Nayara Tented Camp's rank among Travel + Leisure's 100 best hotels in the world.
Years Travel + Leisure readers have named Nayara Tented Camp the #1 resort in Central America.
Nayara Gardens joins the world's 100 best hotels, ranked #3 in Costa Rica.
Nayara Gardens' rank in the world in TripAdvisor's 2026 Travelers' Choice Awards, from millions of guest reviews.
Travel + Leisure World's Best Awards
In short: Travel + Leisure readers have ranked Nayara Tented Camp #28 among the 100 best hotels in the world and named it the #1 resort in Central America for the 11th time in 12 years. Nayara Gardens ranks #3 in Costa Rica and joins the world's top 100, and Nayara Alto Atacama places in the top 15 in South America.
The news just broke. Travel + Leisure has ranked Nayara Tented Camp #28 among the 100 best hotels in the world, and named it the #1 resort in Central America for the 11th time in 12 years. Nayara Gardens places #3 in Costa Rica and joins the top 100 globally. Nayara Alto Atacama lands in the top 15 in South America.
It is worth being precise about what that survey is, because the precision is the point. The World's Best Awards are not chosen by editors or a panel. They are decided by readers, thousands of them, who rate the hotels they personally stayed in across rooms, service, food, location, and value. A panel can be lobbied. A house favorite can be quietly maintained. Thousands of travelers, scoring independently from their own experience, are far harder to move.
Best in Central America, Again
A single award can be a good year. Eleven in twelve is a dynasty, and a dynasty is the hardest thing in luxury hospitality to build, because it has to be re-earned every season by a new set of guests who owe the property nothing. This year, readers went further and placed it at #28 among the 100 best hotels on Earth.
Nayara Tented Camp is unusual enough to explain the loyalty. Tented suites stand on stilts above the Arenal rainforest, open to the canopy, each with a private plunge pool fed by the natural hot springs below. The luxury is in the quiet, the closeness of the forest, the sense that nothing has been imposed on the land. Guests feel it. Then they vote.
It is also a rare kind of luxury that gives back more than it takes. Built on former cattle pasture, the camp helped return native forest to the hillside, and the wildlife followed it home.
Tented suites on stilts above the Arenal rainforest, voted best in Central America eleven of the last twelve years.
A Different Jury Arrives at the Same Hotel
In the same season, a recognition of an entirely different kind arrived for Nayara Tented Camp. Condé Nast Traveler launched its Triple Crown, reserved for hotels recognized across all three of the magazine's flagship awards over the past 30 years. Tented Camp is one of them.
To earn it, a hotel must have appeared on each of these lists at least once:
- The Hot List, the editors' picks of the most exciting new openings in the world.
- The Gold List, their personally vetted, long-standing favorites.
- The Readers' Choice Awards, decided by more than a million travelers voting each year.
Editorial instinct at the moment of opening, the considered favor of critics over years, and the verdict of a million guests. For one property to satisfy all three is not the result of a single strong year. It is the signature of a place that was right when it opened and has stayed right ever since. Read: The Triple Crown List ↗
The Hot List, the Gold List, and a million readers' votes. Tented Camp satisfied all three.
And Then There Is the Largest Jury of All
The third recognition comes from a different place entirely. TripAdvisor's Travelers' Choice Awards are not editorial and not a survey of frequent flyers. They are built from millions of ordinary traveler reviews, the single largest pool of guest opinion in the world. There is no panel to persuade here. There is only the accumulated experience of everyone who stayed and wrote it down.
By that measure, Nayara Gardens was rated #14 in the entire world and #1 in Costa Rica. To place in the global top twenty is to stand beside the most celebrated resorts of every continent.
And from the most remote inhabited island on Earth, Nayara Hangaroa ranked #7 in South America: a property reachable only by a five-and-a-half-hour flight into the open Pacific, rated among the continent's best by the people who made the journey. The distance is the point. So is the verdict.
These Awards Did Not Arrive Alone
They follow two of the most significant honors in Nayara's history, earned only months earlier across the same family of resorts. Together they make the pattern impossible to write off as one good season.
Late last year, the MICHELIN Guide awarded Nayara seven MICHELIN Keys across three countries, with Nayara Springs becoming Costa Rica's first and only Three-Key hotel, and Nayara Bocas del Toro and Nayara Alto Atacama each earning Two Keys. Read: 7 MICHELIN Keys ↗
And Nayara Bocas del Toro was named the #1 resort in Central America by Condé Nast Traveler's Readers' Choice Awards, redefining what an off-grid private island in Panama could be.
Three Juries, One Verdict
Look at who voted. Travel + Leisure readers who stayed and scored. Condé Nast Traveler editors across three decades of lists. Millions of TripAdvisor reviewers who owed nobody anything. Different juries, different criteria, different continents, and they keep arriving at the same properties.
What they keep confirming is the conviction underneath: our resorts answer to their places. The place humbles and heals the guest. We regenerate its land and invest in its people. Awards cannot create that exchange. They can only notice it. Read: The Nayara Story ↗
Awards are not the point. They are the evidence. And this kind has to be re-earned every year, which is exactly why it matters.
Explore the Full Awards Series
The votes, the audits, the keys, and the crown. One story, four chapters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did Nayara Tented Camp win in the Travel + Leisure World's Best Awards?+
How did Nayara Alto Atacama rank in South America?+
What is the Condé Nast Traveler Triple Crown?+
How is Nayara Gardens rated on TripAdvisor?+
How many recognitions did Nayara Resorts receive, and from whom?+
- Travel + Leisure: The 100 Best Hotels in the World
- Travel + Leisure: Top Resorts in Central America
- Condé Nast Traveler: The Triple Crown
- TripAdvisor: Travelers' Choice Awards
- Nayara Journal: 7 MICHELIN Keys, 3 Countries, 1 Commitment
- Nayara Journal: The Nayara Story
See What the World Keeps Recognizing
Begin with the rainforest camp the readers keep choosing. It has the receipts.
