As I write this recap, I’m preparing for my fourth hotel stay in five weeks. For me, as part of the GT team, hotels do sometimes feel like a home away from home — as is the case for many of our readers. There’s the good, the bad and the ugly, as we all know. Thankfully, since starting with Global Traveler in 2006, I’ve experienced predominantly the best of the best.

TWO WEEKS INTO my tenure at Global Traveler, I found myself in Santa Monica for a work event at the Sheraton Delfina. I was fresh out of college, and my hotel experience consisted of family vacations at affordable properties and European hostels when I studied abroad during school. I must admit, I felt like quite the hot shot when I found myself in a suite with a private deck and hot tub overlooking Santa Monica.

ANOTHER ONE OF my first hotel experiences with the magazine was The Langham Boston. Visiting the city for a long weekend, I found the hotel’s location and historical significance (housed in the former Federal Reserve Bank building) made it the perfect spot for acquainting myself with Boston. But here, it was the Saturday chocolate brunch that left a lasting impression. More than 100 types of chocolate preparations — aka heaven. It was the type of one-of-a-kind experience that makes a hotel visit unforgettable.

ONE OF MY best hotel stays for overall experience was at Anantara’s Qasr Al Sarab. Literally in the middle of the Liwa Desert, the resort rises from the sands like a mirage. The hotel is an experience unto itself. I hiked the sand dunes at sunrise and rode a camel at sunset. I watched an Emirati feed his falcon in the middle of the desert and enjoyed a massage using lotions made from local dates. Aside from the beauty of the landscape, the accommodations were just as luxe.

EACH YEAR, GT runs an online charity auction. I remember leafing through the prize vouchers one year, thinking Chicago’s Hotel Allegro looked fun. The swirl designs and funky font on the certificate and the pictures of the guestrooms’ modern décor and Art Deco pieces made me certain this Kimpton property was one I wanted to visit. I did, in March 2009. My maternal grandmother had just passed away, and I was meeting my mom for a long weekend in Chicago after she finished at a nursing convention she was attending in the city. A lighthearted, quirky hotel was in order. I fell in love with the city, and we had a ball together — one my grandmother was part of, even if she wasn’t physically with us anymore.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF the company making the experience was The Brazilian Court Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla. I took two girlfriends along for a girls’ weekend getaway, and we were absolutely in the lap of luxury. Our three-room suite was gorgeously accented in dark cherry tones. We had a living room, dining area, two bedrooms with full baths and more than enough space to stretch out and relax. We visited the pool and the beach, dined in Daniel Boulud’s on-site restaurant and window-shopped along Worth Avenue. As managing editor of Global Traveler, I often stay at 5-star hotels. The opportunity to share this experience with my friends was truly a delight.

SPEAKING OF EXTRA-LARGE accommodations, the biggest room I’ve stayed in was at The Peninsula New York, in a 3,500-square-foot suite. Even 300 square feet of hotel room space is an indulgence in New York City, so my jaw practically hit the floor when I stepped into my suite. Entering into a hallway, to my right was a living room and office space, with wall-to-wall windows. To the left, a dressing and closet area, a white-marble bathroom and a large bedroom (probably the size of normal accommodations in the city) with a king-sized bed. I might have been tempted to move in if I’d had more time to take advantage of the space. The property also has one of the best hotel fitness centers I’ve experienced.

ANOTHER NYC HOTEL tops my list of absolute favorites. While I found it burdensome during my stay at the Mandarin Oriental to take two separate elevators to enter or leave the hotel, nothing could beat the views of Central Park and the city from my room. I would have stood in front of those windows all day had my schedule allowed. It wasn’t until a more recent 2012 visit to the Mandarin Oriental, Macau (where a 300-room hotel is considered a boutique property) that I came to appreciate the attention to detail and first-rate amenities characteristic of the brand.

Hotel Las Brisas © Kimberly Krol

HOTEL LAS BRISAS is an Acapulco icon. The white building with pink rooftops and tropical foliage screams 1950s, and the sign outside my suite, with its own gate and private walkway, read “Casa Krol.” They know how to make a guest feel special. Nursing a broken heart, entering to a bed of rose petals and kissing swan towel-animals brought a pang of pain to my psyche. There I was at the honeymooners’ hotel, fresh off a break-up. No worries, the pain melted away as soon as I stepped outside. My suite was built into a cliff overlooking the blue waters of the city of Acapulco. I had a pool, a sauna and multilevel outdoor seating. The view was breathtaking enough to make me forget everything but the setting sun.

This list barely scratches the surface of exemplary hotel stays I’ve been fortunate to experience. Hotels I’ve visited run the gamut from iconic (Hotel Bel-Air, Los Angeles, Calif.) to boutique (Hotel Quincy, Singapore), massive (Sheraton Hotel Macau) to quaint (The Crescent Beverly Hills), gravity-defying (Marina Bay Sands, Singapore) to über-hip (Gansevoort Meatpacking, NYC), scenic (The Leela Kempinski Kovalam) to city view (The InterContinental London Park Lane) — and to everything in between and to each extreme.

The best part? I still get excited to see what it is waiting on the other side as I slide my key card into the lock of my next hotel room.