SCREW IT, CALL THE HOTEL
If checking into the Aman is considered giving up, then call us quitters. These five-star hotels that offer an elevated, camping-like experience (hahaha, who are we kidding?) are a welcome alternative for those who want to be immersed in nature, but aren’t quite ready to give up comforts like running water and electricity, personal butler service or a private pool, obviously. Here in Asia, we’re spoiled for choice.
Aman has fully embraced travellers’ growing appetite for glamping. Amanwana is the only resort on Moyo Island, which sits east of Bali, Indonesia, where it straddles the island’s soaring jungle and white sand beaches. Under each tent’s dramatic canvas ceiling are solid walls, wooden floors and air conditioning. Further afield, near Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan, India, is Aman-i-khas. The intimate but opulent property has ten Mughal-style tents, butler service and a cosy communal fire pit.
In Thailand, on the border of Laos and Myanmar, the Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle comprises 15 treetop tents shrouded by a bamboo forest. Soak up the wild views from a sleek wooden tub or roam the grounds with the hotel’s resident rescue elephants. You’ll feel like you’re living in a chapter of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.
In neighbouring Cambodia, Shinta Mani Wild in Southern Cardamom National Park, designed by famed architect and interior designer Bill Bensley, certainly has a knack for doing things a little differently. Guests have the option to arrive by zipline, natural rock pools double as champagne chillers and the maximalist tents are everything you would expect from Bensley: lavish celebrations of clashing patterns and materials. But it isn’t all fun and games—the resort encourages its guests to join rangers from the local wildlife alliance on its antipoaching patrols to protect clouded leopards, elephants and sun bears.
And at the end of the day, that’s really what getting out in nature should be about: reconnecting with the natural world, forming a deeper understanding of our place in it and doing what we can to protect and preserve it. Even if we’re doing it from a Louis Vuitton tent.