lines from The Favourite and, yes, taking a few pictures. Now, where did I put my tweed jacket?

adaremanor.com

There are few more relaxing sights and sounds than a gently undulating mass of blue sea, so a “restorative retreat” that is completely surrounded by (and very near to) the briny stuff has got to be very much a good thing. To fully appreciate Joali in the Maldives, we must delve a little deeper than simply appreciating its position on the castaway island of Muravandhoo. Amazing, though it is. First thing to consider at Joali – which only launched in December of last year – is its health and wellness credentials. The Espa holistic spa combines indulgent spa treatments (conducted using on-site medicinal herbs) with specialised fitness programmes. Then, there are the opportunities to see wild marine life. Once you have tired of the spa (being massaged can be terribly trying), why not sign up for the freediving lessons on offer and swim with a turtle or a manta ray? But if that sounds all too much – and we are here for R&R, after all – you can simply lay back in one of the hanging “Heron head” art pieces, which double as loungers, overlooking the azure water.

joali.com

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