The best hotels in Los Angeles

From a Malibu boutique with a private stair to Billionaire's Beach to a Bel Air hillside retreat where swans roam 12 sculpted acres

Los Angeles defies the hotel search logic that works in smaller cities. In a place that covers more than 5,000 square miles and encompasses distinct environments — beach towns, dense urban neighborhoods, hillside canyons, and sprawling suburbs — location is not just a preference but a practical question with real consequences for how a stay unfolds. A hotel in Santa Monica and one in Beverly Hills are roughly 30 minutes apart on paper, but can take an hour or more in traffic, making the difference between a convenient base and a frustrating one. The neighborhoods represented in the best hotels list reflect that geographic spread: Santa Monica and Malibu for beach access, Beverly Hills and Bel Air for the classic luxury corridor, Century City and downtown for proximity to business and cultural venues, and West Hollywood for the Sunset Strip.

The hotels here emerged through editorial evaluation, reader feedback from Travel Leisure’s World’s Best Awards, and the perspective of a writer who has lived in Los Angeles for more than 40 years. They range from beachfront bungalows in Malibu to all-suite towers above downtown, and from a 1912 property that has hosted Hollywood royalty across more than a century to a boutique hotel that opened its first U.S. location in the mid-2020s.

These 10 hotels come from Travel Leisure’s list of the best hotels in Los Angeles, which extends to properties in West Hollywood, the Santa Monica Proper, Shutters on the Beach, and the Oceana Santa Monica, all of which bring the full list to 15 properties that cover the broad geographic and experiential spread of the metropolitan area and its distinct hotel neighborhoods from beach to canyon to downtown.

1. Hotel Bel-Air shelters swans on 12 hillside acres

Credit: Hotel Bel-Air

Hotel Bel-Air sits on 12 acres in the hills and canyons of the Bel Air neighborhood, a setting that Fora Travel advisor Leila Najafi describes as an urban oasis. The grounds include a sculpture garden where resident swans are a recurring feature of the morning landscape. Najafi specifically names walking among the sculptures and looking for the swans as her favorite thing to do on a stay. The property is a frequent traveler favorite in Travel Leisure’s World’s Best Awards, appearing in the 2025 edition, which reflects the level of sustained guest satisfaction that the property generates year over year.

The Restaurant at Hotel Bel-Air offers indoor and outdoor seating in a setting the source’s author describes as a special-occasion go-to, with a relaxed atmosphere that does not sacrifice elegance. For shorter visits, the bar offers California cuisine in small-plate format alongside cocktails, allowing guests to experience the property without committing to a full dining reservation. Complimentary house car service and turndown service are among the standout amenities.

The canyon setting, the landscaped grounds, and the service level together make Hotel Bel-Air something distinct from the standard luxury hotel offering in Los Angeles. The city has no shortage of hotels with excellent amenities. The Bel-Air’s specific appeal lies in the feeling of being genuinely away from the urban environment while remaining within the city, a quality that few properties in Los Angeles can match. The 12 lush acres include gardens, a swan habitat, and the kind of mature tree canopy that only decades of sustained horticultural investment can produce, giving the grounds a depth that newly constructed luxury hotels cannot replicate,, regardless of their renovation budget. The sculpture garden, specifically, and the morning ritual of walking it that Najafi describes, are amenities that money cannot fast-track: they require time, sustained landscape investment, and the specific wildlife that both enable.

2. The Beverly Hills Hotel names each bungalow for a star

Credit: Dorchester Collection

The Beverly Hills Hotel, known as the Pink Palace for its distinctive color, opened in 1912 and has operated for more than a century as a favorite destination of both Hollywood royalty and actual royalty. The 12 landscaped acres at its center include the hotel’s most photographed feature: the outdoor pool, surrounded by palm trees and pink cabanas, which has appeared in enough cultural contexts to function as a visual shorthand for a specific era of California luxury.

The bungalows are the property’s most distinctive accommodation option. Each carries a celebrity theme and name, with the design reflecting the personality or aesthetic associated with that name. The Frank Sinatra bungalow evokes midcentury Palm Springs decor, while the Marilyn Monroe bungalow executes an all-pink interior. The result is a set of accommodations with a specific, coherent design concept, not a generic luxury aesthetic, that gives repeat visitors a reason to experience different bungalows across multiple stays.

The Polo Lounge has maintained its reputation across the hotel’s lifespan as a gathering point for Hollywood executives who use it for power lunches. The on-site dining options extend beyond the Polo Lounge to several other restaurants, and the full-service spa and hair salon complete a property built to function as a self-contained world for guests who prefer to stay put within its 12 acres. The property’s longevity since 1912 means it has accumulated a guest history that includes some of the 20th century's most significant cultural figures, giving a stay there a distinct cultural weight that newer Beverly Hills properties lack. The Polo Lounge has been a scene of Hollywood deal-making long........

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