Teton Ridge Ranch, Idaho
This deluxe seven-room ranch offers horseback riding, fly-fishing, and clay pigeon shooting in summer, dogsledding in winter. Guests stay in the lodge or a two-bedroom log cabin; all rooms have hot tubs and steam showers (208-456-2650; tetonridge.com; doubles, $545–$690, with a three-night minimum).

Twin Farms, Vermont
The top scorer for Rooms and Design on Condé Nast Traveler's 2006 Gold List, Twin Farms has ten suites and ten cottages scattered around the 300-acre property. Activities abound, from biking and fishing to downhill skiing on the inn's own ski run in winter—skis provided (800-894-6327; twinfarms.com; doubles, $1,050–$1,650).
–Kathryn Maier

Sizing Them Up
Christian L. Wright compares three popular all-inclusives to a luxury à la carte resort

To find out how all-inclusives that bill themselves as luxury properties measure up to the genuine article, I traveled to Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula and checked in to three: the Royal Hideaway Playacar, one of our readers' favorite Mexican hotels; the Excellence Riviera Cancun, a popular resort recommended by a travel agent; and Le Blanc, one of the world's newest.

But first, for a point of comparison against which the other resorts would be judged, I traveled to Los Cabos to spend a night at a resort that is not an all-inclusive—Las Ventanas al Paraíso. Perched on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula, Las Ventanas is a longtime favorite of Condé Nast Traveler readers and celebrity jet-setters (it's where Harrison Ford goes to stretch out by the pool, and where Brad and Jen went for a romantic escape before Brad was seduced by…Africa). It is the absolute height of luxury, with the kind of service that is ever present but somehow invisible: a staff who know your name the moment you arrive, a waiter who brings the special British salt you like without being asked, and a busboy who discreetly slips a purse stool under the handbag you've placed on the floor. Las Ventanas is as gracious and welcoming to a woman traveling alone (me) as it is to my fellow guests, rock-and-roll honeymooners down from L.A., and a Swiss family with four children under the age of 14. Of course, it comes at a price: Mine was a low-season $450 a night, including breakfast, with everything else extra, from taxes to a $54 margarita (granted, it was the size of a small swimming pool).

Rate
$450 per night in low season (52-624-144-2800; lasventanas.com).

Total Tally
$1,155 for a one-night stay, including taxes, service charges, airport transportation, two meals, a tennis lesson, a massage, and that monster margarita.