Kimpton Fitzroy London is one of those surprises that, once found, could easily become a habit. First, where IS it? Well, walk 10 minutes north of Aldwych, up Kingsway, past Holborn and its tube (underground) station and you are in Bloomsbury, an area of London that was named after a 13th-century Norman landowner, William de Blemond.

Belmond Mount Nelson is the iconic luxury hotel not only of Cape Town and South Africa, but of the southern part of the continent. It is also, together with The Beverly Hills Hotel far away in Los Angeles, one of the world’s most recognisable ‘pink hotels’.

Johannesburg’s Saxon Hotel, Villas and Spa has a unique story. It was built in the early 1980s by insurance magnate Douw Steyn, best known today for Comparethemarket (he turned the family home into a hotel in 2000 – it now has 53 suites).

Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten Kempinski, 100% owned by that august luxury hotel company, is a significant player in Munich’s past. It was built by King Maximilian II in 1858 as his personal guesthouse, on the main central thoroughfare named in his honour.

Even though he was only in Australia three years, as GM of InterContinental Sydney from 2006-2009, Colombian dynamo Alvaro Rey created his usual innovative storm (apart from anything else he enhanced the products in that hotel’s 11th floor rooftop Club InterContinental so that those revelling in views down to Circular Quay, the harbour, Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House could also taste and sip the best Australia has to offer).

Thailand’s major river, the 372-kilometre Chao Phraya, flows through Bangkok and on to the Gulf of Thailand. There will be new hotels springing up along the east bank of the river in Bangkok, namely Steigenberger, between Mandarin Oriental Bangkok and Shangri-La Bangkok and, only a little further south, Capella Bangkok and, in the same complex, Four Seasons Bangkok (all these future hotels are much more convenient than the further-out The Siam, which was so glorious in the days when it was run by the charismatic Jason Friedman).

Singapore’s largest hotel, the 2,561-key Marina Bay Sands, has over 130 different robotic processes, including napkin-folding and automatic floor cleaning. The Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore, however, shows no public sign of robots; its efficiency appears to be all back-of-house.

This is the classic London ‘town and country’ hotel that has just re-opened from a long repose and I wanted to see the Sleeping Beauty newly wakened, re-designed by Joyce Wang. I am escorted up in the elevator to the 2nd floor, and without over-use of the adjective ‘light’ this is what it now is, shades of pale green with a pale-browns carpet that apparently was even paler before GM Amanda Hyndman said it just was not practical.

The RuMa Hotel & Residences (‘house’), in Kuala Lumpur, is Urban Resorts’ first hotel outside China. It came about because Malaysian developer, Datuk Lai Siew Wah, stayed at Urban Resorts’ The PuLi in Shanghai and, like so many who visit the resort, he loved it; he wanted a luxury hotel just like it. RuMa is a celebration of Malaysia past and present. Entering the hotel, guests walk past six antique wood columns. The ante-lobby is reminiscent of entering a mine. Go further into the main lobby and enter the Grand Salon, which has a copper ceiling wrapped down to the walls. A highlight appears on the 27 curved stairs from the Salon up to the restaurant, where a full-size kebaya dress, by local artist Bernard Chandran catches the eye. The kebaya is formed entirely of real-gold butterfly shapes, each three centimetres long.

Well, I knew I was in for a treat at Saffire Freycinet, but I did not realise it was ‘wow’ from the moment of arrival. Although it can only properly be seen from above, the main block is shaped like a giant stingray, with 20 detached villas beyond its head. These villas all face across Oyster Bay to a promontory with a skyline of the five Hazard mountains, the tallest of which, in the middle, is the 485m-high Mount Dove.

It was a joy to return to the sensual beauty of Marrakech after what seemed like far too long. I arrived by Porsche to La Mamounia: the luxury hotel only rivalled by Dubai’s Burj Al Arab in the number of tourists it receives every day.

The Ritz-Carlton Abama, on the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands, Tenerife, is honestly the most unusual of that brand that this gal has ever seen. After a 90-minute drive diagonally from north-east to south-west of Tenerife, I entered the top of what is a massive green bed quilt – 400 acres in all – flung over an undulating slope that goes down to the ocean, or at least to a clifftop 100 feet above it.